The world’s most popular open source database just got better on Windows! MySQL 5.5 Release Candidate benchmarks recently presented at Oracle OpenWorld show the following impressive performance & scalability improvements on Windows:
1561% Performance Gains over MySQL 5.1 for Read/Write Operations
538% Performance Gains over MySQL 5.1 for Read Only Operations
With MySQL on Windows you can:
Dramatically Lower your TCO, while relying on 24/7 support worldwide delivered by Oracle’s MySQL experts
Quickly Deploy and Scale new Applications, leveraging a database renowned for its ease of use and administration
Have the flexibility to deploy applications on different platforms, choosing Linux / LAMP, or one of the 20+ operating systems MySQL runs on, for specific applications
A week ago Microsoft celebrated the first birthday Windows 7's release. And now Microsoft is working on the next version of Windows, the blog says in Dutch, but it will be about two years before Windows 8 is on the market. If you look at the journey so far - in early 2008, more than a year after Microsoft launched Windows Vista, Windows users had emphatically rejected that upgrade. Fewer than 10 percent of Windows users had switched, and nearly 5 percent of all Windows PCs in use were running Windows versions older than XP. The Windows 7 story is very different.
One year after the release of Windows 7, it has made a significant dent in the Windows user base, and those diehards holding on to pre-XP versions have mostly surrendered. XP's share of actual usage has declined more than 20 percent in two years, and that trend is accelerating. Microsoft managed to sustain an overwhelming competitive advantage, even after a decade's worth of antitrust action and now the situation is different. The presence of Apple and Google as direct competitors suggests that maybe Microsoft is overdue to take a tumble. Is Apple really making a dent in Microsoft's long-standing Windows monopoly? A presentation leaked in June says that the next version of Windows will include, among other things, an app store similar to ones offered by Apple and other mobile device makers. Apple announced this week that it will bring an app store to the Mac within 90 days. The presentation also said that Microsoft wanted to improve startup times and the time it takes to resume from sleep, improve power efficiency, as well as work more closely with computer makers to better differentiate their respective computers. While these are all needed things, it's going to be a very long two years for Microsoft if it can't better addresses Apple's moves in the tablet and notebook models before Windows 8. In such a situation is it justified to wait for two years?
Technical innovations keep on occurring every other day with key advancements, and thereby disrupting the earlier ones. Driving major changes in business processes, consumer behavior or spending, or IT industry dynamics, emergence of new disruptive platforms have created a limitless world of opportunities for the enterprises as well as individuals. It is the best enabler of business innovation providing the ability to deliver value to enterprises. Here are the top five among the key disruptive technologies today.
3D without glasses! There was a time when the eye glasses were a vital part in 3D technology. But today these glasses are going out of the picture. Viewer's dream to have been able to sit on their own couch and watch a movie in 3D HD - without wearing any glasses has become a reality. Recently, Toshiba unveiled two new 3D TVs fabricated for viewing 3D pictures without the help of glasses. The two new 3D TVs in the Regza GL1 series use autostereoscopic 3D technology which does away with the glasses by providing a filter on top of the TV set that will send the 3D image to the viewer. Sony has all geared up for the same to be followed by other brands. The trend is gaining momentum in the mobile space also. Spatial View, an online store of stereo 3D content, is developing an application and hardware solution that allow iPhone and Android mobile users to watch glasses-free 3D stereoscopic movies and images. 4G into products Yes, that's true. 4G is coming in products that are not usually associated with digital high-speed networks. Verizon is campaigning to get its fourth-generation network first in laptops and then in smartphones in 2011. But going beyond laptops and smartphones, products like cars and even home appliances like coffeemakers and refrigerators are also expected to become 4G playgrounds, to automatically communicate with repair technicians. Verizon says it has already persuaded manufacturers including Eastman Kodak, LG, Samsung, and Dell to start developing products to take advantage of 4G data speeds. Robotic car technology The dream of autonomous cars is not a dream any more. The car in which a driver simply presses a button and sits back in his seat while the car drives him home is going to be the future vehicle soon. While there are cars that can adjust speed automatically or can sense the obstacle beforehand, Google's recent development in robotic car technology sets it apart. Google has been quietly building self-driving robotic car technology, based on the work of Google engineer and Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun. Google is intending that these cars, manned as they are by vast arrays of excellent software and hardware, will avoid crashes and allow for fuel savings. Photopolymer Holograms In security printing, Photopolymer Holograms are set to become a significant disruptive technology. Because of the revolutionary advances in substrates and imaging capability, the way people look at secure documents will change. Photopolymer holograms and gratings are typically recorded within the body of the material, so that the light-diffracting fringes are parallel to the surface, like pages in a closed book. These holograms are by far the most realistic looking mass-production holograms available and with the greatest appearance of depth. Photonic ink, the key element for e-reading Photonic ink, popularly known as 'P-Ink', is one of the new and exciting options for colour displays for e-book readers as well as for authentication devices. Previous electronic inks had just two modes, typically black and white. But P-inks can be tuned to make any tint of the rainbow. The ink contains spheres of silicon dioxide, a fraction of a micron in diameter, stacked like oranges on a greengrocer's stall. When light bounces off these, interference eliminates some wavelengths, giving the reflected light only in a specific colour, which is dependent on the diameter of the sphere and the exact spacing between the stacks.
As Indian IT companies play a key role in adding significant value to U.S. corporations and have made them more efficient India need not be apologetic about outsourcing. Obama will be in India as a guest and India will treat him with respect, without any expectations. That is the culture of India, said N.R. Narayana Murthy, Founder-Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies, commenting on the anti-outsourcing stance of the U.S. administration.
