Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Windows Embedded

Windows XP Embedded, or XPe, is the componentized version of Microsoft Windows XP Professional and the successor to Windows NT 4.0 Embedded. XPe is based on the same binaries as XP Professional, but XPe is marketed towards developers for OEMs, ISVs and IHVs that want the full Win32 API support of Windows but without the overhead of Professional. It runs existing Windows applications and device drivers off-the-shelf on devices with at least 32MB Compact Flash, 32MB RAM and a P-200 microprocessor. XPe was released on November 28, 2001. As of February 2007, the newest release is Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007.

XPe is not related to Windows CE. They target different devices and they each have their pros and cons which make them attractive to different OEMs for different types of devices. For instance, XPe will never get down to the small footprint that CE works in. However, CE does not have the Win32 APIs XPe has (although CE has an API that is similar to the Win32 API), nor can it run the tens of thousands of drivers and applications that already exist.

IBM BladeCenter

Highlights

  • Pre-configured and optimized JS21 blade server with fast memory and lots of storage


  • Combines deployment flexibility of IBM BladeCenter® with ease of management


  • Takes advantage of virtualization technologies to help increase utilization and decrease costs

For success in today’s demanding marketplace, small businesses require leadership price/performance to manage their bottom line. But competing against larger companies also requires an investment in technology and innovation that has to be justifiable from day one. For high performance computing (HPC) applications such as life and earth sciences research, computer-aided engineering or business intelligence grids as well as a variety of commercial applications such as Web serving, server consolidation and retail environments, it takes more than just the claim of innovation to deliver real value.

The IBM BladeCenter JS21 Express blade server, a feature-rich, pre-configured blade, is the answer to meet the stringent requirements of small businesses for advanced technology at a very attractive price. The JS21 Express delivers many leading-edge technologies—support for the IBM AIX® and Linux® operating systems, IBM Advanced POWER™ Virtualization (APV) and AltiVec™ SIMD acceleration functionality—in a single, highly reliable, high-performance, yet cost-efficient blade server.

Specifically, the BladeCenter JS21 Express blade provides:

Common features Hardware summary
  • Single-wide blade server compatible with any BladeCenter family chassis
  • Single-core or dual-core SMP scalability
  • 64-bit IBM PowerPC 970MP with AltiVec SIMD accelerator
  • Advanced POWER Virtualization including support for Virtual LAN, POWER Hypervisor, IBM Micro-Partitioning™ (up to 40 partitions per blade), Shared processor pool, Virtual I/O Server and Integrated Virtualization Manager
  • IBM Director industry-leading systems management software
  • 2-socket single-core: 2.7 GHz1, 1 MB L2 Cache, with 2 GB 533 MHz memory standard (2 x 1 GB DIMMs)
  • 2-socket dual-core: 2.5 GHz1, 2x1 MB L2 Cache, with 4 GB 533 MHz memory standard (2 x 2 GB DIMMs)
  • 16 GB maximum memory in four DIMM slots
  • High-performance DDR2 SDRAM running at 533 MHz
  • Integrated SAS Controller plus RAID-0/1 Mirroring
  • Up to two 2.5" 10 K Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives supporting up to 219 GB maximum internal storage, one 73 GB hard drive standard
  • Integrated Broadcom 5780 controller supporting 17X PCI Express connector and Dual Gigabit Ethernet
  • Integrated systems management including Serial over LAN support via Ethernet
  • Enterprise reliability with light path diagnostics, IBM Predictive Failure Analysis®, ECC and IBM Chipkill™ memory
  • Support for Calibrated Vector Cooling and IBM PowerExecutive™ to monitor power and maintain optimum cooling

Microsoft Unveils VoIP Solution as Part of Desktop Communications

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 11, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today opened a private beta of its new enterprise voice communications server, Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007, to 2,500 IT professionals. Office Communications Server 2007 allows companies to integrate voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology into existing telephony infrastructure, eliminating the need for expensive network overhauls and also extending the useful life of existing investments. The new voice server will also allow workers to instantly launch a phone call from 2007 Microsoft Office applications, such as Office Word 2007, Office Outlook® 2007 or Office Communicator, by simply clicking on a colleague’s name to determine his or her availability and initiate a person-to-person or multiparty call.

