ICT

Lankan company helps Silverstone get back on track

A vibrant young Sri Lankan software house has quietly been making its mark on the international business scene, proving yet again that Sri Lanka has what it takes to compete with the best in the world.

Programus, which has more than 10 years experience developing software solutions to support niche businesses, is the company behind OPTIMO, the specialist software solution for venue and event management which helped Silverstone turn around from a 3.5 million pound loss making entity to one making a profit of 4 million in a relatively short period.

The hallowed home of the British Grand Prix now depends on OPTIMO to achieve and monitor targets and management of marketing, sales, pre event, and event day activities for all types of race meets and corporate hospitality programs.

Major and minor participative courses, product launches and conference and banqueting services at Silverstone are also managed by OPTIMO software.

Chief Solutions Officer Programus Deen Ossman said “We are extremely pleased to have been chosen by such a prestigious client in the face of intense competition. The effectiveness of our software has been amply demonstrated by Silverstone’s turnaround from a loss making entity to an extremely profitable one.

This is proof, in my view, that the young talented professionals sitting in our officers in Colombo are capable of delivering products and services that meet the demands of the most discerning clients,” Ossman said.

Says CEO Silverstone Richard Philip, “Being able to make the correct decisions based on the effective real time accurate reports of the OPTIMO solution and the stringent processes that were implemented with the help of OPTIMO to streamline our business.”

A state of the art package, OPTIMO’s advanced features include real time eagle eye view of occupancy at events, management of facilities and courses via an integrated booking system and diary modules where users can create quotations, contracts and customer service letters on the fly.

Toshiba e-Studio Solutions push MFP technology beyond limits

The e-Studio Solutions suite is a multitude of easy to use cost saving software tools that enhance the functionality of the studio hardware to highest levels of performance.

John Keells office Automation ( Pvt ) Ltd , expects these to create the next wave of high performance office applications which will revolutionise the way we work said Chandima Perera, Vice President /CEO.

Toshiba e-BRIDGE Re-Rite is a unique OCR solution that integrates with Toshiba MFPs to enable a one-touch automatic OCR and conversion of paper documents into editable digital documents that can be sent to shared network folders, email addresses or FTP sites.

Toshiba e-BRIDGE Fleet Management Software delivers centralised management on a Client-Server based software for a complete view of Counter and Status reading from Multifunction systems and printers through the network.

Completely written in Java, automatic report generation and distributed by email, it can be produced with ease from any personal computer with a web browser or on the network.

Toshiba e-BRIDGE Job Build expands the capabilities of your Toshiba e-STUDIO MFP by allowing it to combine multiple documents of various file types, paper types, and documents settings into a single print job.

Printing of multiple copies of each set is made quickly and easily. There is reduction in costs by switching between colour and black-and-white printing within the same job as needed.

Time is eliminated from sorting and hand collating. Toshiba e-BRIDGE Job Separator further enhances your Toshiba e-STUDIO MFP by allowing it to simply and easily perform batch printing from any Windows application.

It can be done by allowing the user to create multiple sets of a job, divided by a separation page. Much time could be saved from sorting large sets of documents into batches.

Toshiba e-BRIDGE ID Gate is a contactless IC card reader simply use for authentication logon process by holding an access card to tap onto the card reader.

It offers easy and security to user instantly to access the MFP without needing to remember or type any password on the MFP’s panel.

The authentication also collaborates with e-BRIDGE functions such as user counter, user log and private print.

Over 500 million new mobile subscribers expected from Asia’s emerging economies by 2012

Asia’s emerging markets, comprising eight nations, are expected to see mobile subscriber net gains of 573 million by end-2012, breaching the one billion mark to close the year at an estimated 1.06 billion subscribers.

In 2007, these emerging markets were home to some 487 million mobile users, accounting for 37.1 percent of Asia-Pacific’s total mobile subscriber base.

New analysis from Frost and Sullivan finds that the mobile services sector in eight emerging Asia-Pac countries (ex-China) earned revenues of US$33.27 billion in 2007. This is forecasted to reach a market size of US$61.35 billion by end-2013, at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 10.7 percent (2007-2013).

Growing at a CAGR of 15.1 percent (2007-2013), the mobile subscriber base is expected to hit 1.13 billion by end-2013 to account for 46 percent of Asia-Pac’s total subscribers.

Emerging markets are defined as countries with low tele-density and Internet penetration, and a sizeable population that are largely underserved or completely without telecommunication services. Countries included in this study are Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam; all with mobile penetration rates of under 50 percent.

According to Frost and Sullivan industry analyst Jeff Teh, over half of the world’s mobile networks are believed to exist in emerging markets. “Most mature markets in Europe, the Americas and even Asia are fast reaching saturation, adding fewer connections and offering fewer growth opportunities.

“As mobile operators in Asia scramble to add another staggering one billion subscribers onto their networks, Asia’s emerging nations offer the most palpable growth prospects, particularly in the rural sectors,” says Teh.

He adds that such opportunities are however not without a gamble “the inherent characteristics across these emerging markets are that they are generally lower-income hence low ARPU segments, with blended ARPU as low as US$3.90 per month in some countries, and subscribers are largely inclined towards prepaid services.

“In fact, between 86 and 97 percent of mobile users in these markets are prepaid subscribers,” Teh notes.

The challenge for mobile operators and foreign investors as such is to introduce new business models and flat-rate pricing plans to appeal to these

price-sensitive consumers. “Much of the uptake for mobile services will be limited to basic services such as voice calls and text messaging in the near term,” he says. “Apart from having to manage the typical regulatory issues and service affordability, operators face a further uphill task of extending network connectivity well into the rural districts while managing operational and capital expenditure in a cost-effective way to maintain healthy profit margins,” Teh adds.

An upside for mobile operators however is that fixed-mobile substitution is a distinct phenomenon in these countries, given that it is more cost-effective to erect cellular towers than to lay fibre-optic cables to install landlines.

“Competition from fixed-line services therefore is almost non-existent,” Teh says, adding that despite this, competition amongst mobile operators is rife.

“In most of the emerging nations, there are more than five active mobile service providers in any given market,” observes Teh. “Over time however, we expect market consolidation as mobile penetration rates increase and sustaining operations prove tricky for the smaller operators.”

To drive the adoption of mobile services among rural communities, some countries have rolled-out initiatives such as village phones, transmission tower-sharing among operators, as well as linking communities with mobile services to facilitate access and payments.

Teh believes that such innovation is necessary to achieve the connectivity vision, as wireless technologies will enable Internet access in these areas “one of the most compelling features of wireless networks in emerging markets is the ability to provide a faster and cheaper alternative to desktop computers for accessing the world wide web, especially considering the lack of fixed-line infrastructure and power sources.

“Some tariff plans such as getting paid to receive calls are risky, although revolutionary, and will only be possible when mobile advertising takes off in a big way,” he says. “But for now it remains a game of managing risks for potential high returns.”