"I think we add sufficient value to the corporations in the U.S, there is no doubt at all, we have made them efficient by enhancing productivity and reducing cycle time. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any play in the market. and otherwise obviously we will not have any play in that market," he said. During the announcement of 'Infosys Prize 2010' he said that Today, there is a lot of apathy towards science and technology and very little respect is given to science heroes. Scientific research is the key to sustaining India's growth, and it is critical for India to ensure that research remains an attractive profession for the nation's finest minds. Now the focus should equally be on ensuring that children in India take up science and technology in a big way, and encourage research.
'Rebels' have one thing in common; they don't go by the convention or norms of the society. They tread on path which no one dares to walk along. That's why they are being followed by millions and become the source of inspiration for others. They have the courage to take the risk and make it big not only for themselves but carry nation with them. The leaders are defined by the change they provide, and the leader is the person who challenges the order of society.
Education plays a pivotal role in our life as it hones our abilities and skills which are key factors to succeed in different walks of life. However, a beautiful quote by Rasaq Okoya questions this common belief saying, "I have nothing against education. But at times, education gives people false confidence. It makes people relax, trusting in the power of their certificates rather than in working hard." It seems to hold true for when we talk of great people Indians who made the country proud. The Reliance Maker: Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, was the one who built India's largest private sector company, Reliance and is still recognized for his abilities take the company to unexpected heights. He was named the Indian Entrepreneur of the 20th Century by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). Dhirubhai was born on December 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family. His father was a school teacher. So, Ambani, who had an entrepreneurial mindset started his journey by selling "bhajias" to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the weekends. After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a gas-station attendant, and as a clerk in an oil company. He returned to India in 1958 with Rs 50,000 and set up a textile trading company. This man is the most enterprising Indian entrepreneur. His life journey is reminiscent of the rags to riches story. He is remembered as the one who rewrote Indian corporate history and built a truly global corporate group. Man behind India's satellite TV: Subhash Chandra, the founder of Zee TV, dropped out of school in class 12th. This onetime rice trader from Hissar, Haryana has today transformed into a media baron and his other interests include packaging, theme parks, lotteries and cinema multiplexes. Subhash Chandra launched Zee Telefilms in October 1992 as a content supplier for Zee TV - India's first Hindi satellite channel. He was the first in India who sought to harness the huge business potential of satellite television channels. Subhash Chandra reaped the benefits of liberalization which provided the way for private satellite channels coming to the picture. Before the launch of Zee TV viewers in India were under the firm grip of Doordarshan, the state-controlled terrestrial network. It was his vision that helped give birth to the satellite TV industry in India and inspired others to follow suit. After the launch of Zee TV, he commenced Siticable operations in 1995 and also started a joint venture with News Corp. In 1995, he launched two new channels, Zee News and Zee Cinema. In 2000, Zee TV became the first cable company in India to launch Internet over Cable services. In 2003, Zee TV became the first service provider in India to launch Direct to Home (DTH) services. The Trade Master: He did not make his money from the fancy 21st century businesses such as software or telecom, like NR Narayana Murthy of Infosys or Sunil Mittal at Bharti Airtel, instead, the burly Gautam Adani ventured into what merchants during the Chola Empire a thousand years ago and the British East India Company did: Build ports to facilitate trade. Gautam Adani was born on June 24, 1969, to Shantilal and Shantaben Adani in a Gujarati Jain family. He had seven siblings. Adani's parents had migrated from the town of Tharad in northern Gujarat in search of livelihood. He set out for Mumbai to make a living with only a few hundred rupees at a young age of 18 only. He studied at the Seth C. N. Vidyalya School in Ahmedabad and later on at Gujarat University. Adani is a college dropout; he studied till his second year for a Bachelor's Degree in Commerce.
In 1981, one year later, his elder brother Mansukhbhai, bought a plastics unit in Ahmedabad and asked Gautam to run it. This marked the beginning of Adani's foray into global trading by beginning to import polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a key raw material for manufacturing plastics. After the economic liberalisation, the import duty on various goods was slashed, and profits of Adani Exports, then his flagship company, grew immensely. Adani, who started dealing in diamonds in Mumbai in 1980, has come to be worth more than Rs 30,000 crore in three decades. It did not require great technical knowledge, or massive funds. All that was needed was skills to persuade the bureaucracy to allot land and guide policies. The company, founded with a capital of Rs 5 lakh in 1988 to trade, manages ports, develops real estate, produces electricity, trades in agricultural commodities and explores oil. 'Fortune favors the brave'. These people had the guts to take the risk and succeed as they knew what they were doing. To become a change agent it doesn't matter whether you have a degree or not. All is required is the vision to see through barriers of time.
India's inspiration machine and former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam had shared his vision of Indian tele-density reaching over 75 percent well before the year 2020. Keeping alive his expectations, the urban tele-density has reached the 100 percent landmark and the rural tele-density is slowly shooting up. The overall tele-density has increased to 58.17 percent in July 2010.
