If you are looing for the best antivirus software wich costs less and easy to install BitDefender is the right choice. Not only does it protect your computer and files, but BitDefender is easy to use, light on your computer and, maybe most importantly, light on your pocketbook.

No matter how technically capable any piece of software may be, the productivity enhancement it offers is only effective if people use it. This is especially true in antivirus software. The primary reasons people fail to protect their computers from a variety of malware are the cost and the 'burden' of installing and maintaining antivirus software. The best protection in the world is worthless if people find it cumbersome and distracting to use.

The same holds true for price. This is the beauty of BitDefender: It provides comprehensive protection, takes up little space on your computer, costs less and requires little maintenance.

The price us $24.95.

As more and more enterprises and ISVs seek additional ways to leverage virtualization technology, virtual lab automation (VLA) has emerged as an innovative solution for streamlining software development and automating the entire development and test environment setup while utilizing existing server virtualization infrastructure. Additionally, VLA improves resource utilization and efficiency while pushing products to market faster. This presentation will review the virtual test and development infrastructure and provide best practice recommendations for how VLA can add significant value to developers, testers and IT operations staff and help drive business growth and employee productivity.

3rd International "Virtualization Conference & Expo" Call for Papers
Virtualization, the hottest subject of in all IT right now, will be center stage in 2008. Key opinion-formers in the field of infrastructure and pioneers of virtualization technologies of all types have already begun submitting speaking proposals to Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East, being held in New York City, June 23-24, 2008. Topics covered will range from Application Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Network Virtualization, Server Virtualization, and Storage Virtualization, to Virtual Machine Automation, Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration, Management Applications, Tools and Utilities, and Virtualization Scripts and Procedures.

Topics will include:

• Server Virtualization
• Desktop Virtualization
• File Virtualization
• The Future of the Virtual Enterprise
• Hosted Virtualization
• Para-virtualization
• Virtualization Hardware Support
• Hardware-level Virtualization
• Storage Virtualization
• Virtualization for Server Consolidation and Containment
• Windows Virtualization
• Utility Computing
• State of the Virtualization Services Market

 

“The issue of immigration is receiving much attention among the candidates, but the sub-issues of offshore outsourcing and the use of visas for highly-skilled workers have received very little attention,” he observes, during the course of a recent interaction with eWorld.

“While an economic downturn could change the climate for offshoring, so far the issue has been less controversial than in the past presidential election cycle,” adds Marc, stirring up a south Indian coffee that caps an uncomplicated vegetarian meal we have together.

Hebert, an expert on offshore outsourcing who has authored many publications and given dozens of invited presentations on the subject to a variety of audiences, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in experimental psychology from Harvard University, and an MBA from Stanford University. He is responsible for corporate strategy, positioning, branding, public relations, analyst relations and lead generation programmes. He also drives alliance relationships for the company and heads its West Coast operations.

Our lunch had started off with a question on a personal note, asking Hebert if his grounding in experimental psychology came handy in the marketing role he now donned. “When I entered my business career, I made a fortunate discovery,” he began.

“The principles of organisational behaviour that global businesses employ in managing their employees are founded on behavioural psychology, the branch of psychology popularised by B.F. Skinner, who headed the Experimental Psychology department for many years at Harvard,” he elaborated.

“It turns out that my psychology grounding prepared me well for a career in business management, and I have had the chance to participate in building several management development programmes in my career, including at Oracle, using my behavioural psychology background.”

Hebert is happy that he has carried these concepts and experience with him into his marketing roles. “It helps me every day in how I build the culture in my team and how I manage my people in the global model across cultures. It also helps me understand how our clients think and why they buy from us.”

Perhaps Hebert also understands how journalists think and work. Which explains why, on his way to Sri Lanka that evening, he catches up with a blog post to give his comments on the latest numbers about US GDP growth, the recession fears and so on. We follow up our conversation over e-mail.

Excerpts from the interview.

What is your offshore-onsite mix? Also, what is the geographical split of your clientele?

