Technology

Microimage Mobile Media wins two gold awards

Microimage Mobile Media won two Gold awards including the Overall Best Product Gold to become the Kings of Software Innovation for 2008 at the BCS National Best Quality Software Awards held recently.

Microimage Mobile Media won the Gold award in the Media and Entertainment Application category and the most prestigious top award, which is the Best Overall Product Gold.

Microimage thus earned the right to enter its vStation product in the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA), to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia this year.

We are extremely happy to hit the top with our product vStation for the fourth successive time in the awards history.

It gives the entire team great pleasure to win the top award when BCS awards celebrate its 10th anniversary.

With this win Microimage becomes the company who has won the highest number of overall awards in the entire BCS awards history to date, said CEO of Microimage, Harsha Purasinghe. Microimage won the prestigious BCS overall award in 2004 (Silver), 2005 (Gold), 2006 (Gold) and 2008 (Gold).

The winning entry vStation is a cutting edge broadcast automation solution for digital video/content play out with inbuilt mobile media convergence features. This comprehensive product suite provides digital video content broadcasters a cost effective platform with innovative features.

The Microimage vStation consists of modules for content programming, commercial traffic management and innovative video play out console.

One of the most impressive modules out of the suite is video play out console which provides a host of features for content broadcasters such as multiple video overlay, multiple scroller support, multilingual video window titling, graphics overlays and live 3G/broadband caller support.

With this product Microimage Mobile Media becomes Sri Lanka's leading and only broadcast automation software provider for Radio/TV and digital content broadcast automation.

Apart from winning the BCS NBQSA award in a number of years, the company won other prestigious awards such as National Science and Technology Award, GSM Association Asia Mobile Innovation Award and the GSMA World Awards commendation.

Winning awards gives us the opportunity to continuously benchmark our new technology innovations and also helps us in positioning the products with greater visibility, Purasinghe said.

Apart from all these awards Purasinghe was also the recipient of the Most outstanding entrepreneur in the IT/BPO industry last year.

Microimage was founded in 1993 by a group of school students who were passionate about new technology and software solutions. With its humble college start up beginning, the company has been transformed today into a leading technology innovator and enterprise software solutions provider with local and global recognition to date. It has become Sri Lanka's most successful college start up to date.

Microimage operates its business under two legal entities. Microimage is a leading technology provider for Human Capital Management Solutions where Microimage Mobile Media, which was incorporated last year, is a technology innovator in mobile media domains. Microimage mobile media focuses in the areas of e-Inclusion, Mobile Applications and platforms for Media/Entertainment.

The company has a market presence in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Singapore, India and UK to date.

SLIIT wins gold again for best quality software

The Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT), a leader in tertiary education in IT won the Gold Award and Merit Award at the National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) at the 10th annual award ceremony organised by the British Computer Society Sri Lanka (BCSSL) section.

In addition to the award under the prestigious Tertiary Student Project category, the SLIIT team also won the Microsoft Excellence Award. The Awards Night was held at the Water's Edge. Chief Executive Officer of SLIIT Prof. Lalith Gamage said, "This award clearly demonstrates the calibre of our students and the exposure they are fortunate to receive that brings out their potential.

This is what sets our institution apart in a highly competitive environment from local and global perspectives".

Chairman of SLIIT Prof. S. Karunaratne said, "Being the foremost and the leading degree awarding institute in the field of Information Technology in Sri Lanka, SLIIT brings out the best in our students with degrees and specialised training programs based on internationally accepted curricula".

The coveted NBQSA competition that recognises and honours significant technological achievements in the software industry serves to showcase and benchmark Sri Lanka's ICT products and fulfills a much needed requirement in a highly competitive globalised economic structure.

The competition creates an opportunity to gain international recognition for locally developed ICT products.

Since 2003 the NBQSA has partnered with International Awards programs such as the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) and the World Information Technology Summit (WITSA) Awards. APICTA is initiated by the Multimedia Development Corporation of Malaysia to stimulate IT innovation and creativity and facilitate technology transfer.

