Continuing to fight against one of the most fatal female cancer in Pakistan, Warid Telecom is again supporting National Breast Cancer Awareness Drive this year in collaboration with Pink Ribbon, Pakistan.

Marking October 2011 a Pink Month company-wide, a series of pink activities are planned for both employees and general public to create awareness. A workshop for Warid female staff was organized with the mission to train the attendees so they can take care of themselves and can also volunteer to further educate others in their surrounding communities. Warid Customer Service staff at Business Centers in Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi are volunteering in distributing awareness material on the fatal Cancer and the importance of its early diagnosis. Company’s official website carried awareness material for web surfers while a text awareness message was also broadcasted to Warid customers.

Group photo of Warid female staff at Breast Cancer seminar held in Lahore this Tuesday, aimed attraining staff to volunteer and further spread the word around.

Battling cancer is one of the most devastating experiences for a woman and her family. They never say and are never told they are cured – only in remission. Doing its part earnestly by searching new and creative ways to help local community, Warid Telecom has always shown strong commitment towards the well being of the society.

by Jawad Bokhari

Corporate data tends to grow at an alarming rate yet 80 percent of it usually sits idle, chocking the production environment. Data gurus claim that most of the time the bulk of the data is never referenced nevertheless it occupies production storage space and more than often creates bottlenecks in its wake. The need of the day is to archive the bulk of this seldom used data to a cheaper storage medium for long term retention. At the same time seamless search and convenient retrieval of this invaluable information is crucial to any business enterprise. A recent survey has revealed that 57% of large and medium sized concerns have a need to manage email and file server storage more effectively by offloading it to less expensive storage, 46% have a need to handle routine e-discovery requests and 34% have a need to extract older electronic content for regulatory audits.

So what should be a regular approach to data storage and information accessibility? File archiving is a definite answer.

Business and Legal concerns involved in e-discovery, storage optimization and records management always have an eager eye for efficient solutions providing:

• Reduced file storage costs
• Centralized file management
• Reduced data volumes to help reduce backup times
• Increased File Server performances
• Transparent access to archived files
• Intuitive search and e-discovery options

It is imperative for them to protect their business critical information and this alone can be achieved through a potent File archiving system. Electronic information is preferred to paper documents, because it usually carries the benefit of metadata such as date and time and provides the Litigators pertinent evidence in lawsuits. Executives burdened with paperwork frantically search for new avenues to convert their records into retrievable PDF documents. Storage volume management taxes employee efficiency to a greater degree costing businesses billions in lost revenue and wasted time. Rigorous and day to day backups are essential and can only be achieved in a timely manner if an efficient File archiving solution is deployed. These day to day needs urge enterprises to adopt a user friendly File archiving solution that puts them in control and a File archiving solution such as ShareArchiver’s FA solution is indeed the answer.

You must have come across the term Enterprise File Archiving. The term encompasses the following strategic areas:

1. Storage Management:

Companies are constantly struggling with the amount of data and constantly shuffle data to create space on a temporary basis; File stubbing technology greatly reduces storage by leaving a tiny stub for users to view hence reducing file server’s file data volume. The stub provides seamless access to users regardless of the desktop client in use i.e. Apple Mac or Windows. By employing de-duplication techniques ShareArchiver’s FA has managed to reduce file server’s file data volumes up to 90%.

2. Centralized Repository:

A state of the art File Archiver such as ShareArchiver’s FA provides a central repository for all archived material where it sits indexed and easily and very quickly searchable.

3. Data Security:

Passing on privileges to users is an important aspect of File archiving. It is important to determine what a user can access and what information is off limits.  Only a privileged user can search and access the archives. This entails transparency of operations and enforces employee accountability.

4. Stable Production Environments:

Production environments must run with zero downtime. Crash programming is often high on the agenda, for companies which value a stable production system. File archiving solutions such as ShareArchiver can be a real blessing in case a production system experiences a crash. In normal circumstances data recovery can take hours especially when data size is tremendous and the date is to be restored from a backup, but using ShareArchiver this can be achieved in a matter of minutes.

5. Enhanced Productivity:

Few hours are generally wasted each day by employees, managing their historical files, or searching for important documents which may have been misplaced in the wrong place, With automatic archiving employee productivity can be enhanced manifold by giving them back time they can spend on current projects rather than searching and managing information. How do you expect an employee to search efficiently for a Purchase Order that may have been saved in a wrong folder mistakenly, a ledger restored from a backup or a misplaced digital memo. Searching can be a costly affair for companies, meaning lost productivity. Having ShareArchiver means you never spend more than a mere few minutes to restore or find that lost memo saving the organization huge amounts of time and money.