Indian telecom industry is in a rapid expansion phase with more operators and subscribers adding up in a fast and steady rhythm. Given the fact that most of the providers offer free connections, the subscriber base is shooting up each day. The competition between the operators has intensified to a state that they are actually competing to slash prices. The penetration of mobile connections in India has been skyrocketing in the last couple of years. A Gartner study predicts that mobile connections in India will cross 660 million, growing at 27.3 percent in the current year. The revenue from mobile services is expected to reach $19.8 billion by the end of the year, up by 19.7 percent from last year. The customer base has increased tenfold from 46 million in 2001 to 470 million in 2010. The Indian mobile industry is expected to score a double-digit growth rate till the end of 2012 and the penetration of mobile connections is projected to reach 72.5 percent by 2012 and 82 percent by 2014. Rural market is the center of focus for the operators now. By introducing more low-priced handsets, every provider is trying to made inroads to the villages and expand their reach to the remote areas. Bharti Airtel tops the list of telecom service providers in terms of revenues with 38,800 crore. Although saw a dip in its revenue for the second consecutive year, BSNL still holds the second spot with revenue of 30,240 crore. Vodafone becomes the third largest player with revenue of 23,200 crore. Reliance Communications recorded a revenue of Rs 22,130 crore coming at the fourth place. The fifth place is held by Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular with a revenue of 11,390 crore. The government has received a whooping revenue of 67,719 from the 3G allocation earlier this year. The private operators who have spent large amounts on 3G bidding are worried over its success in the near future as generally only an 80-90 percent penetration determines success of a particular technology. Many analysts believe that 2G will still rule the roost for at least the next two to three years and feel that only 10 percent of the population will migrate to 3G any time sooner. Although delayed for a few months, most of them are planning to roll out their 3G services by the year end. Looking at the rapid growth of Indian telecom sector, some foresee a point of saturation at some time in the distant future. Is there going to be an opposite turn at which point the industry will stabilize itself in terms of pricing and offers? Should we fear of a market collapse in telecom industry as a result of intensified competition? If it happens ever, it will only be the strongest players who would survive.
U.S. President Barack Obama would begin his India visit on November 6 with a message of condolence for the victims of 26/11, and will then celebrate Diwali with school children of the city along with First Lady Michelle. Obama would also visit the Gandhi Museum in Mumbai where he is also scheduled to attend a major business meeting, before heading to New Delhi, a top White House official said on Wednesday briefing reporters on Obama's maiden trip to India from November 6 to November 9.
Obama would celebrate the festival of lights with children in Mumbai. But Diwali celebrations would not commence until he pays homage to the victims of 26/11 on November 6 at the Taj Hotel - which was the "centerpiece" of the 2008 terror attacks. "The first event that the President will do will be a statement at the Taj Hotel, where he's staying, to commemorate the Mumbai terrorist attacks," Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication, Ben Rhodes, said. He pointed out that India is a close counter-terrorism partner of the U.S. and it has shown "remarkable resilience" in responding to terrorism.He said Obama desired to pay his respects to the victims as also to make brief remarks to a group of people connected to the attacks. Obama will then visit the Gandhi Museum. It is notable that the US President considers Mahatma Gandhi as one of his inspirations.Rhodes said it is important to note that the U.S. and India are world's largest democracies, a fact fundamental to their relationship and which makes it a "qualitatively different relationship" with shared interests and values. "... the example of Gandhi is one that has inspired Americans, inspired African-Americans, including Dr (Martin Luther) King, and is very personally important to the president. So we're looking forward to visiting the Gandhi Museum to underscore those shared experiences and shared values," Rhodes said. Obama will then attend a business summit organised by the U.S.-India Business Council, Rhodes said, adding that US was keen on discussing business opportunities in the huge dynamic and growing market of India and ways to deepened economic ties. The President will participate in a round table with entrepreneurs, another one with some U.S. CEOs, where challenges and opportunities of doing business in India will be discussed, before delivering a speech to the business summit. "So the speech the President will be the centerpiece of the day, again, focusing this day on the U.S.-India economic relationship, the enormous potential for both countries to expand growth and opportunity for our people through that relationship," he said. "The President's going to begin the day (November 7) by visiting a school in Mumbai, a local school. Diwali, of course, a preeminent Indian holiday will be taking place during the President's visit, so he will visit a school and help participate in celebrations around the Diwali holiday that morning," Rhodes said. The US President would also hold a town hall interaction with university students and talk with them about the future of India-U.S. ties.After a two-day stay in Mumbai, Obama is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on the evening of November 7, with the 16th century monument Humayun's Tomb being his first cultural stop. "He's going to visit Humayun's Tomb, which is one of the great cultural marvels in New Delhi, and the president felt it was important, given the rich civilisation that India has, to pay tribute to that through this stop," he said. The same night, the President and the First Lady will attend a private dinner with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife. Rhodes said Obama has had a close personal relationship with Singh ever since the two met for the first time at a G20 summit in London.
"As much as any leader in the world, I think he's somebody who has had a close intellectual connection with the president on a range of issues surrounding economic growth and development. So he's very much looking forward to this opportunity to have a private dinner with the prime minister," he said. Obama's official programme in Delhi will begin after a stop at the Raj Ghat and will then be followed by a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister and a press conference.
"Again, another opportunity to pay respects to that huge historical figure in our history as well as India's".The same day Obama will address the Indian parliament where he will touch upon the broad range of issues on which the U.S. and India cooperate - political, security and economic.
7sDoc is a full-text search tool for searching files by content data.
7sDoc scans directories with your documents and builds search index on files content for further quick search. On search the program finds files in index and shows the most relevant to your query documents at the top of result list. 7sDoc perform text search in files such as DOC, XLS, RTF, TXT, HTM.
Compatible with MS Windows®7 / Vista / XP / 2008 / 2003 / 2000 Server
Features:
Quick search - you can find documents in less than a second because the program looks for data in the active search index without opening real files.
Sorting results by relevance - found files are sorted in such a way, that the most relevant to your query documents are shown at the top of list. To calculate the relevance each file is estimated by several parameters such as frequency of search phrase, phrase position inside content, presence of search phrase in filename, importance of search words, file size, file age, etc.
Fuzzy search - the program's search algorithm can look for documents that match the given words and some variation around them
Multiple search indexes - you can create separated indexes for different directories with your documents. On search you can choose index to perform independent search of documents grouped by themes.