We manage our service delivery mix with 20 per cent or less of our work performed on-site at our client locations and 80 per cent or more of our work done in offshore centres.

Our 20/80 on-site/offshore service delivery model is a direct result of our collaborative processes and our ability to apply high performance global teams across all services we provide.

We have operated with a 20/80 or better on-site/offshore ratio for the past five years, and believe that this service delivery mix provides our clients with a cost and time advantage relative to our peers.

Europe represented 31 per cent of revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2008, with North America accounting for the remaining 69 per cent.

How do you differentiate yourself from other tier-two IT (information technology) companies?

We differentiate ourselves in several key ways, including our consultative platforming approach, our industry expertise in financial services, communications and technology, and media and information, and our enhanced global delivery model.

Through our approach, we help our clients identify and implement efficiencies, whether they be through our technology consulting, systems implementation, or application outsourcing services.

While this approach applies across all services we provide, let me give you an example using application outsourcing. With such clients, we look for commonalities across existing applications with an eye towards consolidating common technology and common business strategies into reusable, plan-specific software frameworks and platforms.

This results in significant business benefit for our clients, including reducing their total cost of ownership, accelerating the launch of new products and services to market, and improving their end customer experience. We apply these same principles across consulting and systems implementation. This approach helps us differentiate and establish thought leadership, continually provide more value than the inherent cost arbitrage benefits of global delivery and gives us the opportunity to build long-term, strategic relationships with our clients.

We believe the combination of our consultative platforming approach, enhanced global delivery model, and industry expertise provides significant incremental value. Our largest client, and a strong example of this value creation at work, is British Telecom. We started working with British Telecom over three years ago and our relationship has steadily grown. This past spring, BT signed a five-year, $200 million strategic IT services agreement with Virtusa.

When will there be clarity in the IT budgets of US companies, especially among the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) clients? Your outlook for 2008.

We have seen strong growth in our financial services practice, where we saw double-digit growth both in our first and second fiscal quarters. (We do not publicly discuss our own business outlook except during our earnings announcements.)

With respect to IT budgets, we continue to see strong demand for offshore services, especially for engagements relating to improving productivity and cutting costs. And, we have a track record of service excellence in all of our clients that has led to and continues to lead to expansion of our existing account base.

The research analysts that we follow who issue IT spending forecasts are indicating cautious growth in IT budgets for 2008. They generally project growth in the same range as 2007, but with downside risk in case the US economy enters a recession. That is, IT budgets will continue to grow modestly for now, with reductions possible if the economy slows more.

 

If the sub-prime crisis turns out to be worse than imagined, will it not be indicative of a slowdown in the US? In this light, is there a possibility of clients across verticals cutting their IT spend?

The research analysts that we follow indicate that the US economy is likely to show slower growth in the calendar fourth quarter just ended than the healthy growth of Q3, and projections for 2008 suggest further slowing is possible in the next few quarters, with some chance of a US recession.

Some of this is attributed to the impact of the sub-prime crisis and housing slowdown. The analysts also suggest that we have not yet hit bottom in the housing sector, which will continue to drag down economic growth in 2008.

At the same time, the US economy continues to show resilience in non-housing sectors, often surprising the analysts, and offsetting the negative impact of the housing sector. As a result, we appear to be in a period of unpredictability in the US economy, which is why analysts are couching their IT spend forecasts as modest growth with downside risk.

You are working on re-branding. Why?

During most of 2007, we were in a quiet period as we prepared for and executed our IPO. As a result, we reduced our press activity in India, and reduced our public visibility. Now that we are re-emerging as a public company, we have the chance to re-establish our image and increase our visibility. We find that this is a good time to fine-tune our messages and brand as part of this evolution.

What, according to you, are the key marketing skills that win in today’s IT world?

IT services marketing has evolved rapidly in recent years. New marketing techniques that we have put in place in the past year are already paying off for us. These include the effective use of our Web site as a lead generation tool through techniques such as search engine optimisation, pay-per-click advertising, and direct e-mail campaigns.

In addition, we are beginning to leverage online content marketing tools, such as white paper syndication and podcasts, for lead generation.