6. Policy Based Archiving:

Knowing how your file storage is being used and wasted lets you plan for more efficient ways to archive the data. Policy based archiving means having easy to use tools for reporting, analysis, and easy to set up policy rules. Files that are older than a specified time period, unneeded, or unused, based on file metadata such as Created, last modified, last accessed date, size criterion are automatically moved to a file archive where they are compressed, encrypted and stored for automatic retrieval.

7. E – Discovery:

Electronic data is sought, located, secured, and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal litigation. File and email Metadata such as File Creation Date, Last Modified Date, File Type and Extension, Size, sender recipients, bcc, message headers etc are information needed for the purposes of evidence. Archiving can optimise E- Discovery preparation by making digital information easily accessible.

8. Document Tagging:

Allows users to enter key information to a document known as tagging. These tags subsequently can be indexed making document search comprehensive and easy.

9. Compliance:

Regulatory bodies often require organizations to preserve electronic business records in a secure, immutable but easily accessible manner. In order to comply with these regulations file archiving is mandatory.

10. Reduced Long Backup Times:

Backing up hundreds of gigabytes or terabytes is a big nightmare. Once ShareArchiver has reduced file server’s file data volume by its state of the art file stubbing technology data backup times are greatly reduced as a result. No longer do you need to wait for hours for a backup job to complete.

Jawad Bokhari is technology veteran currently working as CTO at ShareArchiver LTD – an emerging leader in providing effective solution to small and large enterprises for data storage, data management, addressing storage and e-discovery challenges.

Blackberry CEO to speak at GITEX 2010

49 years old Jim Balsillie, CEO of Canadian company Research In Motion(RIM), maker of the world renowned Blackberry wireless solution will be speaking at the 30th anniversary of GITEX Technology Week on October 18th. UAE is having about 500,000 Blackberry subscribers and as TRA [Telecommunications Regulatory Authority] in the UAE has mysteriously withheld the expected ban on blackberry services in the region, his presentation will be of great importance. The deal among UAE and Blackberry is still a secret as no one knows if Blackberry agreed to install a server in UAE and to give access to the personal data for national security concerns showed by the local governing bodies.

He may be unleashing the new Blackpad to the region in competition with new Tablet PCs like iPad by Apple as samsung is also looking forward to launch its Galaxy Tab.

GITEX 2010

Gitex 2010 – One of the world’s biggest IT event is about to start from 17th October 2010 at World Trade Center, Dubai . Everyone is counting days to experience the gathering of IT and Telecom titans to show the world what their fresh releases and future strategy. Like every year, many companies are waiting for this event to unveil their latest models and research projects.

Cloud computing, Voip, Gitex shopper, elite speakers and a lot more is expected to be offered on 30th anniversary of Gitex Technology Week.

Gartner, Inc. has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies. Investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up both business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile spending.

“We are highlighting these 10 mobile technologies that should be on every organization’s radar screen,” said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “These mobile technologies were selected because they will evolve in ways that affect corporate strategies, significant numbers of customers or employees will adopt or expect them, or they will address particular mobile challenges that organizations will face through 2011.”

The 10 mobile technologies to watch in 2010 and 2011 include:

Bluetooth (3 and 4)

Two new Bluetooth versions will emerge by 2011: Bluetooth 3 will introduce 802.11 as a bearer for faster data transmission, and Bluetooth 4 will introduce a new low-energy (LE) mode that will enable communication with external peripherals and sensors. Both versions will include other technical improvements to improve battery life and security. Gartner believes that Bluetooth 3 will facilitate corporate and consumer functions demanding large bandwidth (e.g., downloading images and videos from handsets). Bluetooth LE will enable a range of new sensor-based business models in industries such as fitness, healthcare and environmental control and will be used by handset and PC peripherals to enable new functions, such as PCs that autolock when users move away from them.

The Mobile Web

By 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser. In mature markets, such as Western Europe and Japan, approximately 60 percent of handsets shipped will be smartphones with sophisticated browsing capability and the ability to render conventional HTML sites in some manner. The growth in smartphones with relatively large and high-resolution screens will encourage greater numbers of people to access conventional websites on mobile devices, and will make it possible to deliver some B2C applications using conventional Web tools without adaptation. In mature markets, the mobile Web, along with associated Web adaptation tools, will be a leading technology for B2C mobile applications through 2012, and should be part of every organization’s B2C technology portfolio.

Mobile Widgets

Widgets are installable Web applications that use technologies such as JavaScript and HTML. Many handsets support widgets running on their home screens, where they are easily visible and accessible. Despite the lack of standards, widgets provide a convenient way to deliver simple, connected applications, especially those involving real-time data updates (such as weather forecasts, e-mail notifications, marketing, blogs and information feeds). Because widgets exploit well-understood tools and technologies, they have lower entry barriers than complex native applications, and thus can be a good first step to assess the demand for an application on a specific platform before undertaking expensive native development.