Incremental Reindexing - there is no necessity to rebuild search index from scratch everytime when you update some documents. On reindexing, the program replaces changed files and deletes unexisted files from index.
Prohibition of indexing the same files - this prevents index from growing when you add to search index documents, having the same content. In this case the program save content only for a single file. Other files links to this content in index.
IIT Madras alumnus, Subra Suresh, has been sworn in as the Director of America's National Science Foundation (NSF), the top US science body with a $7.4 billion budget to support scientific institutions. "We are very grateful to have Subra taking this new task," said President Barack Obama at the White House Science Fair Monday after Suresh was sworn in as the 13th NSF director by John Holdren, Obama's science advisor.
"He has been at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and has been leading one of the top engineering programmes in the country, and for him now to be able to apply that to the National Science Foundation is just going to be outstanding," he said. "So we're very grateful for your service." Suresh, 54, was confirmed by the US Senate Sep 30, for a six-year term.He has served as dean of the engineering school and as Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering at MIT.A mechanical engineer, who later became interested in materials science and biology, Suresh has done pioneering work studying the biomechanics of blood cells under the influence of diseases such as malaria. From 2000 to 2006, Suresh served as the head of the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He joined MIT in 1993 as the R.P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and held joint faculty appointments in the departments of mechanical engineering and biological engineering, as well as the division of health sciences and technology. Suresh holds a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and a master's degree from Iowa State University.Suresh was nominated by President Obama to become the new NSF director June 8, in place of Arden L. Bement Jr, who led the agency from 2004 until he resigned in May this year. NSF's current budget is $6.9 billion. For 2011 it has requested $7.4 billion, an eight percent increase over 2010, in support of Obama's goal of increasing the nation's total public and private investment in research and development to at least 3 percent of the gross domestic product.
Modern days, multitasking has become the foundation of corporate culture, now, an employee is expected to play different roles within the same organization. This requires an unprejudiced approach and a willingness to go beyond the defined tasks. There is a common feeling that only fools believe that multitasking enables people actually do several things without a loss of quality. But the fact is that it has become an ideal way of working now, reports The Economic Times.
An HR Manager with a software company says, "Keeping the dynamic nature of corporate life in mind, employees should know how to allot required time to the various tasks assigned to them. Honoring deadlines is important." Overstretching does not mean working extra. "It is a misconception that employees who stay for long after stipulated work hours are very sincere. While some may genuinely have work, there are others who do nothing but kill time. This is detrimental to the others," he adds. There are some ways to go about one's work without being overloaded. First of all Prioritize the work. Preparing an ordered checklist of the tasks to do, helps in attending to the most urgent ones at the earliest and always keep in mind the deadlines. Secondly, when faced with a huge roster of tasks to be completed, the tendency to panic is common for all. Therefore it is important to put our Minds over the matter, which will give a clear perspective of what you are doing. Enthusiasm at work is always good thing, but it is always important to take a Step back and check the matter with who knows the work better, that can avoid many of the blunders that we may make. It also makes sense to Assess before accepting responsibilities. Assessing your current to-do list and your competencies will prevent you from blindly accepting work and then not being able to complete it on time. At times, due to pressing reasons one has to take up tasks at a short notice which one is not fully aware of therefore Reach outto colleagues and seek their guidance. It helps in simplifying the work.There are times when one is overloaded with work that has to be done by someone else. "In such cases, one must approach the person concerned and sort things out. Every organization expects optimal output from its employees. Hence it is up to them to distribute their work and maximize their contribution. Doing redundant work will only add to the work pressure and for some, can also lead to health complications. Always keep in mind that it is not only quantity but also quality of work that matters. Tackling the workload problem is a major step towards maintaining quality of the work. While striking the right balance may be tough initially, employees should take workload management seriously as it saves time and money for the company.
The companies in the U.S. cannot ask their potential employees about their ethnicity and it is strictly followed in their work culture. Despite such an imposition, it is known across the world that an impressive number of Indians contribute to the organized sector of the U.S. economy. 34 percent of employees at Microsoft and 36 percent of scientists at NASA are Indians. What makes our capable workforce don roles in the companies abroad?
For many years, working and getting settled abroad used to fetch a feeling of self actualization to an Indian and his family, but is that still the reason which pulls Indians to an unknown land? To figure out the various reasons on why Indians prefer working in a foreign organizational setup, Siliconindia engaged in short interactions with some IT professionals who have experienced both the work cultures. Based on that, certain reasons which make Indians feel comfortable working in the U.S., were figured out. WORK CULTURE: Most of the Indians who have been exposed to the American work culture, find it difficult to conform to the Indian work culture. Majority of IT professionals feel that the work culture in a multinational company (MNC) is more planned and less ambiguous compared to their Indian contemporaries. The process driven structure, proper delegation of work and a robust infrastructure makes work environment more favorable in other countries. Looking at the resistance of Indian economy towards the global economic downturn, many expatriates looked India as a lucrative option for their career but it seems easier to analyze the broad environment till one gets into the reality of dealing with it. Many multinational companies prefer India as a destination for maintaining their global operations. This has led to the acceptance of American work culture in many offices but the reforms are not strictly followed by any level of management in an organizational hierarchy. "One will experience a preference over U.S. work culture because of a well established infrastructure, matured planning and process. The work culture in U.S. is absolutely process driven," says Ravi Jagannathan, MD and CEO, 3i Infotech. LABOR LAWS: Serving a notice period is no doubt a nightmare for almost every IT professional. Employees cannot receive their relieving letter till they serve the notice period of two to three months. Until they have their relieving letter in hand, it becomes difficult for an IT professional to join in other competent organizations. It is seen that in an Indian work environment, the employer is vested with all the rights to decide on the terms and conditions of a job. Contrary to that, the employment law in the U.S. has always been governed by 'at will' employment, where the employment relationship could be abandoned by either party at any point of time, which means that there is no need to serve any kind of notice period. EMPLOYEES' RIGHTS: This is probably one area where the Indian IT industry is seriously working upon to control the growing rate of attrition. Many popular It companies sanction leaves other than the Sick Leave (SL), Casual Leave (CL) and Earned Leave (EL). There are leaves granted for Family and Illness, personal days, Education Leaves of Absence with Pay, Parental Leave, Short Term Disability, funeral leave and many more. The IT companies in India are focusing to facilitate the IT professionals with all these relaxation provisions so that the employees add more value to their work. It could be expected that in near future, people working in India would have an act on similar lines of the 'American Disability Act, 1990' which prohibits discrimination of any kind to an employee at workplace. WORKING FROM HOME: Working from home is quite acceptable in the U.S. This saves employees' time, money and keeps their focus on the work intact. In India, the employers are jittery about letting their employees work from home. Though the culture of working from home has picked up in India as well but there are inhibitions related to it, both at the employer's and employee's end. The employer's usually feel that employees would misuse the facility of working from home and on the other hand, the employees find it better working in their office as they want to meet up their colleagues who share a friendly relation with them. "In an Indian work culture, office mates give a feeling of the extension of family for the employees," says Jagannathan. Most of the IT professionals have realized that, in U.S., the employers' have no issues with their employees as long as they meet the deadline of the deliverables.