We are finding that these tools offer the ability to target specific market segments with highly-tailored messages to attract new prospects. For example, we are leveraging our premier position as leading IT services providers for key software partners such as Pegasystems and Vignette, and attracting their customers through targeted e-mail and Internet-based messages.

As the Internet continues to evolve rapidly with new tools and models, including social networks, blogging and video sites, successful IT marketing will evolve with the Internet.

In addition, a business such as ours, which targets Global 2000 clients, must successfully employ high-touch marketing techniques that leverage the high-powered personal networks of IT executives and buyers. Accordingly, high-impact marketing programmes that provide interesting content and networking opportunities will continue to be crucial marketing priorities for IT services providers.

Where would you plot the level of current offshore outsourcing from the US, in terms of a potentiality curve?

Research analysts and organisations such as Nasscom (with help from McKinsey) and the Information Technology Association of America, who track the global IT services industry, suggest that the penetration rate of offshore IT services is still low in aggregate, both in the US and in other industrialised countries.

This reflects our own anecdotal experience with clients and prospects in our three key industry groups, who continue to expand the offshore share of their IT budgets, even in clients with mature offshore practices.

We believe that the next major offshoring trend, what we call “next-generation” offshore IT services, has just begun. It is the use of offshoring primarily not for cost savings through labour arbitrage, but rather for the delivery of high-value IT services involving state-of-the-art technology and consulting-led IT services, that benefit clients by giving them speed and productivity advantages to make them more agile, more productive, and more service-oriented.

Are alternatives to India emerging as more attractive cost destinations? On Sri Lanka vis-a-vis India.

On Sri Lanka vs India as offshore destinations – While we don’t discuss cost profiles of our specific operations, I can tell you that both countries offer us cost-efficient and effective ways to serve our clients.

Moreover, salary surveys of popular global offshore destinations continue to show that on average, India’s cost of IT services, while growing, is still ranked among the lowest in the world. In addition, India’s deep experience as a leader in IT offshoring gives it an advantage in productivity levels such that productivity growth largely offsets unit cost increases, keeping India competitive as an offshore destination, particularly for high-value IT services.

A man who sold counterfeit games, films and music to trawlermen in exchange for a box of crabs has been fined £3,000.

George Clarke, 61, of Seamill in North Ayrshire, made the trade with seamen returning to Troon Harbour after an extended fishing trip.

He pleaded guilty at Ayr Sheriff Court to charges of illegally selling copied games, films and music.

"Clarke originally approached the returning fleet on 3 February 2006 with the intention of exchanging his copied and counterfeit discs for cash," said the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association in a statement.

"But he soon discovered than none of the crew was carrying any cash, so he had to make do with a fish supper in the form of a selection of fresh crabs."

Officers from Strathclyde Police and investigators from North Ayrshire Trading Standards searched Clarke's premises later that day.

They found three computers and more than 200 discs containing illegally copied games for PC, PlayStation 2, PSP and Xbox.

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c79470) has announced the addition of “China Software Industry Report, 2007-2008” to their offering.

The operating revenue of China software industry reached RMB378.499 billion in the first three quarters of 2007, up 23.6 percent compared to the same period last year and being higher than the growth rate of 20.1 percent for electronic information industry.

Since 2006, the Ministry of Information and relevant Ministries have issued a series of policies to support the development of large well-known software enterprises. With the increasing saturation of informatization demand by large enterprises, the informatization demand of medium and small sized enterprises will be the new market growth. According to our forecast, the investment into the information construction of medium-small sized enterprises will be up to US$15.87 billion by 2010. As the agriculture tax, animal husbandry tax and tax on special agricultural products have been cancelled, the disposable income of farmers increases considerably. With the further opening of agriculture, the growth of farmers' income and the progression of urbanization, information construction in rural areas will be the new potential of the market.

It is the handsome profit model and the demand for informatization that conduce to the fast development of China software industry. Chinese manufacturers have comparative advantages in software service and mixed profit model. Based on market scale, profit margin and comparative advantages, we are confident about the development of software outsourcing and management software pattern.

