Business ICT

SAP solutions for enterprise resource planning

Shanaaz Carina in Mumbai

"We are adopting SAP Retail Solutions for the super market chain as well as upgrading the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for a broader function in the super markets" said Chief Information Officer (CIO) of JKH Ramesh Shanmuganathan at the SAP Summit.

Speaking at the Successful Business Intelligence programme (BI), he said "We had a five year plan since 2004 to implement SAP governance, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Supplier Relation Management (SRM) and Risk and Compliance (GRC) by 2009, and we want to implement more software solutions within the country."

"It is all about finding the right partner with a correct attitude with a committed team and identifying stakeholders", he said.

He added that the Key Performance Indicators have to be defined clearly which is a critical aspect. "In our company we mainly use BI because it gives us different information required by different users", he said.

JKH began its implementation of SAP in 2003 with SAP Financials and is currently using SAP NetWeaver BI 7.0.

"IT plays a major role around the world. We need IT to create business value and to increase the impact of a business. JKH has 70 businesses in different sectors and we manage them all by the advanced new technology we have with us", Shanmuganathan said.

He further said that JKH is embracing the Corporate Planning Management (CPM) to bring the ultimate visibility through a balanced scorecard, planning and budgeting and business consolidation in the future.

IT manager of MAS Holdings Ransith Fernando said at the SAP summit, "MAS has eight live SAP systems and NetWeaver enables the company to consolidate by using the difference of Master Data Management (MDM).

We are planning to explore the possibility of securing all the live eight SAP systems into one SAP system at MAS Holdings. MAS has an estimated purchasing budget of US$300 million and this is without the company transactions. And eight to twelve per cent savings can be achieved from purchasing by spend analysis."

He further mentioned that MDM allows extractions of suppliers codes, consolidation and clean up within MDM. And also it allows integration within SAP and out of SAP. He noted that they concentrate only on the external partners and not the internal ones. MAS Holdings next step is to reduce the supplier codes and to consolidate the top three suppliers, he said.

"We could earn a bottom line benefit of US$ 15 million if a five per cent of down pricing could be negotiated from suppliers. And this is something every company could do and I would say what we should do." He mentioned that MAS Holdings has commenced a reduplication of data and it has to be in a more higher level of consideration.

Fernando mentioned that they have trained their team members on the MDM system so that they could ensure the company will be benefited by the system. "We are also planning on using more SAP systems that will benefit all our customers in the future.

Our turnover for 2007 was US$ 700 million and by using SAP systems we intend to have a better turnover by the end of 2008", he further added.

#############################

Apache Xerces open source software

The University of Moratuwa became the number one university worldwide to have the most number of projects accepted to the Google Summer of Code programme this year. Twenty four student projects have been accepted for the programme placing Sri Lanka among the top ten who submitted the most number of applications.

The Computer Science and Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering received 18 projects from the total of 24 accepted projects with the other six projects from other departments of the Faculty of Engineering and the Information Technology under the guidance of Lecturer and the Founder of the Lanka Software Foundation, Dr Sanjeeva Weerawarna, visiting lecturer.

Hiranya Jayathilaka is a final year undergraduate at University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka doing a major in Computer Science and Engineering degree. He is very passionate about open source software and very competent in technologies like Java, PHP and Web services.

He has also made a few contributions to the Apache Web services project, Apache Synapse project and WSO2 ESB project. Recently the Apache Synapse community granted him committership considering his contributions to the Apache Synapse project.

He believes that implementing type alternatives for Xerces2/J will be a golden opportunity to contribute to a world renowned open source project and has sent his report to the Daily News.

Over the last decade XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has become a powerful medium for storing, exchanging and transforming data for software applications. ' Today, XML is being used in a variety of software applications, as a means of storing application configurations, as a means of establishing communication among different software agents and even as a way of taking input for computations.

Some of the modern software engineering paradigms such as the Web services technology are heavily dependent on XML for the most part if not entirely. Due to the immense popularity of XML, XML parsers have become a very important class of software applications.

