HP Awarded Infrastructure Services Contract with Sara Lee

Hewlett & Packard, PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 26, 2008 

HP today announced it has been awarded a seven-year infrastructure services contract from Sara Lee Corporation to manage its global technology environment. 

The deal is part of Sara Lee’s global transformation to increase operational efficiencies and reduce costs across its businesses around the world. 

HP will extend its current agreement to 2015 and add the management of Sara Lee’s North America infrastructure technology to make this a fully global contract. HP also will transition Sara Lee’s infrastructure technology to HP’s next-generation data center in Atlanta. This automated environment will provide the latest infrastructure management and automation delivered as a service for Sara Lee. 

The agreement builds on a long-standing relationship between Sara Lee and HP. Since 2000, HP has provided services to support Sara Lee’s technology infrastructure in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia, as well as Sara Lee’s end-user environment across the globe. 

“This new agreement with HP helps Sara Lee to increase efficiencies and further supports our goal of operational excellence,” said Steve Merry, senior vice president and chief information officer, Sara Lee Corporation. “Over the past eight years, HP has consistently been a trusted partner that understands how technology can help us achieve our business objectives.” 

“Since 2000, Sara Lee has been able to lower costs, reduce risk and accelerate growth with HP managing and transforming its technology environment,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP. “This latest agreement with Sara Lee provides the right infrastructure to meet its customers’ needs today and into the future.” 

About Sara Lee Corporation 

Each and every day, Sara Lee (NYSE: SLE) delights millions of consumers and customers around the world. The company has one of the world’s best-loved and leading portfolios with its innovative and trusted food, beverage, household and body care brands, including Ambi Pur, Ball Park, Douwe Egberts, Hillshire Farm, Jimmy Dean, Kiwi, Sanex, Sara Lee and Senseo. Collectively, these brands generate more than $12 billion in annual net sales covering approximately 200 countries. The Sara Lee community consists of 52,000 employees worldwide. Please visit www.saralee.com for the latest news and in-depth information about Sara Lee and its brands. 

About HP 

HP, the world’s largest technology company, provides printing and personal computing products and IT services, software and solutions that simplify the technology experience for consumers and businesses. HP completed its acquisition of EDS on Aug. 26, 2008. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

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Oct 27 Declared National Bloggers Day In Indonesia

By Mohd Nasir Yusoff , Malaysia National News Agency

JAKARTA, Nov 22 (Bernama) -- In line with its aim to bring its people up to speed in the digital age, Indonesia has declared Oct 27 as National Bloggers Day, the republic's Information and Communications Ministry announced in conjunction with the Bloggers Carnival 2008 here Saturday. 

The ministry's director-general for applications, Cahyana Ahmadijaya said blogs in Indonesia were mushrooming not only for fun (blogfun) but also for business (blogpreneurs) and that the trend would continue exponentially in future. 

Indonesia's Culture and Tourism Ministry also wanted bloggers help promote tourism to the country. 

"This carnival provides and excellent networking opportunity to promote tourism effectively," said its minister Jero Wacik. The text of his speech was read out by the ministry's director-general for tourism destinations development, Firmansyah Rahim. 

Meanwhile, Research and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman assured bloggers that government would not restrict their freedom but they must not flout the republic's laws. 

Some 1,000 bloggers turned up for the carnival including Jeff Ooi of Malaysia , who is also the Member of Parliament for Jelutong in Penang, and Singapore's Mr Brown. 

-- BERNAMA

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IBM to build brain-like computers

By Jason Palmer, Science and technology reporter, BBC News  

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains. 

Part of a field called "cognitive computing", the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists. 

As a first step in its research the project has been granted 

$4.9m (£3.27m) from US defence agency Darpa.

The resulting technology could be used for large-scale data analysis, decision making or even image recognition. 

"The mind has an amazing ability to integrate ambiguous information across the senses, and it can effortlessly create the categories of time, space, object, and interrelationship from the sensory data," says Dharmendra Modha, the IBM

 scientist who is heading the collaboration. 

"There are no computers that can even remotely approach the remarkable feats the mind performs," he said.

"The key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain." 