TIME MANAGEMENT: The U.S. work culture is more focused on maintaining a proper timeline at work place. It is the attitude of employees out there to deliver valuable output on time. Even if they spend less time at their desk, their credibility is not questioned till they deliver the target set for them. "When it comes to the work environment, a U.S. company always maintains a popular thought - the output. If the output is as per expectations, then it doesn't matter whether employees are at their desk for 9 hours or two hours," says an ex-Satyamite, who is currently working with a top telecom service provider in U.S.
PAY SCALE: The most important of all the reasons for which Indians prefer working abroad is 'Money'. The fact is, salary is seen as the biggest motivating factor. One of the major reasons for attrition in IT industry is the pay scale. If an employee feels that his or her salary is not competitive, then the employees tends to look for another job which would give them a hike of 30 to 40 percent. When IT professionals are sent onsite, they realize that the workforce employed in other MNCs (who usually serve at the same capabilities) are paid much better than them. This pesters the Indian IT professionals to switch to other companies and if the job demands them to reside in U.S. they tend to do so. The difference in global work culture still persists but due to globalization and outsourcing the degree of discrepancies has narrowed down over the years. There have been debates about the Indian IT industry and the industry experts come up with a lot of methods to deal with the issues prevalent in the internal system. The question which still remains unanswered is whether the laws of our land be more befitting to the employees working in various sectors at present or will the $50 billion IT industry structure out special laws and prerogatives for its workforce? If these problems are addressed, will the Indian workforce which contributes substantially to the U.S. economy, prefer to come back to their land?
The attrition rate has always been a sensitive issue for all organizations. Calculating employee turnover rate is not that simple as it seems to be. No common formula can be used by all the organizations. A formula had to be devised keeping in view the nature of the business and different job functions. Moreover, calculating attrition rate is not only about devising a mathematical formula. It also has to take into account the root of the problem by going back to the hiring stage.
Attrition rate: There is no standard formula to calculate the attrition rate of a company. This is because of certain factors as:
The employee base changes each month. So if a company has 1,000 employees in April 2004 and 2,000 in March 2005, then they may take their base as 2,000 or as 1,500 (average for the year). If the number of employees who left is 300, then the attrition figure could be 15 percent or 20 percent depending on what base you take.
Many firms may not include attrition of freshers who leave because of higher studies or within three months of joining.
In some cases, attrition of poor performers may also not be treated as attrition. Calculating attrition rate:
Attrition rates can be calculated using a simple formula: Attrition =(No. of employees who left in the year / average employees in the year) x 100Thus, if the company had 1,000 employees in April 2004, 2,000 in March 2005, and 300 quit in the year, then the average employee strength is 1,500 and attrition is 100 x (300/1500) = 20 percent. Besides this, there are various other types of attrition that should be taken into account. These are:
Fresher attrition that tells the number of freshers who left the organization within one year. It tells how many are using the company as a springboard or a launch pad.
Infant mortality that is the percentage of people who left the organization within one year. This indicates the ease with which people adapt to the company.
Critical resource attrition which tell the attrition in terms of key personnel like senior executives leaving the organization.
Low performance attrition: It tells the attrition of those who left due to poor performance.
Attrition Costs One of the best methods for calculating the cost of turnover takes into account expenses involved to replace an employee leaving an organization. These expenses are: A. Recruitment cost The cost to the business when hiring new employees includes the following six factors plus 10 percent for incidentals such as background screening:
Time spent on sourcing replacement
Time spent on recruitment and selection
Travel expenses, if any
Re-location costs, if any n Training/ramp-up time
Background/reference screening
B. Training and development cost To estimate the cost of training and developing new employees, cost of new hires must be taken into consideration. This will mean direct and indirect costs, and can be largely classified under the following heads:
The 'Foreign Brand' tag seems to be enough to lure people in India not only for clothing, apparel or shoes rather for technology too. "Indian brands like Infosys, Wipro, TCS , Ranbaxy , Tetley, and Reliance have the potential to eclipse western giants in both size and global brand recognition within the next 10 years," said Ian Batey, the internationally revered marketing guru while addressing the delegates in Ad Asia conducted in 2003. Seven years down the line, despite several Indian companies gaining international recognition for proving a tough competition to foreign firms, the affinity towards the Western brands remains the same. The Digital Brand Index (DBI) for India which was revealed by Edelman, an independent public relations firm enlisted Google and Microsoft to be the most popular brands among the users engaged in conversations online. Followed by these two technology brands, Yahoo!, Intel and Sony complete the top five chart.
