Sun Microsystems unveils Open Solaris    
May 7, 2008
Source: Google

Sun Microsystems on Monday unveiled a new open-source version of its Solaris operating system, ahead of one of the largest global conclave of developers here––JavaOne. The company hopes that the new version will be extensively used in web-based applications. 

The announcement was made at the CommunityOne conference which was attended by developers from all over the world, including many from India. The discussions focussed largely on open-source projects and the future of technologies related to it. 

Sun Microsystems which is organsing the JavaOne that kick-starts Tuesday organises CommunityOne to reach out to new developer audiences. 

The conference is seen as part of a larger business strategy for Sun, which has embraced the concept of making source code available for programmers around the world to use, adapt and improve upon rather than keeping it a proprietary secret. 

“The idea is to open up the tent flap and let the people in,” said Sun vice-president for developer and community marketing Ian Murdock. 

Microsoft unveils $147 mn investment plan in SKorea 
May 7 , 2008 
SOURCE: TNN

Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday unveiled a plan to invest 147 million dollars in South Korea over five years to strengthen his company's presence here, officials said. Gates promised to invest the sum in the auto, education and other fields during talks with President Lee Myung-Bak, the president's office said in a statement. 

He also said Microsoft would strengthen its partnership with South Korea's government and enterprises, describing South Korea as a crucial business partner, it said. Gates, who is in Seoul to attend the annual Seoul Digital Forum, agreed to act as one of Lee's global advisers, the office said. 

Earlier Tuesday Microsoft and South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor agreed to set up a strategic alliance and to jointly establish an auto IT innovation centre. 

Over the next five years, Hyundai said it would invest a total of 166 million dollars in the centre while Microsoft will invest 113 million dollars. As part of the deal, Microsoft and Hyundai will jointly develop a new in-vehicle music and entertainment system. 

"Another new development is a games development center to take some unique work here and adopt it to the 360 global market," Gates told reporters after dinner with Lee. 

Wipro rejigs biz, forms global team    
May 7, 2008 
SOURCE: REUTERS

Software giant Wipro is in a rejig mode. The company, which also has interests in consumer care products, lighting and infrastructure engineering, is forming a group that will work across the three businesses focusing on new initiatives in these areas. Called the Global Program Team, it is headed T K Kurien, who was until recently at the helm of its BPO services. 

Kurien’s move to the new role coincides with that of Sudip Banerjee’s appointment to head Azim Premji’s billion-dollar personal corpus, and that of Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe as joint CEOs. Kurien is credited with making the BPO arm, which was largely a voice-play when it acquired Spectramind, into more of a value-added services player. After Raman Roy, the founder of Spectramind, moved out of Wipro BPO, Kurien has been heading the BPO services that is growing at an annual rate of about 22 per cent. 

Wipro has made a few more changes in its business structure. The management team consisting of AL Rao, PR Chandrasekar, Sudip Nandy, Vaswani, Paranjpe, and Banerjee has been dismantled and the 
business units will report to the joint CEOs. The new structure will have five industry-specific business units (BUs) and five technology units. 

The industry-specific BUs are --manufacturing and health care, energy and utilities, retail and transportation services, communication, media and technology, and financial services. 

The technology units will be -- BPO, testing, infrastructure management, enterprise application services and product engineering services. 

A few business units have been re-grouped. For example, the technology business unit handled by Sudip Nandy will now also have communication and media. Manufacturing, retail, energy and utilities 
that used to come under enterprise business reporting to Sudip Banerjee has now been broken and re-grouped. 

Some like the product engineering services have increased their scope from working for only technology firms to now working across all industries including those such as health care and manufacturing.