'Perfect storm' 

IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integ

rate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do. 

The longer-term goal is to create a system with the level of complexity of a cat's brain.

Prof Modha says that the time is right for such a cross-disciplinary project because three disparate pursuits are coming together in what he calls a "perfect storm".      

Neuroscientists working with simple animals have learned much about the inner workings of neurons and the synapses that connect them, resulting in "wiring diagrams" for simple brains. 

Supercomputing, in turn, can simulate brains up to the complexity of small mammals, using the knowledge from the biological research. Modha led a team that last year used the BlueGene supercomputer to simulate a mouse's brain, comprising 55m neurons and some half a trillion synapses. 

"But the real challenge is then to manifest what will be learned from future simulations into real electronic devices - nanotechnology," Prof Modha said. 

Technology has only recently reached a stage in which structures can be produced that match the density of neurons and synapses from real brains - around 10 billion in each square centimetre. 

Networking 

Researchers have been using bits of computer code called neural networks that seek to represent connections of neurons. They can be programmed to solve a particular problem - behaviour that appears to be the same as learning. 

But this approach is fundamentally different. 

"The issue with neural networks and artificial intelligence is that they seek to engineer limited cognitive functionalities one at a time. They start with an objective and devise an algorithm to achieve it," Prof Modha says. 

"We are attempting a 180 degree shift in perspective: seeking an algorithm first, problems second. We are investigating core micro- and macro-circuits of the brain that can be used for a wide variety of functionalities." 

The problem is not in the organisation of existing neuron-like circuitry, however; the adaptability of brains lies in their ability to tune synapses, the connections between the neurons. 

Synaptic connections form, break, and are strengthened or weakened depending on the signals that pass through them. Making a nano-scale material that can fit that description is one of the major goals of the project. 

"The brain is much less a neural network than a synaptic network," Modha says. 

First thought 

The fundamental shift toward putting the problem-solving before the problem makes the potential applications for such devices practically limitless. 

Free from the constraints of explicitly programmed function, computers could gather together disparate information, weigh it based on experience, form memory independently and arguably begin to solve problems in a way that has so far been the preserve of what we call "thinking". 

"It's an interesting effort, and modelling computers after the human brain is promising," says Christian Keysers, director of the neuroimaging centre at University Medical Centre Groningen. However, he warns that the funding so far is likely to be inadequate for such an large-scale project. 

That the effort requires the expertise of such a variety of disciplines means that the project is unprecedented in its scope, and Dr Modha admits that the goals are more than ambitious. 

"We are going not just for a homerun, but for a homerun with the bases loaded," he says.

 

P&G, Google team up to swap jobs, trade knowledge

Procter & Gamble, Google team up to trade knowledge about targeting customers

By Dan Sewell, AP Business Writer, Wednesday November 19, 10:41 am ET 

CINCINNATI (AP) -- The world's largest consumer products company and the online search leader are working together to learn more about each other and about targeting customers. 

Procter & Gamble Co. said Wednesday it has done job swaps with Google Inc., and Google employees have been at P&G's Cincinnati headquarters helping with training. 

P&G spokeswoman Allison Yang said the company wants to reach more consumers who are increasingly online. 

"This is all about learning," she said. "It's about putting consumers in connection with our products in the right spots." 

The Wall Street Journal reported in Wednesday's editions that discussions on an employee swap began last year between P&G and Google executives. 

The swaps began in January, with two Tide detergent brand managers visiting Google and a pair of Google officials coming to Cincinnati. 

P&G, the nation's largest advertiser with a global advertising budget of nearly $9 billion, has been emphasizing value in marketing that says products such as Charmin toilet paper and Tide laundry detergent get more done with less than other brands. 

The company also has been expanding its online reach, including offering digital coupons. 

Yang said an early project with Google was drawing more attention to online video of Tide to Go's "Talking Stain" commercial, which made its television debut during the Super Bowl. Pampers diapers managers and a digital marketing manager were next to participate, and some 15 P&G employees from different areas spent time with Google last month. 

She said P&G has shared information with Google visitors about its consumer research, planning and operations. 

"The relationship will certainly continue, and we'll continue looking at what the opportunities are," Yang said. 

