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Microsoft has for the past couple of years stressed the importance of building an offline experience into cloud applications, and claims that software-plus-services is something the entire industry will eventually embrace. Cynics believe Microsoft’s embrace of software plus services is just an attempt to remain relevant in the age of cloud computing, and to maintain revenue from on premise software.

Last April, at Microsoft’s annual MVP Summit, CEO Steve Ballmer said that despite the near-ubiquity of wireless connectivity, offline is just as critical to the user experience. “I’m still a big believer that offline is very important,” Ballmer told the MVPs.

In a Wednesday blog post, Gmail Engineer Andy Palay said adding offline functionality to Gmail lets users maintain a consistent experience when connectivity isn’t available. “Our goal is to provide nearly the same browser-based Gmail experience whether you’re using the data cached on your computer or talking directly to the server,” he wrote.

Ric Opal, vice president of Peters & Associates, an Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based solution provider, sees Google’s move as evidence that the software-plus-services model is still in its infancy, and how Web-centric companies are slowly beginning to test the waters.

“Customers need to take a hard look at the functionality of software plus services from any vendor and clearly understand what features they have now, and what features they gain in the cloud,” Opal said.

“I think we will get to large-scale software-plus-services adoption, but everyone must evaluate implied service levels that already exist with on-premise solutions vs. solutions such as the Gmail enhancement that Google is rolling out,” Opal added.

But there are major security challenges to be overcome before that can happen, according to Tim Huckaby, CEO of InterKnowlogy, a Microsoft Gold partner in Carlsbad, Calif.

“The real problem with going offline in any Web-based application is that it’s impossible to secure without building your own elaborate sandboxed security system,” Huckaby said. “That’s why we don’t have offlineAmazon

“It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” Narayen said today in a Bloomberg Television interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”

Adobe’s Flash, used to view online video and animation, is installed on 98 percent of the world’s personal computers. While the software is on more than 800 million handsets, it isn’t available on the iPhone. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said last March that Flash runs too slowly for the iPhone, and a slimmed-down version, called Flash Lite, “isn’t capable enough to be used with the Web.”

Jobs called on Adobe to write a third version of Flash, in addition to the software already available for PCs and phones.

Adobe, based in San Jose, California, fell 74 cents to $19.31 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares declined 50 percent last year.

Economic ‘Funk’

Spending on information technology will help the global economy pull out of the recession, Narayen said.

“In the short run, there’s limited visibility in technology spending,” he said. “But when we look at the macro spending, we think tech spend will be one of the ways we get out of this funk.”

Technology spending has changed in the economic slowdown, Narayen said. Companies’ chief information officers want products that will help them quickly cut overall costs. “You have to show a return on investment,” said Narayen. “That’s where CIOs are looking.”

Adobe is facing a new challenge in the mobile-video market from Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker. The Redmond, Washington-based company is trying to persuade more Web-site owners to use its Silverlight in place of Flash. Microsoft introduced Silverlight in 2007.

Original Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/

When Miki Mullor applied for a job at Microsoft in 2005, he said that he had been an employee of a company called Ancora that had gone out of business when in fact the company was still running and Mullor was its CEO, Microsoft alleges in the suit.

Once employed by the software giant, he downloaded confidential documents unrelated to his job about technology that Microsoft offers to computer makers, according to the suit, filed in the King County Superior Court in Washington. The technology lets end users forgo the Windows operating system activation process on PCs that come preloaded with the Windows software.

Then in June of last year, while Mullor was still employed at Microsoft, his company, Ancora, filed a suit accusing Microsoft of infringing on a patent related to the technology.

Ancora’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is against Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba, but because the technology in question was provided by Microsoft, the PC makers have asked the software maker to defend them against the claims.

Microsoft also alleges that Mullor ran programs on his laptop in an effort to wipe any evidence that would show he had downloaded the files. The software giant was able to detect which programs he ran and was able to recover some of the documents that he downloaded, according to the suit.

Also, Microsoft says it has e-mail evidence that in 2004, before Mullor applied for a job at the software company, he was already planning to file the patent infringement suit.