XML parsers provide the necessary means for applications to access the data in an XML document and manipulate them. For an application to be able to read and understand the content of an XML document it must make use of an XML parser.

Apache Xerces2/J is a high-performance, standard complaint, open source XML parser developed in Java programming language. It is almost a complete rewrite of the Xerces 1.x code base, aimed at making it more modular and more maintainable.

The code base which formed the foundation of the Xerces project was initially developed by IBM and donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 1999. It was considered a subproject under the Apache XML project until 2004. Today, Apache Xerces is a top level project of its own right and Xerces2/J is probably the most popular Java XML parser in the world.

It is being used in a large number of open source and proprietary software projects as the primary mechanism for handling XML. Recently, Xerces2/J became a part of the popular Sun Microsystem's Java development kit (JDK) as well.

Apache Xerces2/J supports a number of XML and XML related standards. Currently Xerces2/J has support for XML 1.0, XML 1.1, DOM (Document Object Model), SAX (Simple API for XML), JAXP (Java APIs for XML Processing) and XML schema 1.0.

The popularity of Apache Xerces2/J is partly due to its ability to support such a large number of standards. In addition to simply reading XML off XML documents, Apache Xerces2/J supports a few advanced features such as XML validation and schema validation.

XML schema is the standard language used to describe the structure and content of XML documents in a manner that software can understand. W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recently released a new version of the XML schema specification called XML schema 1.1. Apache Xerces community is currently engaged in getting Xerces2/J to support this new version of the specification.

However the XML schema 1.1 specification introduces some new concepts which were not present in the previous version of the specification. XML schema type alternatives is one such new addition. 'Type alternatives' is a well organized mechanism for implementing 'conditional type assignment', a feature which has been in the XML schema feature wish lists for years.

Conditional type assignment is a powerful tool for writing more generalised and flexible XML schema documents. Therefore the Xerces2/J community realised the importance of adding this feature to Apache Xerces2/J.

The opportunity of implementing type alternatives for Xerces2/J was opened up for students world wide via this year's Google Summer of Code programme. The project is mentored and supervised by Khaled Knoaman of IBM who is also an active figure in the Xerces community.

Implementing type alternatives for Xerces2/J would be a fairly difficult task since the infrastructure required is currently not in place. Most of the things will have to be developed from scratch.

A type alternatives implementation will depend on a bare minimal implementation of the XPath 2.0 language, which is something that is not currently available in the Xerces2/J code base.

E-Mail: [email protected], [email protected]

####################################

ASUS Lamborghini VX3 in Sri Lanka

EPSI Computers announces the introduction of the ASUS Lamborghini VX3 Crafted with exquisite materials, Sapphire, Crystal, Titanium and Genuine Leather.

ASUS has unveiled the very exquisite ASUS Lamborghini VX3 Notebook. This limited edition range is the ultimate in style and is developed keeping in mind the aesthetics and performance of the Lamborghini race car.

Group Product Manager - Epsi Computers Sankha Jayaratne stated that "For most, it's enough to live in luxury but for the Lamborghini VX3 owner, luxury is nothing if it isn't driven by passion farther, faster and fiercer than anything else, in the very finest fashion.

Sankha also said "The launch of the Lamborghini VX3 notebook, marks ASUS' entry into the ultra premium segment and we are most pleased to be associated with a world class brand like Lamborghini and offer such exquisite products to an ever growing Market.

From look and feel to processing powers under the hood, the VX3 carries all the distinguished traits of the ASUS-Lamborghini VX notebook series. At 12.1" wide screen, the VX3 is built to be an agile computing machine on the go. Based on Intel's next generation Penryn-based Core 2 Duo CPU and manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, the VX3 performs with better performance and battery life.