A message for comment was left with Google, based in Mountain View, Calif. Analysts have predicted slower revenue growth for Google in the worsening economy, amid signs that Internet users are growing less likely to click on advertising links. 

P&G, meanwhile, has been battling U.S. household belt-tightening, but the company last month reported sales grew 9 percent in its fiscal first quarter.

Tech firms turn to social media to reach consumers

By Gabriel Madway, Tue Nov 18, 2008 4:19pm EST  

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Recognizing the limits of traditional advertising, established technology companies are diving headlong into the sometimes chaotic landscape of social media to promote their products. 

Companies ranging from PC maker Dell Inc to storage equipment maker NetApp Inc are increasingly turning to outside blogs, viral videos and websites such as FaceBook, Twitter, FriendFeed and Digg -- and their tens of millions of users -- to reach consumers. 

These social networking sites harness the age-old power of the word-of-mouth recommendation and can be potent marketing tools. If nothing else, they demand a higher level of consumer engagement than conventional ads. 

"This is 180 degrees from that sort of advertising," said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. "Having a conversation with them (consumers) is a very new skill." 

For tech companies with big marketing budgets, the shift to social media is an implicit acknowledgment that television and print are not necessarily the most effective ways to reach buyers, particularly younger ones. 

In addition, with a recession looming, corporate budgets are being slashed. UBS has forecast global ad spending will fall 3.9 percent in 2009. In such an environment, social media could prove to be a cost-effective way to sell to consumers. 

But the strategy is not without some risk. While every company wants to generate buzz, online backlash can be brutal. 

Consumer healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson learned that the hard way with a recent Web video ad for its Motrin painkiller. While apparently trying to be irreverent about the pain of wearing a baby in a sling, the ad offended many mothers who savaged it on Twitter, the wildly popular "micro-blogging" site where users communicate with short "tweets" of 140 characters or less. J&J was forced to apologize on Monday. 

Brian Keeler, a vice president at media consultancy VShift, said the key to social media is credibility and enlisting consumers in the act of marketing itself. But if you upset your audience, it can mean trouble. 

"With the online media, things can go viral and spin out of control really fast," he said. 

ONLINE CREDIBILITY 

Dell has a dedicated team of around 40 people that interacts with consumers through its blogs, community forums and third-party sites. The company began its social media push last year as it moved to repair its public image. 

"There's been a realization over the last several years that your customers are going to talk about you online and you have a choice to join that conversation," spokeswoman Caroline Dietz said. 

Dell said it has used Twitter to sell $500,000 worth of refurbished PCs. The company also took ideas solicited from its IdeaStorm site to make changes to its Latitude laptop. 

NetApp sells data storage equipment only to enterprises, so its strategy is more limited. Its employees are encouraged to blog on third-party sites about its products and the company focuses on keeping a unified message. 

Still, NetApp said that, for the first time, it is dedicating 20 percent of its PR budget to social media. 

One of the most effective social media advertising strategies, said author and blogger Dave Taylor, is to simply hand a new product over to a blogger for a test-drive. 

A bad review can hurt, but an endorsement from an established name "makes for some powerful marketing," he said. 

In a similar vein, hard-drive maker Seagate Technology sponsored prominent blogger Robert Scoble, who wrote about the company's products and took part in promotions. 

Seagate news now goes up on Facebook, pictures of products go on photo-sharing site Flickr, along with Twitter tweets. The company has even built a studio to film Web videos. 

Although some companies may balk at the idea of relinquishing control of their message, they may have no choice. 

"Historically, companies have been really focused on controlling the information they disseminate ... and the fact is that's dying, because accessibility and communication have so dramatically increased and improved," Taylor added. 

(Editing by Andre Grenon )

Microsoft Plans Free Software To Shield PCs

By NICK WINGFIELD, The Wall Street Journal

Microsoft Corp. said it will offer free software to protect PCs from viruses, in a move that could pose new challenges for independent makers of security software.

The Redmond, Wash., company said it plans to introduce its security software, code-named Morro, during the second half of next year in an effort to persuade more users to secure their PCs against spyware, viruses and other forms of "malware." Use of antimalware software is far from universal, especially in emerging markets.