Microsoft contends that Mullor committed breach of contract for failing to disclose his continued involvement in Ancora, stole confidential documents and failed to disclose his intentions regarding the patent infringement suit. The company also believes that it is entitled to a royalty free license for Ancora’s patent in part because Mullor didn’t tell Microsoft that he knew of the patent even while he knew that Microsoft was still developing its own similar technology.

The company also accused him of fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and unjust enrichment.

Mullor is listed as chairman and founder of Ancora on its Web site, which as of midday on the West coast appeared to be offline. His biography included his time working for Microsoft and said that he once served in the Israeli Military Intelligence and has a law degree from an Israeli university.

Mullor did not respond to a voicemail request for comment about Microsoft’s suit.

Original Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/158652/microsoft_charges_employee_with_spying.html

“We have decided not to pro-actively approach Satyam clients. But if they come on their own, we will look into their proposals case-by-case. If acceptable, we may consider doing business with them,” Infosys chief executive and managing director S Gopalakrishnan said.

Though some Satyam clients approached Infosys recently, the global software major did not discuss business with them.

“Some Satyam clients also outsource their services to us. We do not have any joint project with Satyam. If some of them (clients) want us to be engaged, we will look into it but would not hurry in grabbing them,” Gopalakrishnan clarified on the sidelines of a media briefing on the company’s robust financial performance in the third quarter of this fiscal.

Denying media reports that Infosys would poach Satyam clients as well as its employees, the chief executive said the priority of its stakeholders and the government was to bring the software major back on track to restore confidence of employees, customers and investors.

“My personal view is that it is only fair that the government is looking into the Satyam crisis, as it is trying to protect about 50,000 employees. We welcome whatever is done to protect their jobs by the government,” Gopalakrishnan observed.

Asked if he would favour the government bailing out Satyam with tax-payers’ money, the CEO said since the matter was between the government and the IT firm, he would not like to comment.

“It is between the government and the company. If there is a requirement, it is up to the government to decide,” he said.

Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/Infy_not_to_approach_Satyam_clients/articleshow/3976660.cms

However, the company’s performance in terms of revenue is said to have beat ETIG estimates as it was up by 0.8% and profit was up 9.2%.

Operating margin for the third quarter increased by 200 basis points (bps, 100 bps= 1%) 35.1% from the previous quarter. Compared to the year-ago levels, it expanded by 250 bps. Net margin improved by 190 bps on QoQ basis, while it fell by 50 bps on YoY basis.

Compared to the previous quarter, Infosys reported 180 bps fall in SG&A costs. On YoY basis, it contracted by 120 bps.

The company reported improvement in operational efficiency across verticals. The biggest improvement was seen in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) vertical wherein operating margin improved by 380 basis points sequentially. This robust improvement comes at a time when the company is facing turbulence in BFSI space given the global financial turmoil. The retail vertical witnessed 240 bps jump in operating efficiency.

The company has marginally increased its FY 2009 revenue guidance by around 1% to Rs 21,552-21757 crore. EPS guidance is increased by 1.8% to Rs 102.9.

The stock of Infosys Technologies was up by more than 5% at Rs 1217.90 at 11.10 am.

Source: Infosys Technologies

Post announcement of three new board members—Deepak Parekh, Kiran Karnik and C. Achuthan—the market had remained relatively lukewarm to the development on Monday evening. “No specifics came out in Monday’s conference. Even the government providing liquidity to Satyam comes as no surprise.” Prabhudas Lilladher research head Apurva Shah told ET.

“If the Board announced by government makes some positive announced in the next couple of days, stock has the potential to go upto Rs 50. But beyond that there is no hope. If there is no postive announcement, the stock will continue to see selling pressure from now onwards.

As the scrip has seen a sharp recovery in the past two days, this would prompt many traders to exit the stock. No fresh positions should be added on the stock,” a Technical Analyst from a Mumbai based brokerage told ET.

The market is keenly awaiting the appointment of other board members, CEO and CFO. The name doing the rounds for Satyam’s next CEO are Vivek Paul, former Wipro vice-chairman and currently a partner at private equity firm TPG. This, analsyts say, if true will be good for the controversy ridden company.

Positive development or no, sentiment on this stock has taken a hit post in the wake of the former Satyam CFO Vadlamani Srinivas statement that the software firm’s fixed deposits were unreal and fictitious and were managed with an understanding between the audit section and management.