With native support for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator, part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, interoperate with products from industry partners including Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., LG-Nortel Co. Ltd., Mitel Networks Corp., NEC Philips Unified Solutions, Polycom Inc. and Siemens Communications Inc. Through these relationships, customers worldwide will be able to support VoIP using their existing desktop phones, data networks and time division multiplexing (TDM) or Internet protocol (IP) private branch exchanges (PBXs). Customers will also able to leverage the softphone capabilities of Office Communicator to make and receive phone calls from their PCs, eliminating the need to purchase expensive IP-compatible phones.

“The convergence of telecom and data networks is happening rapidly. Software will integrate these two worlds, enabling IT managers to deliver new communications possibilities that include VoIP,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. “With this open architecture and broad interoperability, Office Communications Server 2007 will give IT managers the flexibility to determine when and how and in what way they move their communications infrastructure forward.”

Microsoft is bringing the pace of software innovation to communications to deliver a people-centric experience. According to a recent Gartner Inc. report, “The ultimate driver of VoIP is not merely cost savings, but is in business process integration. Enterprises should evaluate their long-term strategy toward developing IP telephony applications beyond basic telephony, including business application integration.”1

In conjunction with opening the private beta, Microsoft is hosting a Technology Adoption Program (TAP) Summit this week. Approximately 250 representatives from nearly 100 enterprises will participate in the weeklong event. Attendees represent enterprise IT departments that serve more than 7 million information workers worldwide. The event will kick off with a keynote address by Microsoft Corporate Vice President Gurdeep Singh Pall and includes a showcase of partner solutions, including a demonstration of Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA) scenarios incorporating Microsoft unified communications software and the Nortel Communications Server 1000 IP-PBX.

Office Communications Server 2007, the successor to Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005, is part of Microsoft’s unified communications portfolio. Companies using Office Communications Server 2007 can deploy enterprisewide presence; enable security-enhanced enterprise instant messaging; host on-premise audio, video and Web conferences; and deploy VoIP capabilities. Some of the capabilities available in the private beta of Office Communications Server 2007 are placing and receiving voice calls; advanced call routing; streamlined integration with the new unified messaging capabilities in Exchange Server 2007; multiparty conferencing; call holding, forwarding and transferring; and compliance capabilities, all while working in concert with existing telephony infrastructure.

Office Communications Server 2007 can be deployed with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, a cornerstone of Microsoft’s unified communications portfolio. Exchange Server 2007 complements the voice capabilities of Office Communications Server 2007 with a built-in auto-attendant for answering and routing inbound voice calls as well as unified messaging that unifies voice mail and e-mail in a single inbox. Exchange Server is available for evaluation at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/eval.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Oracle Fusion Middleware

Oracle Fusion Middleware is a portfolio of standards-based software products, produced by Oracle, that spans multiple services, including J2EE and developer tools, integration services, business intelligence, collaboration, and content management. Many of the products included under the Oracle Fusion Middleware banner are not themselves middleware products, Fusion Middleware essentially being a rebranding of many of Oracle's products outside of their core database and applications software offerings. According to Oracle, 30,000 organizations are current Fusion Middleware customers.

Oracle Fusion Middleware is designed to support development, deployment, and management of Service-Oriented Architecture. It includes what Oracle calls "Hot-Pluggable" architecture, which allows users to leverage existing investments in applications and systems from other software vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, and SAP AG. Oracle will also leverage what is called configurable network computing, (CNC) techology that it got from its combined PeopleSoft and JDEdwards acquisition in 2005.