There are two primary reasons consumers supply for not protecting their PCs, including a concern that the anti-malware software will bog down their PCs, said Amy Barzdukas, senior director of product management for the online services and Windows division at Microsoft. The other reason is the cost of security software, which can run $75 for the programs plus two years of updates.

Morro will replace another security software program Windows Live OneCare, a broader suite of software and services. Microsoft will discontinue retail sales of that software, which costs consumers $49.95 a year, on June 30 of next year.

The shift to a free security offering from Microsoft could be a problem for Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc. and other independent security companies that charge consumers for their products.

Write to Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com

The CIO as innovation czar

Shifting roles bring new challenges in innovation and enterprise integration.

By Kathleen Melymuka, Computerworld    

November 17, 2008 (Computerworld) Many CEOs today are asking CIOs to play a bigger role in innovation and enterprise integration. In this month's Harvard Business Review, James I. Cash Jr., retired senior associate dean at Harvard Business School, and co-authors Michael J. Earl and Robert Morison discuss how that shift is playing out in 24 major corporations. Cash, temporarily sidelined by oral surgery, explained these new IT roles to Kathleen Melymuka via e-mail.

 

Why is the CIO's role shifting? The change is based more on the capabilities of specific individuals than something inherent in an IT organization in a large company. For broad-based individuals that have used their time as CIO to demonstrate an ability to think and act systemically and in an integrative manner across the entire enterprise, companies have asked them to take on additional responsibility. The primary drivers of this trend are the need for the enterprise to pursue growth and innovation initiatives in addition to the intense focus on productivity/efficiency/compliance during the first half of the decade. 

You write that two key groups leverage technology. The first is a distributed innovation group (DIG). What is that? This group only gets established if the company has committed to a belief that the source of creativity is more likely to occur outside the company boundaries than inside. This group is established to facilitate collecting, evaluating, monitoring and, in some cases, providing initial funding for the idea. 

How does it work? DIG scouts for new ideas and untapped potential in current technologies, scans the external environment for emerging technology, facilitates participation in idea forums, acts as a center of expertise for support of innovation and creativity, communicates and publicizes promising ideas, and provides initial funding and scarce specialized skills that may be required for the early evaluation/testing of the idea. DIG does not act like a dedicated R&D group, have exclusive responsibility for all phases of the innovation process, or sit in an office developing policy and anointing winners in the fine tradition of many staff functions. 

The second team is the enterprise integration group (EIG). What is that? A group responsible for transforming the corporation into an efficient participant in an industry ecosystem, primarily as a result of an external and internal business process redesign. An "outside-in" perspective on this work distinguishes this group from pure process improvement work. The key measures for this work focus on breakthrough business integration projects that radically improve the organization's performance in the eyes of customers or key suppliers. This may lead to a change in the traditional business model. 

What does the EIG do? It's responsible for enterprisewide business process management and improvement. [It] manages the corporate portfolio of integration initiatives, serves as center of excellence for skills required in process improvement and is responsible for new ideas on future-oriented enterprise architecture. It frequently has a major education and training responsibility. 

What can it accomplish? Gary Reiner's Corporate Initiatives Group at GE was responsible for companywide implementation of Six Sigma and Lean, which eventually provided the foundation for outside-in projects that reduced lead-time for customer financing decisions from 63 days to "same-day" [financing]. 

What can a CIO do in his own company? Collect data and examples of how these changes have benefited other companies and sell the idea to your executive suite. Do not accept responsibility for managing the cultural change required; that belongs to the CEO or COO. (Exception: If you become the COO, then it's your responsibility.) But quickly accept the responsibility to implement these groups in support of the new approach to growth and innovation.

 

IT's Role

A look at IT's role in facilitating innovation and enterprise integration. 

In the DIG

• Providing tools that facilitate communication, collaboration, monitoring
  
• Providing platforms for collecting and testing ideas
  
• Assessing emerging technologies that relate to the ideas
  
• Providing cost- and risk-effective prototyping capability
  
• Facilitating rapid implementation of significant innovations
  

In the EIG

• Supporting cross-organizational systems implementations
  
• Providing expertise in information management to facilitate integration
  
• Providing program and project management
  
• Providing specialized relationship management in a multi-organizational context 

 

This version of this interview originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition.