Platform-Independent Mobile AD Tools

Mobile platforms will become more diverse through 2012 although consolidation will not have started, and, in some markets, five or more platforms may have a significant presence. Therefore, tools that can reduce the burden of delivering installable applications to several platforms will be very attractive. Platform-independent application development (AD) tools cannot deliver a “write once, run anywhere” equivalent to native code; however, they can significantly reduce the cost of delivering and supporting multiplatform applications that provide a more sophisticated experience than the mobile Web and operate outside signal coverage.

App Stores

App stores will be the primary (and, in some cases, the only) way to distribute applications to smartphones and other mobile devices. App stores also provide a range of business support functions, such as payment processing, that assist smaller organizations. Gartner believes that app stores will play many roles in an organization’s B2C and B2E strategies. They will be a distribution channel for mobile applications and a commercial channel to sell applications and content (especially in international markets), and they will provide new options for application sourcing. Many applications will exploit ecosystem cloud services.

Enhanced Location Awareness

By the end of 2011, over 75 percent of devices shipped in mature markets will include a GPS. GPS will be the primary, but not the only, means of establishing handset location. Wi-Fi and cell ID systems will remain important in situations where GPS is unavailable or unreliable. The popularity of location-aware handsets will enable a wide range of B2E and B2C location-aware applications, and will serve as a foundation for more-sophisticated contextual applications in the future. However, organizations must be sensitive to local privacy regulations, ensure that applications that expose location are “opt in,” and remain on alert for new risks and concerns that will be raised by location awareness.

Cellular Broadband

During 2010 and 2011, the availability of multimegabit wireless broadband performance will continue to grow as mobile networks enhance their broadband performance. Continuous improvements in wireless broadband performance will increase the range of applications that no longer require fixed networking, and make cellular broadband a more effective fallback when fixed connections fail. Embedded cellular networking will become a standard feature of many corporate laptops, and will enable new types of network-connected devices and business models, such as e-books and media players.

Touchscreens

Touchscreens are emerging as the dominant user interface for large-screen handsets, and will be included in over 60 percent of mobile devices shipped in Western Europe and North America in 2011. Touch-enabled devices will also make increasing use of techniques such as haptics to enhance user experience. Organizations developing native handset applications may need to exploit single and multitouch interfaces and haptics to give their applications a compelling and competitive user experience.

M2M

Many network service providers increased their commitment to machine to machine (M2M) in 2009, so a good range of both national and multinational M2M service options will be available in mature markets during 2010 and 2011. Although the M2M market is very fragmented, it’s growing at over 30 percent per year. Low-cost M2M modules will enable a wide range of new networked devices and business models. Key applications include smart grid, meter reading, security/surveillance, automotive systems, vending and point of sale, remote monitoring, and track and trace.

Device-Independent Security

This isn’t strictly a single technology, but refers to a collection of security technologies, application technologies and sourcing options that enable the provisioning of applications that are secure, but less tightly tied to specific devices and platforms, and that, in many cases, do not require security tools to be installed on the client. It includes thin-client architectures, applications as a service, platform-independent forms of network access control (NAC), portable personality, virtualization, and hosted security services, such as “in the cloud” virus scanning. Device-independent tools cannot provide the rigor of fully installed security, but a blend of several of these tools can enable CIOs to deliver applications that can run on a wider range of devices while reducing security risks.

With names like Storage Point and Aptimize already in the market offering performance optimization for SharePoint, Sharepoint still needed a software offering features both of these have alone. Today, Alachisoft has released such a product that does both data externalization as well as content optimization alongwith strong caching features. NCachePoint is Alachisoft’s new product focusing ‘SharePoint Performence & Scalability’. 

Some of the main features of NCachePoint includes External Binary Store (EBS), content optimization, session caching and list caching. Through EBS, users can store all their content (documents/images etc.) in an external storage. Content Optimization feature allows users to reduce the payload that gets transferred over the wire in form of ASP.NET ViewState, Javascript and CSS. Session Caching reduces the load on SQL Server (Which is used by default for sessions in SharePoint). List Caching feature allows users to save the output of different lists displayed in Calander View, Gantt View, Data Sheet View or HtmlView and prevent database query that retrieves the data of list from Sql Server.

It is expected that this product will grab a major share in SharePoint performance area. NCachePoint holds a competitive edge over StoragePoint & Aptimize as it has more features than these products individually have.

NCachePoint, SharePoint performance improvement solution is available at: http://www.Alachisoft.com/ncachepoint

During 2010, TeliaSonera expects to offer its customers 4G coverage in the 25 largest municipalities in Sweden alongside the four largest municipalities in Norway, including Oslo. Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has been selected as the sole supplier of the common core network as well as providing LTE radio access.

The Nordic region has had a tradition of being at the forefront of telecommunications development. With TeliaSonera’s 4G/LTE, this region is again in the lead. TeliaSonera now offers the consumers a next generation broadband network with wireless access to interactive and capacity-demanding services such as real-time web, online gaming, social media collaboration and video conferencing.

