Technology

Colombo a link with Silicon valley - entrepreneur's vision

by Gamini Warushamana

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Profile

Llavan Fernando has been successful as an electronics engineer and an entrepreneur in high tech industries. After his graduation in electronics engineering in UK, he joined the R&D company in UK. In mid 1970s he contributed to hardware development for F 16 and F 111 US fighter jets which were outsourced to the UK company and pollution monitoring systems.

In 1979 he worked for a company manufacturing printers in the United States. The owner of the company, had a blind daughter and he wanted to develop a product that enabled blind people to read newspapers.

The project was largely funded by the Library of the Congress of the US and they developed a lot of technologies for the purpose. Later on, the company produced " Worker Braille- 2" and "Braille Made', the very first braille computers.

Thereafter he attempted to find solutions for visual impairment caused by age related macula degeneration. He applied for a research grant from the National Science Foundation of the US and received it.

He developed many products that solved the problem and devices to magnify the image. He later sold these products. Fernando said that his innovations in these areas gave him the greatest job satisfaction, because thousands of blind people benefited by them. "Each time I released a new technology in this area people such as Stevie Wonder personally called and thanked me", Fernando said.

Then his research focused on electronic payment systems and he developed the signature captured terminals. His knowledge and experience in this electronic payment systems is one of the main areas that Zone 24 X 7's software development is focused on.

His businesses have not halted his innovations. Today Fernando has a new electronics device to be presented to the world.

The device which has not yet been named is multi-functional. It weights less than 100 grams and the size is similar to a visiting card holder. Fernando said that it is an electronic coupon and it can also store money electronically. You can play audio and video store pictures and advertise in it. It has powerful 5.1 channel headphones.

All the software that runs this device has been developed in Zone 24 X 7 in Colombo and after everything was finalised the attractive device was manufactured by an electronics company in Taiwan within five weeks.

It has been manufactured for Macys Department Store, Zone 24 X 7's first and one of the main clients, to present to its top customers and it will be presented to Macys chairman soon.

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His vision is to link Silicon Valley to Colombo. He has drawn up a plan of doing it having worked many years in the US as an electronics engineer, scientist and a successful entrepreneur. Chairman, Zone 24 X 7 Llavan Fernanado said that the broader objective of setting up an R&D Centre in the University of Moratuwa is producing world-class engineers that the Sri Lankan software industry needs today.

Zone 24 X 7, a highly successful technology company in Sri Lanka. develops software, hardware and firmware and therefore it is more than a software company.

Here are excerpts from the interview with Fernando.

Two weeks ago we opened our R&D Centre at the University of Moratuwa. It is a state-of-the-art computer lab similar to our main base in Rajagiriya, suburbs in Colombo.

My objective is to identify the brightest engineering students as early as possible and do pure research. This lab will provide them with facilities available in the Silicon Valley. Software engineers

I started Zone 24 X 7, the software development company in 2003. Prior to that, in 1995, I started another company in the US called @POS. The company did well but during the late 1990s it was very difficult to find software engineers in Silicon Valley. I went to India and found software engineers but it was very difficult to retain them too long.

Later I came to Colombo and started Mobinetix, my first company in Sri Lanka. The then JKH chairman Ken Balendran helped me to start this business. Later the company was renamed Crossvue and in 2001 it was sold to Symbol Technologies.

Best engineers

My previous clients frequently asked me to provide software solutions and this motivated me to start Zone 24 X 7. The company which grew steadily had only three people at the beginning and today we have 120. We have the best software and hardware engineers here.

With the expansion of the business, Zone 24 X 7 moved from place to place looking for more space and now the company is in Rajagiriya. It has bases in California and Atlanta and a new base is being set up in Malaysia. The California and Atlanta bases have only marketing and business development people. All software and hardware development is being done at the main base in Rajagiriya.

In the first two years we did only software services and later on we decided to go for software product development. During the first year we provided our service only to one of our major clients, Macys Department Stores in the US.

Client base diversified

Zone 24 X 7 diversified its client base from the second year and secured clients from Canada, Australia, Taiwan, China and the US. During this period the company was transformed from a service centric company to a product centric company.

Fernando said that Zone 24 X 7's expertise is in payment systems. It backs his previous experience in the field and he has developed a signature captured payment terminal that eliminated paperwork in billing. There are around 250,000-300,000 of these payment terminals in the US and they do over eight million transactions daily.

One of the main software products of Zone 24 X 7 is RDA. It is an agent software which runs on monitoring and remote management devices. This device enables its clients to remotely monitor and manage their businesses.

Fernando explained his strategy in setting up a base in Malaysia. One objective is hiring good programmers to develop code modules. However, the major part of the software development, the architecture design, information gathering and integration of the modules will be done in Sri Lanka.

Secondly, the Malaysian base will be used to market our products to the Pacific ring and Middle East countries. Malaysia is the best place to set up a business, because there are qualified people, the government is business friendly and the BOI equivalent is very supportive. The cost too is low compared to Singapore.

Efficient system

Fernando said that Zone 24 X 7 has a very efficient system in software development with well defined processes and procedures. Our system is very efficient compared with any other company in the world.

This enables us to expand rapidly. Sri Lanka has a very high potential in the software industry. The main asset is our skilled people. Our engineers are excellent in software development as well as in communicating with our clients. Earlier we used people in the United States for information gathering. Today Sri Lankan engineers do the job equally well.