In 1H 2007, China's offshore outsourcing revenue amounted to RMB6.53 billion. The annual compound growth rate in the coming five years can be up to 37.9 percent. Since application, strict barriers characterize software and being quite attractive to users, the famous related enterprises will be exceedingly developed. The steady supply of rich qualified talents in China secures the strong growth of China's offshore outsourcing business.

Chinese management software market is gradually entering the maturity period, and the cooperation and acquisition become trends. There is steady rising of market concentration. The endogenous growth of profit model, barriers, scale economy and positive feedback effect of management software industry result in that the large companies will grow ever larger. We believe that the manufacturers with self-developed products, rich experience and client resources will possess comparative advantages, and the advantages of leading enterprises and special product enterprises will be obvious.

Preproject Considerations
Most of our business comes through referrals or new projects from existing customers. Out of those, we try only to accept referrals or repeat business from the "good clients," believing their friends will be similarly low maintenance, high value, and most importantly, great to work with.

We have tried the RFP circuit in the past, and recently considered going at it again. However, after a review of our experiences with it, we felt that unless you are the cause of the RFP being initiated, you have a subatomically small chance of being selected for the project (we've been on both ends of that one). Since it typically takes incredible effort to craft a response, it just seems like a waste of hours to pursue.

On the other hand, we are considering creating a default template and using minimal customization to put out for future RFPs, and even then, only considering ones that have a very detailed scope, to minimize our effort on the proposal even further.

We're also trying to move ourselves into the repeatable solutions space - something that really takes the cheap manufacturing ability we have in software - copying bits from one piece of hardware storage to another - and puts it to good use.

Finally, I'm very interested to hear how some of you in the small software business world bring in business. I know we're technically competitors and all, but really, how can you compete with this?

The Software Development Life Cycle
I won't bother you by giving a "phase" by phase analysis here. Part of that is because I'm not sure if we do all the phases, or if we're just so flexible and have such short iterations the phases seem to bleed together. (Nor do I want to spend the time to figure out which category what each thing belongs in.) Depending on the project, it could be either. Instead, I'll bore you with what we do pretty much every time:

At the start of a project, we sit down with client and take requirements. There's nothing fancy here. I'm the coder and I get involved - we've found that it's a ridiculous waste of time to pass my questions through a mediator and wait two weeks to get an answer. Instead, we take some paper or cards and pen, and dry erase markers for the whiteboard. We talk through of what the system should do at a high level, and make notes of it.

We try to list every feature in terms of the users who will perform it and it's reason for existence. If that's unknown, at least we know the feature, even if we don't know who will get to use it or why it's needed. All of this basically gives us our "use cases," without a lot of the formality.

I should also note that, we also do the formal bit if the need is there, or if the client wants to work that way. But those meetings can easily get boring, and when no one wants to be there, it's not an incredibly productive environment. If we're talking about doing the project in Rails or ColdFusion, it often takes me longer to write a use case than it would to implement the feature and show it to the client for feedback, so you can see why it might be more productive to skip the formality in cases that don't require it.

After we get a list of all the features we can think of, I'll get some rough estimates of points (not hours) of each feature to the client, to give them an idea of the relative costs for each feature. If there is a feature which is something fairly unrelated to anything we've had experience with, we give it the maximum score, or change it to an "investigate point cost," which would be the points we'd need to expend to do some research to get a better estimate of relative effort.

Armed with that knowledge, they can then give me a prioritized list of the features they'd like to see by next Friday when I ask them to pick X number of points for us to work on in the next week. Then we'll discuss in more detail those features they've chosen, to get a better idea of exactly what it is they're asking for.

We repeat that each iteration, adjusting the X number of points the client gets to choose based on what was actually accomplished the previous iteration - if there was spare time, they get a few more points. If we didn't finish, those go on the backlog and the client has fewer points to spend. Normally, we don't have the need for face to face meetings after the initial one, but I prefer to have them if we can. We're just not religious about it.