Set aside the preference of the dominant population, when it comes to the government domain there's hardly a difference. For instance, Indian Railways preferred an expensive foreign technology called Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) from Europe over India's own patented Anti Collision Device (ACD) system. Despite recommended by industry experts about indigenously developed ACD's efficiency over TPWS, that too at a low cost, the government opted for spending more on a foreign technology. When it comes to government projects, Indian companies often shy away to go for it. Indigenous projects which are more promising in terms of yielding them recognition in the country, do not offer scope for higher growth. Stock markets value companies in terms of their growth and earnings potential. For a short term, the international market assures scalable growth for the companies. After the global economic downturn, domestic companies are balancing their focus towards the domestic market as they do not want to divert their business entirely towards the U.S. market. Though it has been witnessed over the years that MNCs are given more preference for government projects. For instance, IBM has marked its presence in India since 1992 and since then it has been facilitating the government in adopting newer technologies in its existing systems. Most of the experts often wonder and try to motivate Indian startups to initiate such a creation which would advance technology to a different level all together and would become a generic term for people like 'google'. Though there are several technology companies in India, which have a competitive edge over the strong and established brands but are still struggling as they find it difficult to position their technology beside the influential brands. Customers in India are mostly swayed by the brand name when it comes to technology or tech products. It is difficult to convince a customer to try some new product delivered by an Indian company. What is required at this point of time is the way the Indian technology is allowed to gain acceptance in the global market and for this Indians need to be ambassadors of the indigenous products and technology.
Info Tech companies are the ones that suffer from high attrition rates and the growing demand for trained professionals. During and after the global economic recession, enterprises find it difficult to effectively deploy their human resource and systematically plan a workforce infrastructure. This is where employee retention becomes instrumental to the firm.
Key employee retention is critical to the long term health and success of an enterprise. Apart from the usual ways employed by the firm to retain employees like increasing the organization's level of professionalism and transparency and conventional ways of measuring employee satisfaction, mentioned here are some 10 ways to effectively retain your employees: 1. Ensuring employee satisfaction - An unhappy and insecure employ is worse than your biggest competitor. In the long run for competition and meeting project deadlines, IT firms miss out on the comfort level of their employees. A comfortable employee knows clearly what is expected from him every day at work. The firm should provide an ambience where the employee can voice his opinion freely and appreciate their efforts, thereby making them comfortable. 2. Ensuring proper feedback - Clarity and feedback is an important area where executives go wrong. Hence employees complaint about lack of clarity of expectations and earning potential, lack of feedback about performance and failure to provide a framework within which the employee perceives he can succeed. These flaws should be handled effectively. 3. Promoting employees from within - A company that constantly fills vacancies by hiring from outside is certain to face retention problems. Employees who realize that they are unlikely to be promoted to fill the vacancies will leave the organization. Promoting employees from within is a sound retention strategy. 4. Balancing Individual and organizational goals - Many companies fall into the trap of expecting their employees to subsume their individual objectives before the organizational one which forces employees to leave. This should be balanced by offering them acquire new skills and providing comprehensive knowledge on projects which at least promotes a feeling that their objectives are satisfied to an extent. 5. Acknowledging your employees - A common place grievance during an exit interview is that the employee never felt senior executives knew he existed. Its challenging since IT is a highly structured hierarchy. But senior officials should see to it that employees are met with and briefed periodically. 6. Fresh Workplace ambience - Employees are as much family people as they are workers. A firm sans fun environment may lead to attrition. Also a thickly packed project, a cubicle or office space may add to their woes. A fresh office space will in turn make the workplace more fun. 7. Ensuring a match between authority and accountability - Decentralization of task is synonymous to an IT project. Most companies fall into the trap of holding a project leader accountable for a specific activity without empowering them with the authority to perform it well. Even worse, another employee assigned the same task may be left unaccountable which will add only to the attrition rate. 8. Involving employees in the decision-making process - People like to work in organizations where their opinions count. Employee's involvement in decision-making is directly proportional to the organization's retention-level. A participative decision-making process is good and total empowerment, better. 9. Making performance appraisals objective - Employees like to know how, when, and by whom their performance is going to be measured. An appraisal process that lists objective and measurable criteria for performance appraisal removes the uncertainty in the minds of employees that their superiors can rate their performance any which way they please.
10. Competitive pay package - Pay hike comes last in the list for me let alone ESOPs. Money isn't a motivator, but it is an effective de-motivator. While organizations that pay best-in-industry salaries may find themselves unable to use that fact to motivate their employees, those that do not could find their best employees leaving.
The possibilities for social media tools in the classroom are vast. In the hands of the right teacher, they can be used to engage students in creative ways, encourage collaboration and inspire discussion among even soft-spoken students. But we’ve already made our case for why teachers should consider using social media in their classrooms. What about the how?
Even when people say they want to incorporate social media, they don’t always know the best ways to do so. It’s especially daunting when those efforts can affect the education of your students.
To help, we’ve collected seven of the the best classroom tools for incorporating social media into your lesson plans.
EDU 2.0 is a lot like online course management systems Blackboard and Moodle, but with a couple of distinct advantages. First, teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, experiments and other resources in a shared library that currently hosts more than 15,000 pieces of content. Second, a community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests. And third, everything is hosted in the cloud for free.
The founder of software company The Mind Electric, who has roots in education, self-funded the development of EDU 2.0 in what the site describes as a “labor of love.”