He has plans to decentralise Zone 24 X 7's work to Kandy and other regions. With modern technology distance is not an issue and people can work from any part of the world. Zone 24 X 7 connects its bases in California, Atlanta and the R&D lab at Moratuwa through tele conferencing.

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Asia Pacific Award for Dialog and eChannelling

Dialog Telekom, Sri Lanka's foremost telecommunications service provider, and eChannelling Limited, Sri Lanka's first and only listed technology company, recently received international recognition for pioneering and operating (since 2002) the jointly developed "e-channeling via mobile" service in Sri Lanka.

The solution was adjudged the winner in the Innovative Technology of the Year category at the prestigious Customer Relationship Excellence (CRE) Awards held in Hong Kong.

Pioneered in July 2002, eChannelling is the revolutionary centralised medical appointment booking system, which allows Dialog subscribers access to over 600 doctors in 10 hospitals in a convenient, cost effective and time saving manner. Subscribers can make an appointment simply by dialing the short code 225. Appointment details are confirmed via SMS, and the service is available 365 days of the year.

Chief Executive Officer eChannelling Limited, Sidath Chandrasena said, "We are delighted that the eChannelling service, Sri Lanka's pioneering medical IT network, achieved international recognition for its use of innovative technology.

The affiliation we forged with Dialog Telekom in 2002 enabled us to deploy an electronic channelling service via handsets, thus, providing Sri Lankans with instant access to medical specialists.

The service accentuates the benefits of e-commerce, a powerful tool in reaching out to consumers, and we thank Dialog for recognising the immense potential of the eChannelling service".

Oracle buys Enterprise Role Management Leader Bridgestream

Oracle has acquired Bridgestream, Inc., a leading provider of Enterprise Role Management software.

Enterprise Role Management has emerged as a key component of identity management deployments to improve overall security and address regulatory requirements.

By adding Bridgestream's leading role discovery, definition and management capabilities to Oracle's widely adopted access management and user provisioning solutions, Oracle provides the most comprehensive and feature-rich identity management solution.

Oracle's Identity and Access Management Suite is a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, the industry's fastest growing, most standards-compliant, and best-of-breed technology foundation for Service-Oriented Architecture.

"With the acquisition of Bridgestream, Oracle can help organisations streamline compliance related tasks and automate role management," said , vice president, Identity Management and Security Products, Oracle, Hasan Rizvi.

"We believe that the combination of Bridgestream's Enterprise Role Management capabilities and Oracle Identity Management will enable the next generation of integration between security and business process controls by delivering a closed-loop solution that combines role discovery, modelling, enforcement, attestation and audit in a single integrated solution."

Increased focus on compliance regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, has created a need for organisations to strictly control access to sensitive systems and monitor access privileges regularly. However, managing and monitoring who has access to what, on an individual user and resource basis, can be costly for large organisations.

Bridgestream's SmartRoles and Discoverer products address these issues by enabling role-based access control, where privileges are grouped by business roles, managing access and improving compliance. Enterprises use these products for analysing existing access rights to define candidate roles, administering roles across the entire user population and enforcing segregation of duties during role assignment.

"Bridgestream's core competency in Enterprise Role Management complements Oracle's already strong presence in identity and access management," said Mark Tice, president and CEO of Bridgestream.

"This combination will enable us to accelerate the deployment of identity management solutions for our joint customers and prospects."

Jinasena Group implements ERP Microsoft Dynamics AX

Microsoft Dynamics AX - a powerful ERP solution has been chosen by the Jinasena Group of Companies as the right tool to drive their business to new heights.

Jinasena - a diversified group with nearly a century of experience in Sri Lanka has grown to be one of the country's largest Industrial and Trading Conglomerates with fifteen companies within its fold. Whilst Microsoft provides solutions, Sudaram Infotech of India will be the implementation partner.

Microsoft AX (formerly known as Axapta) is a dominant Tier 1 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution for corporate businesses and with its entry to Sri Lanka, corporate Sri Lanka will avail itself of one of the most powerful business enabler available today. Significantly, the implementation also marks the entry of Microsoft Sri Lanka into the Business Solutions space in Sri Lanka.

Country Manager - Microsoft Sri Lanka Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne said, "We take pride in implementing our flagship Enterprise Resource Planning software at Jinasena Group, one of the largest businesses in Sri Lanka. Familiar and adaptable, Microsoft Dynamics AX is a powerful alternative for companies looking to upgrade their business management solution.

Sundaram Infotech and DACVision - the local partner for Dynamics have worked in partnership with Microsoft to roll out the implementation at Jinasena Group very effectively, and we are confident that this would enable the Jinasena Group to achieve the efficiency it seeks."

Microsoft Dynamics AX enjoys several unique features that make it the preferred choice for businesses. Perhaps most convenient is its familiarity - it looks and works like other Microsoft software that most users may be familiar with.

Whether working with Microsoft Dynamics AX or the Microsoft Office system, users get a consistent, familiar experience which makes the traditional user embrace Dynamics AX readily.

Microsoft Dynamics AX is part of a well-designed road map - it provides a roles-based user experience, service-oriented architecture, and a common client technology that works like and with the Microsoft Office system. Future releases are expected to provide a model-driven approach to business processes that draws on the power of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

The system is adaptable, cost-effective, and easy to maintain; it is designed to reduce the time needed to maintain an existing solution and to adapt a solution to changing business needs.

Microsoft Dynamics AX provides one of the lowest Total Cost of Ownership models in the industry, and the Microsoft mass market model helps reduce the cost of development and maintenance, further lowering the TCO of the installation.