Lars Klasson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Business Area Mobility Services at TeliaSonera, says: “We have chosen Ericsson to deliver TeliaSonera’s 4G core network and further radio network rollout in Sweden and Norway based on their high quality technology and competitive offer. Our customers are the first in the world to use commercial 4G services. The use of mobile broadband in the Nordic is exploding and we offer 4G to meet the demand for high speed and capacity”

Mikael Bäckström, President Ericsson Nordic and Baltics, says: “As we move into next generation mobile networks with increased data traffic, securing network quality will be vital. We have delivered our latest solutions and gained TeliaSonera’s confidence in our ability to provide leading technology and services. We will work just as hard to secure a smooth rollout and support TeliaSonera in introducing new consumer services.”

Supplied by Ericsson, TeliaSonera recently launched the world’s first and largest LTE service in Stockholm. Ericsson has signed commercial LTE contracts with four major operators to date, including Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS in the US, NTT DoCoMo in Japan and TeliaSonera in Sweden.

LTE, the next generation of mobile communication technology, enables the fast transfer of huge amounts of data in an efficient and cost-effective way, optimizing the use of the frequency spectrum. With increased speed and decreased latency, consumers can enjoy whatever service is available online (real-time web, online gaming, social media collaboration and video conferencing) effortlessly and while on the move. LTE will meet the demands of new and enhanced internet applications of the future.

Ericsson continues to pioneer wireless technology and is leading the development of LTE. Together with NTT DoCoMo, Ericsson initiated LTE standardization at the international standardization body 3GPP in 2004, and has made the largest amount of approved contributions to the group. Ericsson also expects to hold 25 percent of all essential patents for LTE, making it the largest patent holder in the industry.

Etisalat will use Alcatel-Lucent’s GPON platform to provide residential and business customers with simultaneous access to several high-definition (HD) TV channels and a Video on Demand (VOD) library – all while enabling them to surf the Internet up to 16 times faster.

“Etisalat is always keen to stay at the forefront of innovation in order to constantly provide our customers with the most attractive and advanced telecoms services. Etisalat’s FTTH roll-out in the UAE – branded eLife – positions Abu Dhabi to become the first capital city in the world with 100% fiber deployment by the end of this year. UAE will be one of the first countries in the world to have a nationwide fiber optics coverage by 2011,” said Essa Al Haddad, Chief Marketing Officer for Etisalat UAE.

“Through this partnership with Alcatel?Lucent, we will be able to accelerate the deployment of new and advanced service offerings that will revolutionize our customers’ triple play and home entertainment experience. Concretely, Alcatel?Lucent’s GPON platform will support the delivery of high-definition television (HDTV), video on demand, and the fastest Internet download and upload speeds,” he added.

“This contract is a key milestone for Alcatel-Lucent as it further strengthens our prominent position in the global – and UAE – FTTH market,” said Amr El Leithy, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s business in the Middle East and Africa. “We are fully committed to continue leveraging this leadership to help our customers transform their networks cost-effectively – catering to the surge of end-users’ bandwidth requirements, closely linked to today’s converged multimedia trend,” he added.

Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its 7342 Intelligent Services Access Manager Fiber-to-the-User (ISAM FTTU) GPON-based platform, and the related Alcatel-Lucent 5520 Access Management System. In addition, Alcatel-Lucent is supplying a range of optical network terminals (ONTs) to install at the end-users’ premises, and will provide Etisalat with its professional services expertise – including project management, installation, commissioning and training.

Alcatel-Lucent is the worldwide leader in the fixed broadband access market, supporting the largest mass deployments of video, voice and data services. Today, one out of three fixed broadband subscribers around the world is served through an access network provided by Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent is currently involved in over 95 FTTH projects worldwide, over 80 of which are with GPON.

Association of Physicians of Pakistani-descent of North America (APPNA), a US based professional association has expressed its willingness to support tele-medicine efforts in Pakistan. This was revealed by a visiting delegation of APPNA in Pakistan.

According to a DAWN report, Dr. Samad (President APPNA) said that his association will sponsor a team of Pakistani American physicians who will visit Pakistan on regular basis to conduct surgeries in different disciplines which will help the citizens to save the cost of expensive surgeries.

“We will also develop a medical college and a hospital in the capital city on the lines of international standards besides extending support in the field of telemedicine’s” said Dr Samad.

A delegation of senior members of the organization, comprising President APPNA – Dr Syed Samad, Dr Dawood Nasir, Dr Jameel Farooqui, Dr Farid Qazi, Dr Zahid Ashger, Dr Rao Sohail and country representative Prof Amjad Chauhdry, also called on the federal health minister Makhdoom Shahab ud Din.

More details to be available soon.