Oracle Fusion Middleware Components

* Enterprise Application Server
o Oracle Application Server
* Integration & Process Management
o BPEL Process Manager
o Business Activity Monitoring
o Business Rules
o Enterprise Connectivity (Adapters)
o Enterprise Messaging Service
o Enterprise Service Bus
o Integration B2B
o Service Registry
o Web Services Manager
* Development Tools
o Application Development Framework
o JDeveloper
o SOA Suite
o TopLink
o Forms Services
o Developer Suite
* Business Intelligence
o Business Intelligence 10g
o Business Activity Monitoring
o Discoverer
o Data Hubs
o BI Publisher
o Reports Services
* Systems Management
o Enterprise Manager 10g
o Web Services Manager
* User Interaction
o Collaboration Suite
o Portal
o Oracle Webcenter
o Real-Time Collaboration
o Unified Messaging
o Workspaces
* Identity management
o Identity Management
o Enterprise Single sign-on
o Identity Manager
o Access Manager
* Grid Infrastructure
o Services Registry
o Application Server Security

IT Portfolio management

IT portfolio management is the application of systematic management to large classes of items managed by enterprise Information Technology (IT) capabilities. Examples of IT portfolios would be planned initiatives, projects, and ongoing IT services (such as application support). The promise of IT portfolio management is the quantification of previously mysterious IT efforts, enabling measurement and objective evaluation of investment scenarios.

Debates exist on the best way to measure value of IT investment. As pointed out by Jeffery and Leliveld (2004) [1], companies have spent billions of dollars into IT investment and yet the headlines of mis-spent money are not uncommon. Nicholas Carr (2003) has caused significant controversy in IT industry and academia by positioning IT as an expense similar to utilities such as electricity.

IT portfolio management started with a project-centric bias, but is evolving to include steady-state portfolio entries such as application maintenance and support, which consume the bulk of IT spending. The challenge for including application maintenance and support in portfolios is that IT budgets tend not to track these efforts at a sufficient level of granularity for effective financial tracking.[2]

The concept is analogous to financial portfolio management, but there are significant differences. IT investments are not liquid, like stocks and bonds (although investment portfolios may also include illiquid assets), and are measured using both financial and non-financial yardsticks (for example, a balanced scorecard approach); a purely financial view is not sufficient.

Financial portfolio assets typically have consistent measurement information (enabling accurate and objective comparisons), and this is at the base of the concept’s usefulness in application to IT. However, achieving such universality of measurement is going to take considerable effort in the IT industry.

Blue Chip and Par Value

A blue chip stock is the stock of a well-established company having stable earnings and no extensive liabilities. The term derives from casinos, where blue chips stand for counters of the highest value. Most blue chip stocks pay regular dividends, even when business is faring worse than usual.

Par value is a nominal value of a security which is determined by an issuer company at a minimum price. Par value of an equity (a stock) is a somewhat archaic concept. The par value of a stock was the share price upon initial offering; the issuing company promised not to issue further shares below par value, so investors could be confident that no one else was receiving a more favorable issue price. This was far more important in unregulated equity markets than in the regulated markets that exist today.

Most common stocks issued today do not have par values; those that do (usually only in jurisdictions where par values are required by law) have extremely low par values (often the smallest unit of currency commonly used), for example a penny par value on a stock issued at USD$25/share. Most states do not allow a company to issue stock below par value.

No-par stocks have no par value printed on its certificates. Instead of par value, some U.S. states allow no-par stocks to have a stated value, set by the board of directors of the corporation, which serves the same purpose as par value in setting the minimum legal capital that the corporation must have after paying any dividends or buying back its stock.

NASDAQ

The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange. It is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the United States. With approximately 3,200 companies, it lists more companies and on average trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market.[1]

It was founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), who divested themselves of it in a series of sales in 2000 and 2001. It is owned and operated by The NASDAQ Stock Market, the stock of which was listed on its own stock exchange in 2002, and is monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

With the impending purchase of the Nordic-based operated exchange OMX, following its agreement with Borse Dubai, NASDAQ is poised to capture 47% of the controlling stake in the aforementioned exchange, thereby inching ever closer to taking over the company and creating a trans-atlantic powerhouse.

