Wipro Buys Promax Applications For Rs 190 Cr

 

One of the trends over the years I have seen is that if for any reasons you believe  that we are not growing sufficiently in our existing setup/market, then its always better to go ahead and buy some companies which are fairly good in market reputation and has fairly good balance sheet with some amount of assets and profit.IT companies are following the similar trend with the only difference that most Indian IT companies always look for smaller sized companies across the Europe/US continents.Again its fair enough reading and expansion plans given IT penetration in India is almost less than 5%.

Below is copy pasted content from here,

Wipro, fourth largest IT services exporter, has signed an agreement to buy Australia's Promax Applications Group for AUD35 million (approximately Rs 190 crore).
Wipro's announcement that it has acquired Australian analytics company Promax Applications Group in an all cash deal paying 2.3 times its revenues, comes as no surprise. Wipro already gets about $600 million from the analytics business which is approximately 10 per cent of its overall revenues from the IT business and employs around 8000 people in this practice and in the past has been one of the most aggressive M & A player amongst Tier I companies.
In the past it has famously under its 'string of pearls' been agressive in acquiring companies some of which like the NerveWire acquisition has not been very successful, whereas some of the others including its Spectramind acquisition has helped leapfrog growth.
IT Companies are looking to value add for clients struggling in a slow growth environment. Analytics help in mining data collected by the clients, analysing and help them serve their customers better.
Cognizant for instance, bought MarketRx and Core Logic mainly for their analytics practice. Rishad Premji, the M&A head of Wipro, said that the company is focused on 3 areas in its acquisition strategy: Addressing domain gaps, identifying opportunities in analytics, enterprise mobility and platform based solutions in cloud, as well as geographical expansion in markets like France and Germany.
Wipro said it would take Promax's productized service beyond the existing base in industries like food and beverage, pharma as well as technology and cross sell to other existing client base. Promax has 70 employees who will be absorbed into Wipro.
Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor.
Soaps to software conglomerate Wipro Ltd, last week announced its results for the financial year 2011-12, wherein it declared revenues of $7.37 billion (of which IT services revenue alone were $5.92 billion) and a net income of $1.1 billion. Wipro does not provide guidance for the full year but said it expects revenues to be flat in the IT services business in the first quarter between $1.52 bn to $1.55 billion. The company made the announcement after Wipro shares had closed the day down 0.41 per cent to close at Rs 405.1, on a day when the Sensex was in the green up 0.76 per cent to end the day at 17318.8 points and when the IT index had also closed the day in positive territory by 2.37 per cent.

‘TourettesHero’ Website Goes Viral, Crashes Server

 

Here is the site which went viral and finally huge deluge of hits crashed the server

The crash of the this site really was a disappointment at least to me, as purpose of this site was a social cause and to create the awareness of the Tourette’s Syndrome.

So I feel that I need to help these types of web sites which are in community service or are the sites which serves the social cause.So I request you that if you feel that you need the help of software performance engineer  at any point of time to achieve your social cause, Please do ping me at kiran.badi@vasanti.org

I would be happy to help you achieve your social objectives.I have worked on scaling  small and large enterprise IT  Sites to the large number of users.If you need my resume or would like to have a look at my previous work or you need any reference from me before you seek my help, Please do not hesitate to contact me at above email id.

NHS: Cancelling CSC's £3.1bn health IT contract could cost more than continuation

 

At times I have seen both service provider and service buyers get held up in such a situations where doing the work causes more loss to provider than profit and also at times gives more pain to service buyer for the simple reason that contract was not clear in describing the clear exit criteria or measurement criteria or at times phase gates are just copy pasted materials from some earlier successful projects.

For big projects lot of things goes in contract negotiation in addition to technical capability of the teams/companies,capability to deliver, capacity to recover at any costs, capacity to fight back at odd events ,capacity to purse the legal way etc etc.

Here is classic case of ignoring or overlooking the importance of contract.