This means free access to some great tools: An online gradebook, customized quizzes, a debate tool, chat, classroom blogs, the ability to track proficiency and a customized portal page. You can also create a network by connecting classes by school and schools by districts.
The popular visual organizing and sharing tool Symbaloo launched its “EDU” version last month. According to the company, 50,000 teachers are already using Symbaloo to organize classroom resources. The new EDU version comes with academic subject-specific resource pages or “webmixes” and top tools like TeacherTube, Slideshare, Google Docs, Flickr and more are fully embeddable. Teachers with a “Free Plus” account can add their school logo and customize the links. The site also allows students to easily share their Symbaloo pages and projects with classmates.
“It not only becomes a way to organize yourself and find your websites, but a place to put your work,” explains Randy Hollinger, the middle school science teacher featured in the above video. “[SymbalooEDU] becomes sort of the e-portfolio.”
The tool is free for up to 50 userkeys, which include a school branded website and customized domain. Mashable readers can sign-up for a free plus account and get 150 userkeys here. A premium package for unlimited users starts at $2.00 per user.
There’s no replacement for hosting in-person discussions in classrooms, but there are some benefits to moving portions of the discussion online. As high school English teacher Catlin Tucker points out in the above video, “Class discussions seem to be dominated by about five to seven students. The same kids talk, the same kids don’t speak at all…” For some students, however, online discussions are less intimidating to participate in.
This app gives teachers four discussion format choices. Students can either agree or disagree with a statement, answer a multiple choice question, post responses, or have the choice between adding a new response or voting for someone else’s response. Teachers can add photos or videos to their prompts and all of the discussions take place on one class page.
Tucker says in the video that she uses the site for ice-breaking activities, creative writing prompts and peer editing. Other lesson plans are conveniently posted on a teacher resource page.
Democrasoft, the company that developed Collaborative Classroom, clearly field tested the product with their other businessiness-targeted products. The site is simple and effective; it’s clear how to ask a question, invite class members and send messages. The service is free for one year if you sign up before October 31.
This WordPress-like blogging platform only supports educational content and thus, unlike WordPress, usually isn’t blocked by school filters. Since 2005, it has hosted more than a million blogs from students and teachers.
Common uses for blogs in classrooms include group projects, reflection journals, school newspapers, class web pages and parent newsletters. But, as evidenced by the winners of the 2009 Edublog awards, there are plenty of other creative options for integrating the blogs into curriculum.
The award winners are public blogs but there is also an option to keep blogs private. This is one of many safety features. Another is that unlike general platforms like Blogger or WordPress, there is no exposure to other blogs. One aspect that might raise red flags for teachers is that ads are allowed on the free version of the site. A $3.33 per month fee, however, removes all advertising from up to 50 student blogs.
Teacher Matt Hardy developed the first version of Kidblog to use in his 3rd and 4th grade classrooms. He thought (correctly, it turned out) that his students would enjoy the collaborative nature of blogs, but general blogging platforms lacked safety considerations that would make them appropriate for school use. Kidblog doesn’t advertise to kids, doesn’t ask for their e-mail addresses, and gives the teacher full moderation power.
Kidblog is a bit more specific than Edublogs. There are fewer options to adjust the appearance of the main page, and it’s hard to use the platform for anything other than as a system for managing individual class blogs. The homepage serves as a catalog of student blogs on the right with a recent post feed on the left.
Having said that, if you want to introduce individual class blogs to your K-8 classroom, this is the perfect tool for it. The interface is easier to navigate than Edublogs, and you can generate user names and passwords for students, teachers, administrators, and guests with a couple of intuitive clicks. Teachers are able to edit and remove any of their students’ posts.
Teachers can also control how private they want the blogs to be. They can keep them student-and-teacher only, allow parents to log in with a password, or make them open to the public.
Edmodo looks and functions much like Facebook. But unlike Facebook, it’s a controlled environment that teachers can effectively leverage to encourage class engagement. The platform allows teachers and students to share ideas, files and assignments on a communal wall. Teachers can organize different groups of students and monitor them from the same dashboard. Once they’ve organized classes, they can post assignments to the wall and grade them online. They can then archive the class groups and begin new ones.
There are several aspects that make the site safer than Facebook: There’s a group security code that users need in order to view class discussion pages, and although students and teachers can communicate privately, there’s no private communication function between students.
Some other nice advantages of using this site are the ability to connect with other teachers, a group calendar where students can easily see when assignments are due, and a mobile version that allows teachers to moderate discussions from anywhere.
7. TeacherTube and SchoolTube and YouTube
As the name implies, TeacherTube is YouTube for teachers. It’s a great resource for lesson ideas but videos can also be used during class to supplement a lecture. For instance, you can let Mrs. Burk rap about perimeters if you like her idea but lack the rhyming skills to pull it off yourself. This site also has a crowdsourced stock of documents, audio and photos that can be added to your lesson plans. Unfortunately, every video is preceded by an ad.
SchoolTube is another YouTube alternative. Unlike other video sharing sites, it is not generally blocked by school filters because all of its content is moderated.
The original, generic YouTube also has a bevy of teacher resources, though it’s often blocked in schools. Khan Academy consistently puts out high-quality lessons for every subject, but a general search on any topic usually yields a handful of lesson approaches. Some of the better ones are indexed on WatchKnow.
India is now the second among the list of spam generating nations, accounting for nearly seven percent of all junk mails send across the world, according to IT security and control firm Sophos. The list is topped by U.S., accounting for almost 19 percent of global spam, making the country responsible for nearly one in five junk emails. In the list India is followed by Brazil (5.7 percent), France (5.4 percent), and UK (5 percent).