Quad-core for servers

Second-generation Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5400 series with 45nm quad-core technology offers you greater energy efficiency and the multitasking performance necessary to maximize your virtualization efforts with proven reliability.

Now you can run your high performing infrastructure applications on the ultimate solution for cooling and density challenges-all on the world's most popular server platform.

View the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5400 series

Offers second generation quad-core using 45nm technology with up to 3.16GHz and large 12MB L2 cache. Boost performance by up to 25 percent¹ in existing platforms using the same technologies, software and socket compatibility. Now with Intel® VT FlexMigration, your server virtualization farm can get the benefits of 5400 series performance with live VM migration to select existing and all future Intel Xeon processors.

View the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series

Offers breakthrough performance, helps control operating costs, and alleviates datacenter cooling requirements. The 5300 series provides up to 1.5x performance boost over previous generation dual-core.² Now you can manage multiple servers as a single pool of resources with the most headroom and performance of any Intel two-processor general-purpose server.

View the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 7300 series

Offers leading scalable performance and best-in-class virtualization for server consolidation. The 7300 series provides huge leaps over previous generation dual-core: up to 2x scalable performance, 2.5x the virtualization performance boost³ and 3x greater performance per watt.◊

INTRODUCING THE POWEREDGE R900 - DELL

Introducing Dell ProSupport


Professional, proactive and proven support services designed to address the technology challenges you face today.

Dell ProSupport starts with the Dell ProSupport for IT service model designed for IT professionals like you. Dell ProSupport for IT provides:
  • 7x24 Direct access to Dell Expert Centers
  • Fast-track dispatch for Dell-certified technicians
  • Escalation management through Dell’s Global Command Centers
Next, Dell ProSupport Options align to the way you use technology – rapidly responding to your needs, protecting your investment, your productivity and your sensitive data, and providing enhanced proactive support services to help reduce the risk and complexity of managing your infrastructure.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Information Technology

Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information.

Today, the term information technology has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term is more recognizable than ever before. The information technology umbrella can be quite large, covering many fields. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems. When computer and communications technologies are combined, the result is information technology, or "infotech". Information Technology (IT) is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information.

Corporate Finance

Corporate finance is an area of finance dealing with the financial decisions corporations make and the tools and analysis used to make these decisions. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize corporate value while reducing the firm's financial risks. Although it is in principle different from managerial finance which studies the financial decisions of all firms, rather than corporations alone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms.

The discipline can be divided into long-term and short-term decisions and techniques. Capital investment decisions are long-term choices about which projects receive investment, whether to finance that investment with equity or debt, and when or whether to pay dividends to shareholders. On the other hand, the short term decisions can be grouped under the heading "Working capital management". This subject deals with the short-term balance of current assets and current liabilities; the focus here is on managing cash, inventories, and short-term borrowing and lending (such as the terms on credit extended to customers).

The terms Corporate finance and Corporate financier are also associated with investment banking. The typical role of an investment banker is to evaluate investment projects for a bank to make investment decisions.

Managerial Finance

Managerial finance is the branch of finance that concerns itself with the managerial significance of finance techniques. It is focused on assessment rather than technique.

The difference between a managerial and a technical approach can be seen in the questions one might ask of annual reports. One concerned with technique would be primarily interested in measurement. They would ask: are moneys being assigned to the right categories? Were generally accepted accounting principles GAAP followed?

One concerned with management though would want to know what the figures mean.

* They might compare the returns to other businesses in their industry and ask: are we performing better or worse than our peers? If so, what is the source of the problem? Do we have the same profit margins? If not why? Do we have the same expenses? Are we paying more for something than our peers?
* They may look at changes in asset balances looking for red flags that indicate problems with bill collection or bad debt.
* They will analyze working capital to anticipate future cash flow problems.

Managerial finance is an interdisciplinary approach that borrows from both managerial accounting and corporate finance.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

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