Cancelling CSC's highly troubled £3.1 billion NHS deal could cost more than finishing in full the next five years of contracted work, according to health service chiefs.The claims, made late yesterday at a heated hearing of the Public Accounts Committee, have been questioned by MPs.Since the programme began in 2002, CSC has been paid approximately £800 million, it was revealed. The PAC said the supplier's £3.1 billion contract is due to be reduced by over £500 million as part of renegotiations, leaving approximately £1.8 billion to be paid if work is delivered.Calls had emerged in recent months for the government to consider cancelling CSC's contract following a series of missed deadlines. The National Audit Office last week concluded the National Programme for IT - which also involves controversial contracts with BT - would not deliver value for money or the planned clinical benefits.Christine Connelly, NHS chief information officer, told the PAC yesterday that a series of multimillion pound costs would follow any cancellation, meaning the NHS would "potentially be exposed to a higher cost than finishing the work".Firstly, she said, a direct penalty clause of "several hundred million pounds" - up to a cap depending on the number of years left - would be set to follow if CSC's work were terminated "at leisure".On top of the immediate penalty figure, CSC "could then seek damages", which would potentially take the figure much higher, she said. The termination of a separate £1 billion NHS deal with Fujitsu has reportedly led to a three year dispute over a sum of around £700 million."From that point on [if CSC's deal were to be cancelled], there would be the costs of the transition to another supplier," she said. In Fujitsu's case, the supplier had "almost doubled" the cost of support in this period.Connelly declined to list the exact costs of the immediate penalty clause, referring to the continued fraught negotiations between the Department of Health and CSC in an attempt to sign a renewed contract.Richard Bacon MP, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, told Computerworld UK after the hearing that he had "questions" around the cancellation comments."It's a lot of smoke and mirrors," he said. He added that he would demand more answers from the NHS, saying that in spite of the well-documented problems it was "suprising they could be in such a serious hole".Connelly and CSC UK healthcare director Sheri Thureen both insisted at the hearing that they wanted to establish a renewed contract. But Connelly also said "all options" were being considered, including termination.Following the repeated rollout delays, Connelly said the NHS considered CSC to have "clearly" breached its contract. The supplier disputes this assertion. Both parties said a new contract is on the table and is being considered.David Nicholson, NHS chief executive, promised during the hearing that a decision would be taken in taxpayer and patient interests, even if it is a tough call on the supplier. "Do not feel I am emotionally connected here," he said. "We can be hard-nosed."CSC was repeatedly asked during the hearing if it was confident it would deliver a patient records system in the North, East and Midlands where it has a contract, by the 2016 deadline. Thureen said only that the company believed it had the "foundation" for that.The Public Accounts Committee is expected to deliver a brutal report on the programme in the coming weeks. The Cabinet Office is also producing its own assessment.

So when some one tells me that documentation  or any other written kind of signoff are not required, then probably it shows as how incorrect their thoughts are.In IT Sourcing world, more the documentation you provide, better it is and it helps in case if events turns sour later on.

Fans crash "Dream Concert" ticket reservation website

 

Tickets for the Dream Concert next month opened on April 17th at 8 o'clock, and the massive traffic of fans who have rushed to reserve their tickets to the annual concert resulted in the website crashing.
The Dream Concert held its first concert in May 1995 to give a sense of hope and dreams to the youth. Since then, the concert has been held every year.
This year, popular Korean artists TVXQ, Girls' Generation, 2PM, 2AM, MBLAQ, 4minute, Davichi, KARA, K.Will, SISTAR, Secret, BEAST, IU, miss A, Infinite, Teen Top, T-ara, and ZE:A.
The "2012 Dream Concert" will be held on May 12th at 6PM KST at the Seoul World Cup Stadium in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul.

Another reason as why Performance testing is challenging experiences and in real sense a hard Job.No matter how much you test, if there is sudden spike in users for whatever reasons,there exists a risk that your site may just silently fail.

Wipro Strengthens Partnership with the San Francisco Marathon

 

Feels good that Wipro is sponsoring the San Francisco Marathon and its good thing to do when the company operates in the global environment.It gives brand visibility.I think Wipro is second company next to TCS which is sponsoring the Marathon in US.

Bharti Airtel inks IT outsourcing deal with Avaya

 

Feels good that Bharti Airtel has signed the outsourcing deal to manage its IT Operation.I have been the one of the first customers of Bharti when they bought over the JTM mobile at Karnataka circle back in late 2000.

Surprising thing about this deal is that when most of the fortune 1000 are coming to India with regard to outsourcing of IT Services/Operations,Indian companies seems to be sending the work outside India.Whatever the reason, Avaya truly deserves it.They do maintain quality.

Tata Consultancy Services Named the Official Technology Partner of the 2012 Boston Marathon and the Boston Athletic Association

 

Here is an article which makes me feel good about TCS, TCS is sponsoring the Boston 2012 Marathon , Indian companies needs to take initiative and get themselves involved in the areas which generates maximum revenue’s for them.Lot many of delivery heads/senior managers most of the time never understand the importance of all these events and how it helps to built trust and cross cultural relationships.

Rush for rebates sees tax office website crash

 

Crisis lead many taxpayers owed money by the Treasury to apply as quickly as possible

Cristina Galindo / Ramón Muñoz Madrid11 ABR 2012 - 16:10 CET

The website of the Spanish Tax Office crashed on Tuesday after thousands of users rushed to be the first to apply for their 2011 tax forms.

The economic crisis has led many taxpayers owed money by the Treasury to make their applications as quickly as possible in the hope they will receive their money back immediately.

A few hours after the service was made available at midnight on Tuesday, a record 25,000 forms had been confirmed, said the organization.

But as users flooded the site, it found itself unable to cope with the 5,600 transactions a second it was receiving - the daily average is 500.

By the middle of the afternoon the site was working at 50 percent its usual capacity.

Fair enough crash and fair circumstances.Happens often.If you are responsible for some site which deals with public money and you are living  in country which is going through bad economic time, then please ensure that site remains up and running by doing whatever its possible by you.Lot of people will give you good wishes and prey for your well being. In bad time, its only prayers that helps most.

