Technology

This is the iPod generation of software - IFS Senior Vice President

by Gamini Warushamana

[email protected]

Jayantha de Silva

Thomas Peterson

The iPod generation of software is here and today we need to focus more on the improvement of the user interface of the software said, Senior Vice President, IFS Thomas Peterson.

Peterson was in Colombo on a brief visit.

The following are excerpts from the discussion with Peterson and the IFS's Vice President, South Asia, Jayantha De Silva.

The design of software has become very important today. Earlier, the business software was very tedious and unattractive for the users.

However, today the design is becoming more important.

Therefore the IFS seeks the influence from the consumer electronics market to improve the design of software.

Cool yardstick

As one of the reporters said recently at our Aurora launch in Berlin, this is the iPod generation of software. It means to design the product to look nice, easy to use and attractive. This will be a big revolution and that is the common thread of all IFS's developments.

The objective is that your front end should be simple and easy to use. In our new technical platform Aurora we have done it and as an analyst said it is a cool yardstick. It gives you the comfort to work and it is simple to use by an ordinary person. Today the yardsticks that are used are subject matters and not pure IT as in the days gone by.

The software is used by various professionals and not only by IT experts in the IT departments. Engineers, doctors and accountants use software and they want to interact with the solutions.

We believe that the Aurora technical platform, the revolutionary core model of IFS will be the absolute new technology leader in usability and good working environment to the users.

The back end of the ERP solutions is very mature today. The other feature that people seek today is mobility.

Technical platform

On the other hand they need more information in less time, because in decision making today we use more variables than before. IFS's ERP solutions Application 7 and the new version Application 7.5 incorporates these features.

As a software product company, R&D is absolutely vital for the IFS. As a solution provider we constantly upgrade our products. However, the unique feature of IFS solutions is that we have one technical platform.

Therefore, all our R&D efforts are on one technical platform with the ambition of being the technology leader in the ERP space.

Now the IFS is going to another generation shift of software with Aurora. The main facilitators of the implementation of Aurora are here in Sri Lanka. Many people in the IFS Colombo base contributed to develop Aurora.

Aurora is an user-friendly interface explicitly designed to enable people to work more effectively, more productively and on their own terms. It is a rich, web-deployed interface that will work alongside and in synergy with the existing web portal and mobile client interface.

Immense advantages

There are immense advantages in the IFS solutions based on the single technical platform. Our system is not very complicated because we have one product. The major problem some of the other products have today is that they have dozens of back end products.

Some big ERP companies buy entirely different products when they are weak in some area. By this they integrate entirely different technologies and products. They have to support, integrate and upgrade them. As a result their investment is so high that they are reluctant to go for changes.

As we use a single technical platform to do the same thing, IFS needs less people, less investment and less time than the other competitors. From 1998 every year we have introduced a new version of our products.

With Aurora we are changing to a new generation of user interface. It ensures that the entire product will change at the same time - be it the financial department or manufacturing, you can change all at the same time. If we have multiple products and software behind the solution then we have problems.

IFS specialises in seven industries; automotive, high-tech, industrial manufacturing, process industry, aerospace and defence, construction services and facilities management. We are the number one in defence. We have leadership in terms of back end technology.

Compared to all other big players in ERP we have all very good functionalities. We have strong and deep industry knowledge in all industries we are engaged in.

More responsibilities

IFS has its main R&D centre in Sri Lanka. Peterson said that IFS would give more responsibilities to the IFS Sri Lanka base in the future.

In Sri Lanka IFS carries out three operations.

The sales and marketing operations in the region handled by the Colombo base has been extremely successful over the past two years.

Secondly in distributed development operations, we have an exclusive and large high tech development crew in Colombo. Actually IFS uses the geographical advantage in Colombo in distributed development operations and participates in projects in the US, EU, Middle East and all over the world.

Thirdly, Colombo is the biggest single development facility and the resource pool of the IFS group that carried out our product developments.

MacBook Air, world's thinnest notebook launched

Apple recently unveiled MacBook Air, the world's thinnest notebook.

The Macbook Air measures an unprecedented 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum height of 0.76-inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks.

Rukshan Jayawardena, Head of Marketing EPSI computers, authorised re-seller for Apple in Sri Lanka said that the MacBook Air has a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in Sight video camera for video conferencing and a spacious track pad with multi-touch gesture support so users can pinch, rotate and swipe.

He said the Macbook Air is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache and includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. Jayawardena said the MacBook Air is now available at all EPSI iStores.

"We built the world's thinnest notebook without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display, said Steve Jobs, Apples CEO.

When you first see MacBook Air, it's hard to believe its a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is.

The MacBook Air has a vibrant 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display that is energy efficient, and its spacious trackpad offers multi-touch gesture support for pinch, rotate and swipe, making it more intuitive than ever to browse and rotate photos or zoom into web pages in Safari"MacBook Air features a full-size keyboard design in a sleek and durable aluminium enclosure.