 

Portable power: Tiny solar cells show promise

By Julie Steenhuysen, Thu Nov 6, 2008 3:01pm EST 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Researchers have developed some of the tiniest solar cells ever made and said on Thursday the organic material could potentially be painted on to surfaces. 

So far, they have managed to pull 11 volts of electricity from a small array of the cells, which are each just a quarter of the size of a grain of white rice, said Xiaomei Jiang of the University of South Florida, who led the research. 

"They could be sprayed on any surface that is exposed to sunlight -- a uniform, a car, a house," Jiang said in a telephone interview. 

"Because it is in a solution, you can design a special spray gun where you can control the size and thickness. You could produce a paste and brush it on," she said. 

Eventually, Jiang envisions the solar cells being used as a coating on a variety of surfaces, including clothing. They might generate energy to power small electronic devices or charge a cell phone, for example. 

Solar cells, which convert energy from the sun into electricity, are in increasing demand amid unstable gas prices and worries over global warming. 

Most conventional solar cells are made up of silicon wafers, a brittle substance that limits where they can be placed. 

Many teams of scientists are working on different ways to make solar cells more flexible in the hopes of taking better advantage of energy from the sun. 

The tiny cells from Jiang's lab are made from an organic polymer that has the same electrical properties of silicon wafers but can be dissolved and applied to flexible materials. 

"The main components are carbon and hydrogen -- materials that are present in nature and are environmentally friendly," Jiang said. 

In research published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Jiang and colleagues showed an array of 20 of these cells could generate 7.8 volts of electricity, about half the power needed to run a microscopic sensor for detecting dangerous chemicals and toxins. 

Her team is now refining the manufacturing process with the hope of doubling that output to 15 volts. "It's a matter of months," Jiang said. 

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman)

Gore sees transformative power of Web in politics

Computerworld

By Juan Carlos 

November 7, 2008 (IDG News Service) Barack Obama had a lot going for him already in this year's election, but his creative use of the Internet played a huge role in making him president elect, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said Friday. 

"It couldn't have happened without the Web," Gore said. 

Gore closed this year's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco by discussing the role of the Web in the election, his involvement with an Internet TV company and the dangers of climate change. The full-capacity crowd at the Palace Hotel greeted him and sent him off with standing ovations. 

Obama's innovative use of the Web during his campaign, for everything from encouraging supporters to vote to raising funds, marks a turning point in how politicians use the Internet and in how citizens can participate for social change, Gore said. 

"What happened in the election opens up a whole new range of possibilities," he said. "Now's the time to really move swiftly to exploit these new possibilities." 

Gore also talked about how his company Current TV, of which he is chairman and cofounder, is attempting to use the Internet to break television's decades-old monopolization of information, which he said has had negative consequences. 

"A reason why the political system hasn't been operating very well until this election is the deadening influence of the TV medium as it has been operating," he said. 

Asked by conference chair John Battelle if he is worried that this Web-powered social involvement among citizens will lose steam, Gore said: "No, I'm not. It's very much in its infancy, barely beginning. We aren't many years away from TV sinking into the digital world and becoming a part of it." 

"The social activism that's made possible by these new tools is just beginning to take off," he added. 

Gore, who has become a leading voice in recent years for the protection of the environment, said President-elect Obama should be bold in his goals to address climate change. For example, he should set a national goal for the U.S. to get all its electricity from renewable and non-carbon sources within 10 years. 

"We can do it," he said, amidst heavy applause from the audience. 

He cited various imminent dangers for the environment, including the 75 percent to 80 percent chance that in the next 5 years, the North Pole ice cap, which has been around for about 3 million years and is almost the size of the continental U.S., will disappear. 

"This is an apocalyptic signal from the planet itself," Gore said. 

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A hands-on preview of Windows 7

Microsoft has released an early preview copy of its new operating system, Windows 7.

BBC 

The release follows in the wake of Vista, which has been subject to fierce criticism from a number of users. 