The program covers 14 commercial categories in addition to the Tertiary Student Project Category. Seventy tertiary student projects and 40 commercial projects were evaluated this year. The winning SLIIT teams will be eligible to participate in the APICTA 2008 in Jakartha from November 11-15.

The SLIIT team that won the Gold Award for the project KAMZA (Knowledge And Memory Zentralising Approach) comprised Gehan Panapitiya, Thilini Ranaweera, Supun Kodithuwakku, Nadeesha Pellewatta and Roshani Pathiraja.

The Merit Award was awarded for the project titled Mobile Wallet Enabled Car Park Reservation System and the group members of the winning team were Pramith De Zoysa, Sanjeewa Alwis, Kalum Amarakoon, Namini Gunasena and Indunil Vithanage.

Softlogic Trading celebrates 15 years partnership with Dell

Softlogic Trading (Pvt) Ltd last week celebrated 15 years of partnership as the authorised distributor and service provider with the Dell Computer Corporation, USA,

CEO of Softlogic Roshan Rasool said that the company's close affiliation with Dell helped Softlogic to specialise in selected areas such as virtualisation, security solutions, messaging solutions and high-end storage infrastructure.

Softlogic, established in 1991 with 12 employees and $25,000 annual revenue grew rapidly in the technology business and today, after 17 years has become a strong ICT company.

Today, there are over 1,000 employees in the company and with an annual revenue of $100 million has become one of the two largest IT companies in the country. Our partnership with Dell helped this growth, Rasool said.

Dell's market share in Sri Lanka is increasing by 20-25% annually.

The government's ICT promotion programs have influenced the IT sector in the country.

Dell General Manager (Developing markets, Asia Pacific) Siva Ananthan said that Softlogic is one of the best partners of Dell in emerging markets.

We at Dell have observed an aggressive and progressive growth in softlogic in the past fifteen years and we look forward to a stronger partnership in the future. Softlogic has made Dell a household name in Sri Lanka.

Dell's business is not merely selling a box and we give a solution. Dell is growing fast in the consumer segment and introducing green and energy saving products, he said.

Ananthan said that the present US financial crisis would not hit business in emerging markets and there is no forecast of a decline in the IT sector. GW

ADK Group, Maldives on evolution ERP

PBSS (Perfect Business Solution Services (Pvt) Ltd.) signed an MoU with the ADK Group of the Maldives as their Business Solution Software partner. The ADK hospital is the largest hospital in the Maldives and part of the ADK group, the number one group of companies of the island nation.

With a history of 21 years, ADK was the first to set up a private hospital in the Maldives.

They are also largest pharmaceutical distributor and retailer in the country. ADK, a synonym for health care in the Maldives is a diversified entity with interests in shipping, real estate, leisure and travel trade, optometric services, electronics and telecommunication sectors.

They are the largest shareholder of the JSAT, the cable TV provider and the sole agent for Sharp Electronic items and own the Gaakoshibee Island resort. PBSS, an authorised Business Partner and Certified consultants for a range of Sage software in Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and the Maldives is having rapidly increasing clientele in all three regions. PBSS started its Maldives operation during this year, and has established a name in the Maldives as a reliable partner with superior products.

In the first phase of the project ADK is planning to complete the automation of its pharmaceutical distribution along with the pharmacy chain and the shipping operation of the Group.

The exchange of MoUs took place at the ADK headoffice, Male. Managing Director of PBSS, Madura Gamanayake and Managing Director of ADK Company (Pvt) Ltd. Ms. Fazla Hassan signed the MoU.

Gamanayake expressed confidence in achieving rapid growth in the Maldives operations and recognised the partnership with ADK as a significant milestone.

He said that the advantage PBSS having over the competitors is its product range comprising Sage Peachtree, Sage Pastel Partner, Sage Evolution ERP, Sage Accpac ERP and Sage UBS which covers the requirements across the industries from the small to large enterprises.

General Manager, ADK Company (Pvt) Ltd. S. M. Muzammil said that the partnership with PBSS to implement an ERP solution to ADK is a vital step is keeping with the latest technology.