Whiteboards at this meeting are particularly useful, as most ideas can be illustrated quite quickly, have their picture taken, and be erased when no longer needed. Plus, it lets everyone get involved when we start prioritizing. Notecards are also nice as they swap places with each other with incredible ease.

Within each iteration, we start working immediately. Most of the time, we have one week iterations, unless there are a couple of projects going on - then we'll go on two week iterations, alternating between clients. If the project is relatively stable, we might even do daily releases. On top of that, we'll interface with client daily if they are available that frequently, and if there is something to show.

If the project size warrants it, we (or I) track our progress in consuming points on a burndown chart. This would typically be for anything a month or longer. If you'll be mostly done with a project in a week, I don't see the point in coming up with one of these. You can set up a spreadsheet to do all the calculations and graphing for you, and in doing so you can get a good idea of when the project will actually be finished, not just some random date you pull out of the air.
 

Another thing I try to be adamant about is insisting the client start using the product as soon as it provides some value. This is better for everyone involved. The client can realize ROI sooner and feedback is richer. Without it, the code is not flexed as much. Nor do you get to see what parts work to ease the workload and which go against it as early in the product's life, and that makes changes more difficult. For us, the typical client has been willing to do this, and projects seem to devolve into disaster more readily when they don't.

Finally, every morning we have our daily stand-up meeting. Our company is small enough so that we can talk about company-wide stuff, not just individual projects. Each attendee answers three questions:

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What are you going to do today?
3. What is holding you back

The meeting is a time-conscious way (15 minutes - you stand so you don't get comfortable) to keep us communicating. Just as importantly, it keeps us accountable to each other, focused on setting goals and getting things done, and removing obstacles that get in our way.

On the code side of things, I try to have unit tests and integration tests for mostly everything. I don't have automated tests for things like games and user interfaces. I haven't seen much detriment from doing it this way, and the tradeoff for learning how to do it doesn't seem worth it at the moment.

I would like to learn how to do it properly and make a more informed decision though. That will likely come when time is not so rare for me. Perhaps when I'm finished with school I'll spend that free time learning the strategies for testing such elements.

Luckily, when I'm working on a ColdFusion project, cfrails is pretty well tested so I get to skip a lot of tests I might otherwise need to write.

By the same token, I don't normally unit test one-off scripts, unless there are obvious test cases I can meet or before doing a final version that would actually change something.

I don't know how to do it in CF, but when I've use continuous integration tools for Java projects it has been helpful. If you have good tests, the CI server will report when someone checks in code that breaks the tests. This means bad code gets checked in less often. If you don't have the tests to back it up, at least you'll feel comfortable knowing the project builds successfully.

For maintenance, we normally don't worry about using a project management tool to track issue. Bugs are fixed as they are reported - show stoppers immediately, less important within the day, and things deemed slight annoyances might take a couple of days. I'd like to formalize our response into an actual policy, though.

Similarly, new requests are typically handled within a couple of days if they are small and I'm not too busy - otherwise I'll give an estimate as to when I can have it done.

With bugs in particular, they are so rare and few in number that I could probably track them in my head. Nevertheless, I mark an email with my "Action Required" tag, and try my best to keep that folder very small. Right now I've overcommitted myself and the folder isn't empty, but there was a time recently that it remained empty on most nights.

In any event, I normally only use project management tools for very large projects or those I inherited for some reason or another.

Summary
If you're a practitioner, you can tell the ideas above are heavily influenced by (when not directly part of) Scrum and Extreme Programming. I wouldn't call what we're doing by either of their names. If you're not familiar with the ideas and they interest you, now you know where to look.

Where would we like to go from here?
One thing that sticks out immediately is client-driven automated testing with Selenium or FIT. I'd also like to work for several months on a team that does it all and does it right, mostly to learn how I might better apply things I've learned, heard of, or yet to be exposed to. What else? That will have to be the subject of another post, as this one's turned into a book.

Source http://www.codeodor.com/index.cfm/2007/11/26/What-Im-Doing-To-Make-Software-Development-Work/1752 

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