When Vista launched in January 2007, many complained that it ran slowly and failed to work at all with some programs and devices. 

Corporate customers have been slow to switch from Windows XP to Vista, although Microsoft said that the operating system had an unfair press, and that it enjoyed record sales. 

Despite this Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP so PC makers can continue selling it to those that do not want to upgrade. 

Windows Vista took more than five years to develop but Windows 7 is likely to arrive within a couple of years. 

Microsoft's VP, Steven Sinofsky, described Windows 7 as an "exciting new version" and claimed it would deliver a more personalised experience. 

With Windows 7, Microsoft has added a range of new functions including: 

• A new taskbar to give more rapid access to files and programs.
  
• A feature called HomeGroup, allowing users easy sharing of data across PCs and other devices in the home.
  
• Support for devices such as cameras, printers, and mobile phones with a product called Device Stage offering a single window to manage tasks for each device.
  
• Windows Touch - software for touch screen devices that enables users to use different gestures to perform tasks.
  
• Improvements to some applications, such as MS Paint, and Calculator.

Microsoft's chief software architect Ray Ozzie said Windows 7 would be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. 

The new operating system is scheduled for release in 2010 and the advance code still had limited functionality. A widely released public trial, or beta, version is expected to be available in early 2009. 

To test Microsoft's claims BBC News gave a copy of the early version of Windows 7 to Alex Watson, editor of Custom PC. 

The early version made a good impression on Mr Watson, who described it as "quick, snappy, and reliable". 

Uphill struggle

Given the popularity of Windows XP and the plethora of issues that came with the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft may have a tough job persuading users to upgrade - noted Kelvyn Taylor, editor of Personal Computer World. 

"The problem is that they [Microsoft] have to overcome the damage - perception wise at least - that Windows Vista caused. And that will be an uphill struggle. 

"People are comfortable with XP, so there will have to be something significant in Windows 7 to persuade people to migrate over, " he said. 

"Pricing, response time, and reliability are all issues that will need to be addressed. If Microsoft do that, then they're in with half a chance. Otherwise Windows 7 will end up as little more than Vista 2 Mark II."

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Windows 7 Upgrade Chaos Looms

Businesses that plan on skipping Vista to move directly from XP to Windows 7 could face application-compatibility headaches. 

By Paul McDougall, InformationWeek, October 31, 2008 11:01 AM   

Microsoft confirmed this week that its forthcoming Windows 7 operating system and the widely maligned Vista OS share the same basic architecture -- and that's a good thing, the company says.

"Because Windows 7 is built on the same kernel as Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, there are no changes that are going to require a reworking of that ecosystem," said Microsoft senior VP Steven Sinofsky, who spoke Tuesday at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. 

More Windows InsightsWhite PapersMicrosoft Training GuideUser's Guide to Office 2007: No Need To Wait Deploy It Now Vista was plagued by application incompatibilities when it debuted in January of last year. The OS featured a number of architectural changes -- particularly at the security level -- that broke compatibility with applications built for Windows XP and other previous Microsoft operating systems.

Microsoft claims that won't happen with Windows 7 -- as long as users are working with applications that are Vista-compatible. "All of the devices and all of the compatibility work that has gone on in the past two years of Windows Vista will pay off in the work that we've done with Windows 7," said Sinofsky. 

The problem is that few enterprises have upgraded systems to Vista. According to one recent survey in the United Kingdom, only 4% of businesses in that country have switched to Vista. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the business uptake rate for Vista in the United States isn't much higher. IT managers for the state of Maine recently confirmed that the state will bypass Vista and await the rollout of Windows 7. 

Most organizations continue to use XP on their business computers. Microsoft, however, officially retired XP earlier this year. That means that, at some point in the next couple of years, most companies are going to have to undergo a significant overhaul of their application infrastructure in order to keep pace with Microsoft's road map. 

Microsoft previously warned its customers that skipping Vista might only forestall upgrade headaches. 

For the record, Microsoft has said that it expects to introduce Windows 7 in 2010 -- but numerous signs indicate that Vista's successor could be available sooner than that. 