Questions have also been raised in certain sections of the media of the regulators role as regards the company.

Source:  Satyam

covered short positions in realty stocks while metals fell further and IT

stocks bucked the trend.

At 2:10 pm, Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 9545.94, down 40.94 points or 0.43 per cent. The 30-share index touched a high of 9630.40 and a low of 9250.82.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 2895.65, 2898.70, down 22.90 points or 0.85 per cent. The broader index touched a low of 2810.25 and a high of 2929.85.

BSE Midcap Index was down 2.49 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index declined 2.76 per cent.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Realty Index which had fallen over 20 per cent in intra-day trade recovered from lows but was 1.23 per cent down, BSE Metal index was fell 5.92 per cent, BSE Capital Goods Index declined 3.83 per cent.

BSE IT Index was up 2.25 per cent after traders bought IT heavy-weights on expectations of business from Satyam Computers clients after the scam.

TCS (6.81%), Hindustan Unilever (4.59%), Mahindra & Mahindra (3.71%), Infosys Technologies (3.59%) and Maruti Suzuki (3.12%) were the top Sensex gainers.

Satyam Computers (-46.93%), Sterlite Industries (-9.62%), Ranbaxy Laboratories (-7.51%), Tata Steel (-7.34%) and Larsen & Toubro (-6.78%) were the major Sensex losers.

Market breadth was negative on the BSE with 513 declines and 1829 advances.

Meanwhile, European markets were mixed. FTSE 100 was up 0.14 per cent, CAC 40 declined 0.30 per cent and DAX was marginally up after metal shares gave up early gains.

Ambareesh Baliga of Karvy Stock Broking feels despite the Satyam stock falling 90%, some value could be salvaged. He advises existing investors to hold on and dissuades new investors from entering in. “Investors who have bought it at much higher levels have already lost 80-90%. So, for the balance 10% they can take a chance because there are two schools of thought. One says there is a possibly of it disintegrating and shareholders may not get anything. Maximum what one will lose is just Rs 15, but one has already lost Rs 300. However, there is one outer chance that possibly you could have a white-knight coming in. In that case, at least some value could be salvaged. When people have already lost 90%, they can take a chance for the balanced 10%. But if one is talking of a fresh investment in Satyam at this point of time, it is a clear no.”

Udayan Mukherjee, Stocks Editor, CNBC-TV18, also feels that investors should not go in for a distress sale now as the company’s situation may not be as bleak as what Raju has portrayed. “If today one sells and on Monday you find you that the situation is actually not too bad, maybe the balance sheet is not as bad, maybe the real business is actually not so bad as being painted, and maybe there is some cash lurking somewhere else, which just got taken out recently. One will regret that decision to sell if the stock bounces back to Rs 60-70.”

KC Reddy, Head-Asset Management, Amas Bank, feels the market impact is overestimated in the case of the Satyam scam. “Whatever had to happen has already happened or will get over in the next three days.” Reddy believes it is a very attractive business as it has large clients like Chevron and Caterpillar for years. “They have pretty impressive list of clients and the fact is no client has come back and said that you have not delivered.”

Also, the BSE and NSE have decided to let Satyam trade on the exchange, despite the NYSE suspending trade on Wednesday.

All is not bleak for investors as even corporates like L&T which acquired 3.95% in Satyam last month have decided to hold on. AM Naik, CMD, L&T said the company won’t sell now as the IT major’s business has potential. “There is no intention of buying or selling Satyam shares as of now.”

But not all experts share this optimism. Nirmal Jain, CMD, India Infoline, said Satyam’s business is not viable. “We won’t buy any stock as the company can go bankrupt. I am surprised that trading in Satyam is still continuing.”

This view is also shared by Bhavin Shah of JP Morgan. He sees business continuity risk for Satyam’s clients. He feels the Satyam fiasco could benefit other Indian IT companies. “Who knows whether Satyam will actually be around in the next couple of weeks? There is a business continuity issue here as well. So, that benefit is bound to occur to the other IT companies which customers have high confidence in terms of the integrity of the management.”

Aadil Ebrahim, Investment Manager, Bowen Capital Management, feels there Satyam is strong in certain verticals like package implementation that their peers don’t heavily have. “So, these teams may just move over to Infosys, TCS, or Wipro and take the clients with them.”