IRCTC website perennially down in the mornings

 

India’s IRCTC is one of the most heavily used websites in the world,in fact I would say it has traffic much more than what Amazon handles.It is also one of the busiest  sites which goes down frequently due to load causing inconveniences to thousands and thousands of people in India who rely on railways for transport.

Is their any quick fix for this ? Will adequate infrastructure reduce the burden of the site ? Do you believe Performance testing or Load Testing can resolve issues which IRCTC faces ? I think they cannot at for now or in my life time, some failures are just too chronic to be resolved by the testing in spite of testing often.Its just that business model of the IRCTC has lot many customers and it has total monopoly in the area where it operates.In addition to this , its bureaucratic organization.Customers just don’t any other choice other than going to IRCTC site.But again we should also need keep in mind that its only Indian Railways which can connect us to the most remote and hardest part of the India.Exactly the reasons why some sites in spite of having poor performance are stars in their line of business.Deep Expertise/Customer loyalty/Care/Empathy for customers are some of the key things which makes IRCTC website a star performer.

Recommendation engine drives 75% of Netflix traffic

 

Here is an interesting article about recommendation engine developed by Netflix to attract and suggest movies to its users based on their likes/dislikes and social habits.Its an interesting strategy and does make sense in business context.

The key thing to note here as a tester is that its data which Netflix collects that drives the functionality of the application based on user’s like/dislike.Most testers including myself at times have often ignored the importance of the right set of data that mimics the real user due to various reasons.I feel we need to make corrections to the way to we see and interpret data for our testing purpose.

Red Hat wins with investment banks

 

Red Hat the maker of Linux operating systems has won lot of big deals recently in Banking domain.To be honest, I had never seen Linux used extensively in any of my client’s platform and this news really excites me a lot and makes me  happy for Linux.I have been a fan of Linux for quite sometime now and was really disappointed to see Linux missing in most of the BFSI domain.So finally I must say that time has come to open up and brush myself with  some Linux performance tuning skills.

Chicago Park District website again plagued by woes on program sign-up day

 

Here is another same story where few months back I remember Chicago part website had crashed on the first day of registration causing lot of hardship to its interested members/users.At the first time,site simply crashed and this time its loading slow or intermittently crashing(slowness at front end also means some component has crashed at backend).

The main problem here was that authorities concerned failed to do proper load testing on the site for various reasons.Demand is often unpredictable and so at times it does make sense to know as how long and how much your site can withstand user load.

Hope next time,Chicago Park District website authorities hire some good performance engineers to fix their problem so as to enhance their badly damaged image in front of its users.

Technorati Tags: website crash,load,performance

TfL signs $33m outsourcing extension with CSC

 

CSC will run a number of Transport for London's IT services for another 27 months.

Transport for London (TfL) has extended its outsourcing agreement with CSC.

The extension, worth $33m, adds 27 months to the length of the original contract.

Under the agreement, CSC will continue to provide TfL with IT services such as service desk, desktop support and delivery of real-time customer information at a number of London underground stations.

CSC was first contracted by TfL in 2007 as an interim replacement for previous supplier Logica.

TfL is currently in the first phase of a three stage plan to overhaul its IT estate, which will see the organisation first focusing on areas, such as improving provision of commodity services.

1940 census data so popular its website crashes

 

Here is another example as how depending on the content of the site, curiosity among the users just might crash your site.1940 Census data was made publicly available and interest in this data caused the site to crash under load.

The fix for this crash was ‘The fix involved adding more servers and increasing their capacity’. It becomes sometimes really hard to understand people’s behavior and their interest. Did we ever think that 70 years old data might generate so much traffic ?

Hospital performance website crashes

 

Quite lot of business people think that if your business or product website crashes under load, it means that you are doing lot of business and lot of people are interested in your site and product, however I think I disagree with these thoughts.I feel these are more of people’s curiosity  and this at times might generate one time sale but more often they reflect poorly on the company brand and its ability to manage smooth sales process via online channels.So I suggest If you are in business and if you are selling product which is going to consumed by general mass consumers, then make sure that your online sales channels are strong enough to support your vision.

Here is case where solid idea to compare the performance of various hospitals across the country generated lot of traffic to the site and finally it crashed under load and disappointing many of the its users.

Below is extract pulled out from the link,

Unexpected high traffic crashed a new online hospitals rating tool.

The new website was launched Wednesday and the owners expected about 200 people to check it out.

But more than 300,000 people swamped the site a few hours after it went live and the server hosting it crashed.

The tool was developed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information and is found on the organization's website.

Agency official Jeremy Veillard says the site crash shows that people are interested.

The tool allows users to compare hospitals using 21 health-care quality measurements and nine financial ones.

CIHI expects the major benefit of the tool will be that it gives hospitals an incentive to improve their performances now that the public can see how they are doing.

Veillard also says studies around the world have shown these kinds of measurement tools don't change the decisions the public makes about health-care as most people just go to the closest hospital when they are sick.

© The Canadian Press, 2012

Technorati Tags: performance,website crash,load