Sophos' latest report, "Dirty Dozen" shows that almost all spam comes from botnets, Sophos found. In Microsoft-s latest Security Intelligence Report, the company reported that the U.S. was home to some 2.2 million PCs infected with botnet malware - roughly four times as many as Brazil, the country with the next highest amount. "Spam isn't just a nuisance, it's used by cybercriminals as a means of growing their operations," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos, in a statement. "You should never even be tempted to open a spam message out of curiosity, as it can only take a second to effectively hand over control of your computer to the spammers. If your computer does become part of a botnet, you're also inviting further malware infections, which may compromise your personal or banking details." Sophos also notes a rise in social networking spam during the year's third quarter, such as the 'onMouseOver' exploit on Twitter and numerous Facebook scams used by spammers to generate money from survey Websites. "What's interesting about the Facebook scams is that they exploit human weaknesses to spread - tricking users into filling in a questionnaire if they want to see a shocking picture or video that may not even exist," Cluley said. "Unfortunately, these scams continue to proliferate, with new ones springing up every day, and Facebook seemingly unable to kill them off permanently." The best way for computer users to reduce the risk of being compromised is to run anti-spam and anti-malware protections, behave sensibly when online, and ensure systems are up-to-date with security patches.Sophos recommends that companies automatically update their corporate virus protection, and run a consolidated solution at their email and web gateways to defend against spam and viruses.
Emotional tie is the strongest reason that makes NRIs to come back to India. The reason is not different, when it comes to the 60 year old Ghulam Mehendin Zaidi, who quit his lucrative job in California and returned to his native village of Motikpur in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district. Panjayat elections are being held in UP, where he is a candidate for the post of village "pradhan" or chief. "I came back to my village as I wanted to serve the people of the place where I have spent so many years. I have played in the narrow by-lanes of the village," the report cited Zaidi as saying.
A former Merchant Navy engineer, Zaidi has several plans for his village, which he would be implementing, if he is elected as a pradhan. "I want to develop Motikpur as a model village so that it becomes an example for others," says Zaidi. Now, he is busy with the campaign, where he faces criticism like, "How can a man, who was away from the village for so many years, can serve the people... he does not know anything about the village conditions," from the opponents. However, the villagers like Zaidi's modesty. "Despite being in the U.S for so many years, he has not forgotten the Indian culture," said a voter, who confide that Zaidi stood a very good chance of winning the polls. A win would more than satisfy him. But he plans to stay in the village permanently even if he loses. "I will still be doing whatever is possible for the development of the village," said Zaidi, who had settled abroad about 40 years ago.
There is a need for adopting e-judiciary system in the country which will increase the efficiency of the various courts, ensure transparency and quicker disposal of cases, said former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. Kalam was speaking at the special convocation function of the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) where he conferred honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD) on former supreme court judge V R Krishna Iyer. The Supreme court should transform the present system into e-judiciary system, he said. The proposed action for connecting all the 15,000 courts in the country from the district court to apex court through a wide area network will further enhance the efficiency of the judicial system, he said. "At any time the complainant should be able to find out what stage of the case is? In which court and on what date? And which subject will be dealt with by the court during a particular hearing, enabling the parties to be fully prepared for the case," he added. This would bring in total transparency and the judges can also see how the case had progressed, how many adjournments had been sought, whether the grounds were trivial or serious and many such information which will make the delivery of justice impartial, said the former President.
Comparing the TV market of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and China) nations, Indian TV market scores high on growth and volumes. Unfortunately, the operating margins of the world's second largest TV market have slipped from 25 percent to 13 percent over the past four years. According to a report released by Media Partners Asia, growing competition and capital intensity along with poor regulation are degrading value in the business. Indian media has been quite dependent on advertising and it could penetrate the Indian market. This model was followed for quite a long time till money was flowing through advertisements. But now due to the slowdown in growth and higher costs, the industry has faced a remarkable shift and is finding it difficult to deal with the problem.
Till the ad revenues did not drop, most broadcasters did not even bother to fix the problem. The Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) has made some sensible recommendations on how to fix the issues related to the $6 billion TV industry in India. Its entire focus seems to be on micromanaging pricing, technology and rating points, instead of worrying about incentivising investment or getting a good piece of broadcast legislation through.
Proving wrong the hypothesize that R&D and marketing caliber underlines the success of a software firm, higher operational capabilities revealed to be the success formula for software firms by a group of researchers led by Shanling Li of McGill University. The study stressed that firms which persist and survive over the long term in the dynamic software industry are able to capitalize on their competitive actions because of their greater capabilities, and particularly OP capabilities. The insights given by the study will prove vital for the volatile software industry where success and failure depends on a single action adopted by them. Firms with a greater emphasis on innovation-related than resource-related competitive actions have a greater livelihood for survival and will be encouraging for firms having higher MK and OP capabilities since they will have a higher chance for survival.
A wider breakdown study of sub sectors within the software industry reveal that firms producing visual applications like graphical and video game software have the highest marketing capability but the lowest OP and RD capabilities and make twice as many innovation-related as resource-related moves. Though these firms have the highest market values, they are at a high risk for failure, and indeed the firms in this sector fail at a greater rate than expected. But this will be a contrast in capability to the different competitive moves made by firms producing traditional decision-support applications and infrastructure software. The study emphasized that companies with high levels of innovation-related competitive actions but low operating capability were 466 percent more likely to fail than the average. The study which examined a cross-sectional, time series panel of 5,827 observations on 870 software companies from 1995 to 2007 used methodologies like Cox proportional hazard regression technique and stochastic frontier production function to measure the capability for each software firm in each time period.
38,800 crore. Although saw a dip in its revenue for the second consecutive year, BSNL still holds the second spot with revenue of 
Compatible with