The backlit keyboard makes it ideal for dimly lit environments such as airplanes, studios or conference halls and a built-in ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the brightness of the keys as well as the display brightness for optimal visibility.

Flintec signs Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft

Flintec Transducers (Pvt) Ltd., a leading designer and manufacturer of high precision load cells for applications in the weighing scale market, now diversified into other heavy industries, recently signed an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft Sri Lanka, availing of the IT giant's unique offering to corporate customers.

The strategic partnership provides Flintec access to upto-date Microsoft software which will ensure that Microsoft technologies will be deployed across the organisation and used effectively under Microsoft's expert guidance, enabling the company to achieve faster return on investments and more sophisticated risk management capabilities.

Flintec is the first company within an Export Processing Zone (EPZ) to sign an Enterprise Agreement directly with Microsoft Sri Lanka, which clearly demonstrates its commitment to provide reliable service to its global customer portfolio. EPZs in Sri Lanka have been known to be ahead of other countries in the region in every respect.

Set up at Katunayake in 1978, the EPZ rapidly became a centre of excellence in manufacturing a plethora of goods and services by global giants. The success of the Katunayake zone EPZ spurred the government to set up bigger and better versions in Biyagama and Koggala as well.

Soon, many leading companies in the world converged on these EPZs, known for their enhanced infrastructure facilities and skilled workforce.

These EPZs were envisioned as specialised industrial bonded estates where special facilities and incentives would be provided to produce goods under one window operation, rendering the logistics of exporting an uncomplicated one.

The Microsoft Enterprise Agreement represents the most flexible and affordable way to acquire the technology that the joint teams of Flintec Transducers and Microsoft have identified as being essential to meeting the company's most important business goals. By venturing into the arena of an EPZ, Microsoft has opened a new avenue to reach out to other global giants in the zone.

The EPZ is a veritable showcase of the latest facilities and technology advances that Sri Lanka is capable of offering to the world.

By now becoming part of this elite fraternity, Microsoft can enhance their business goals by offerings its expertise to the discerning needs of EPZ clients.

Intel introduces Dual Socket Extreme Desktop platform

Intel Corporation introduced the Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform at the ongoing Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco. Formerly codenamed "Skulltrail," this is one of the first enthusiast desktop platforms to support two Intel quad core processors for eight processing engines and a choice of multi-card graphics solutions from either ATI or NVIDIA.

Commenting on the international launch, Regional Sales Manager for Intel in Sri Lanka Indika De Zoysa said, "For those who demand unparalleled PC performance and innovation the new 8-core desktop platform is the ultimate solution. The Intel Desktop Board D5400XS is ground breaking since it gives users the flexibility to pair a variety of quad graphics solutions with two of our fastest desktop processors. This is a huge and very exciting addition to the gaming platform worldwide."

The Intel Desktop Board D5400XS, when paired with two Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors, forms the foundation of the Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform.

Hardcore gamers will welcome the opportunity to enjoy multiple simultaneous graphics card solutions featuring either NVIDIA SLI or ATI Crossfire for today's latest graphics-intensive titles.

The performance of eight processing cores is especially welcomed by the 3-D animators, digital audio artists and high-definition video editors behind the coolest games at the Game Developers Conference.

"For the team creating world-class games here at id, time is one of our most valuable assets," said Programming Director, id Software Robert A. Duffy,. "Having eight powerful Intel cores in a single machine helps our team create and test our latest titles at record speed.

We have seen one of our most time-consuming asset generation processes cut from over four hours to under 20 minutes by utilising all eight cores and threading the generation code. Long term this translates to better games on the market faster than previously possible."

As high-definition video becomes more prevalent than ever, encoding and editing is a task that more power users are looking to their PC to do for them. Such workloads are handled with ease by this new platform, and video developers such as DivX are excited about the possibilities.

Suntel fetes knights of a glorious empire

The warriors of the Suntel empire entered a castle of strength, motivation and recognition at Waters Edge.

Stepping away from the conventional methods of felicitating employees, Suntel arranged an enthralling evening for its audience as the Company rewarded the high performers from 2007 and set out its targets for this year.

Suntel, the fastest growing CDMA operator has reached every nook and corner of the country to provide customers telecommunication solutions based on each individual need. The company has also strengthened its presence across the country with over 100 plus centres to cater to their customers demanding needs.

Welcoming the participants was Head of Dealer Channels and Centre Operations, Suntel Ltd Shirantha Perera who stressed the aggressive price cutting and large scale advertising from new entrants and existing service providers that occurred in 2007 and thanked the Suntel "warriors" from the company's islandwide dealer network for carrying the "sword of spirit" and achieving a significant share in post paid and pre-paid sales even in areas that were dominated by other players in the market.

Director, Marketing and Sales at Suntel Hasitha Abeywardena, emphasized the value of loyalty and complimented the dealers on their dedication and adherence to the policy of "never retreat or surrender".

Managing Director, Suntel Ltd. Jeremy Huxtable, said that he wouldn't have been able to maintain his position as the king of this 12-year empire without the dedication of his excellent service men