A built-in high-resolution webcam on top of the screen complements a sapphire crystal panel which is further complemented by the titanium alloy hinge backbone. The two precious materials on both ends of the LCD cover together with the premium leather-bound palm rest; the VX3 exudes luxury with an interplay of warmth and cool high-tech aesthetic that mirrors the principle of perfection attained from visual and tactile balance.

#################################

iPhone 2.0 takes on the World

As Apple unveiled the next version of its iPhone on yesterday. Fans will be focused on how much better the new device is than its predecessor. It will likely be able to run on speedier wireless networks, it may boast improved navigation services, and it's expected to support a batch of new software tools and features made by third-party developers.

But amid the speculation around what the new device may or may not do, it's easy to lose sight of a theme central to Apple's larger strategic objectives. The new version of the iPhone will do more than perhaps any other device in history to fuel Apple's ability to reach international markets.

Until now, Apple (AAPL) has officially launched the iPhone in only six countries: the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Ireland. But Apple's recent agreements with wireless carriers around the globe will bring the iPhone into an additional 64 countries by the end of the year. The two latest deals, announced June 4, are with Telef›nica (TEF) in Spain and Softbank in Japan (BusinessWeek.com, 6/5/08).

The first iPhone has catapulted Apple into the lucrative U.S. market for so-called smartphones, which handle an array of advanced services including Web surfing and e-mail.

Market research firm IDC pegs Apple's share of the U.S. market for smart wireless phones at 19%, behind Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry, which has a 44% share, and ahead of Palm's (PALM) 13% share.

When it last disclosed sales, Apple had sold 4 million iPhones globally, and analysts expect the company will report sales of about 1.5 million to 1.7 million iPhones in the quarter that ends on June 30. Apple's goal is to have sold 10 million units by the end of 2008.

By enabling the iPhone to run on so-called third-generation, or 3G, networks, Apple makes the device more appealing to a global wireless customer. Within months, the phone will be officially available in key European markets like Italy, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries. Countries as varied as Australia and Uruguay are also on the docket.

Some analysts say Apple may sell 40 million or more iPhones by the end of 2009. If that prediction pans out, iPhones will outnumber BlackBerry devices, even if RIM sells the handsets at an accelerated pace. RIM had 14 million subscribers at last count and added 6 million in fiscal 2008.

That track record would make the iPhone the most successful single product in Apple's history, based on adoption rates. It took the vaunted iPod four years to break the 20-million-unit mark.

The iPhone stands to make Apple a more global player. In each of its last three fiscal years, sales to the Americas accounted for about 48% of the total, while Europe accounted for about 22%. "Apple must do three things if it is to be successful internationally," says Neil Mawston, an analyst with Strategy Analytics in Britain.

"Expand its brand, expand its product portfolio, and broaden its international footprint."

Of course, Apple needs to do more than just make the iPhone available in more places. The iPod is still bought mainly in the U.S. According to Mawston, 60% to 70% of iPods have been sold through Apple-owned retail stores, and 70% to 80% of those are in the U.S.

The good news for Apple is that there's already demand for the iPhone in countries where it's not yet officially available.

#################################

Prolink launches new web camera

Sala Enterprises is introducing yet another of its latest additions to the Prolink range of web cameras. The PCC5020, enables you to use all major communication tools such as SKYPE, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

One of its features is an infra-red night vision element that is useful to users who are seeking a web based security camera or video conferencing. Remotely monitoring home or office in any light condition is possible.

The PCC5020, glossy black, 5 megapixel device has a resolution rating of 1.3 megapixels with image sizes of 2592 x 1944 pixels.

This camera uses an ultra wide angle lens that offers up to 71 viewing angles and its clear high quality pictures offers a better online communication experience.

For that near darkness teleconferencing, the PCC5020 comes with two super bright LED lights. This fuss-free, plug and play, sleek camera with it's built in microphone, sits easily on laptop or monitor.

Prolink is a leading brand in Asia for high quality computer and communication peripherals. Sala Enterprises who represents many world renown IT brands are the sole agents for Prolink range of products in Sri Lanka.