Microsoft spent the past week heavily promoting and publicizing Windows 7 at PDC. The company performed numerous live demonstrations of the operating system in action and has published a slew of screenshots. "We're pretty excited about the work that we've done on performance," said Sinofsky. 

It all points to the fact that Windows 7 development is well advanced. 

Microsoft stated that it will introduce a beta version of Windows 7 "early next year." That could give Microsoft and its developers enough time to kick the tires on the OS to roll out a final version prior to year's end.

Technology to rescue publishers

How a High Technology Company in South India Helps Publishers in 35 Countries Reduce Costs and Increase Revenues in the Current Economic Downturn

London, (ANTARA News/PRNewswire-AsiaNet) -- Newspapers are continuing to feel the pinch of the impending recession with redundancies affecting national, regional, paid-for and free titles. The cost of energy, paper and printing has risen dramatically in the last year, forcing some newspapers to close and save money. Circulation has been shrinking, and advertising sales have fallen greatly in the last year causing many Publishers to re-think their economic models. 

But what is the solution, and what will work, as newspapers seek an alternate income stream to replace print decline? The public is increasingly looking to gather information from many different sources. Readers want their information now - not tomorrow or even next week. 

"Several publishers are evaluating replacing print edition with digital edition on alternate days of the week. " Said Myles Fuchs, President (North America), Pressmart. 

Leading the digital publishing revolution, Pressmart, a company based in South India and a presence in London and New York is offering an easy-to- deploy and pay-as-you-go service with no set up costs. Everyone from a start- up magazine to a daily newspaper can have their digitized edition, online, within hours. 

"The digitisation of publications presents publishers with the greatest opportunity to extend their reach allowing them to expand into new markets without great expenditure. I predict that the majority of successful publications will be relying upon their digital editions to improve their bottom line in the next year or so." says Tom McGowran, Sales Director (UK),

Pressmart. 

Touted as a 360-degree full-service offering, Pressmart offers a hosted service that includes ePublishing, delivery, hosting, subscriptions, single-copy sales, online payments, online ads and analytics, on a single platform. 

Pressmart's proprietary technology strips the pre-press PDF pages it receives from publishers and pushes the content intelligently on multiple delivery channels like Web, Mobile, RSS, Podcast, Blogs, Search Engines and Social Media. 

"The adoption rate of our print-to-digital service has been remarkable over the past 24 months. While leading international publishers and global publishing associations like the World Association of Newspapers, Suburban Newspapers of America and National Newspapers of America, trust our technology, it is the Small to Medium Publishers (SMP) that derive the maximum benefit from it. With Pressmart's pay-as-you-go hosted service it fits publishers' needs like a glove." Says Sanjiv Gupta, CEO, Pressmart. 

Pressmart says some of its customers have seen a 9 times circulation jump by adding digital publishing to their delivery strategy and have saved millions in distribution costs. 

When wild fires hit Southern California and a part of San Diego Union Tribune's delivery infrastructure was gutted, it was Pressmart in South India that rose to the occasion and upon the paper's request, put up their print edition online, within a couple of hours. Whether holed up in their homes or in motels, Subscribers received their print edition (online), like on any other day. 

The world's oldest newspaper (formed 1645), Post-och Inrikes Tidningar of Sweden, has announced that it will publish only digitally. Could this be the destiny of many more newspapers around the world? 

About Pressmart: 

Pressmart (http://www.pressmart.net) is a New Media Delivery Partner of leading newspapers and magazines published in over 22 languages across 35 countries. Pressmart takes over where the pre-press ends and delivers the electronic edition on multiple distribution channels including web (as a print-replica ePaper edition), Mobile, RSS, Podcasts, Blogs, Social Networking Sites, Article Directories, Search Engines, etc. 

Pressmart also offers digitization of legacy archives from multiple physical formats into re-usable and monetizable digital formats. It has digitized over 400 years' worth of newspapers, magazines and journals. Pressmart is headquartered in Hyderabad and has a customer support presence in US and UK. 

For more details, please contact:

Navneet Taori,
Head - Marketing,
Mobile : +91-9849051077,
Tel : +91-40-66547000,
Email : ntaori@pressmart.net/ntaori@gmail.com

SOURCE: Pressmart Media Limited

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