M-BANKING
Union Bank Partners nokia for m-Banking solutions
Rolling out mobile payment services for the masses, Union Bank of India has announced a strategic partnership with Nokia. Through this partnership they have announced m-banking services available for Union Bank account holders on their Nokia handsets through a Java-based mobile application.
The service has been initiated in Gurgaon and will soon be going live in Noida, Faridabad and Delhi. A pan-India roll out is planned by the year-end. The range of services offered include money transfer through mobile phone numbers, payment of utility bills, prepaid SIM recharge and cash-out service wherein one can withdraw cash from ATMs or empowered agents. The service is currently available in only English language and thus will not be as relevant for financial inclusion but it’s a first in the market and with one such service now available there is bound to be rolling out of more such services owing to market pressure.
BROADBAND
BroadBand TV for `99 By Bharti airTel
Telecom major Bharti Airtel announced the launch of its ‘airtel broadband TV’, which will allow its broadband users to watch live TV on their computers for a monthly rental of Rs 99. With the service, airtel broadband subscribers will be able to access 28 Live TV channels including UTV Bindass, UTV Movies, Bloomberg UTV, TLC, Animal Planet, all Discovery channels, Sakshi TV, Live India and Tarang Music. The company also plans to offer 19 Video-ondemand (VOD) channels and 12 movies channels as per the chosen subscription plan. The service will work on Wi-Fi networks as well, Mehta added. Airtel will introduce three monthly subscription plans — Gold Pack with all Live and VOD channels and movies for Rs 99 and Night Pack (all channels and movies from 9 PM to 9AM) for Rs 49.
WIRELESS
HCL to Deploy Wireless Network for Indian Air Force
HCL Infosystems has bagged a Rs 300 crore order from the Indian Air Force to deploy a portable wireless network covering many air force stations across India. The new network will be integrated with the existing air force network and will provide it with the backbone connectivity and ensure video interactivity for video calls and other communication platforms, the company said in a statement, reported IANS. “We are honoured to partner with the Indian Air Force in the deployment of this highly efficient state-of-the-art wireless network and congratulate them for their vision in embracing technology to play an active role,” HCL Infosystem’s Executive Vice President Rothin Bhattacharyya said. “This being one of the key wins under our defence system integration practice further highlights the company’s vast understanding in various industry verticals,” he added.
eMUNICIPALITY
TCS Bags Kochi e-Gov Project
Tata Consultancy Services has bagged the technical bids for Kochi Corporation’s e-Governance programme. The project, initiated many years ago, aims at bringing major services online. The services include utility management, property tax, registration of births and deaths, water supply and other utilities, grievances and suggestions and building approvals.The terms of the contract stipulate that TCS should implement the project within a year.
2011 Will Be The Year of Paas: GARTNER
All the leading enterprise software vendors, as well as large cloud specialists, will introduce new platform-asa- service (paaS) offerings this year, making 2011 the year of paaS, according to Gartner. These leading vendors are expected to deliver new or strongly expanded paaS service offerings and cloud- enabled application infrastructure products. Today’s paaS offerings come in over a dozen of specialised types; however, during the next three years, the variety of paaS specialist-subset offerings will consolidate a few major application infrastructure service suites, and, over a longer time, comprehensive, full-scale paaS offerings will emerge as well. As per Gartner during the next five years, the adoption of paaS in most mid-size and large organizations will not lead to a wholesale transition to cloud computing. Instead, it will be an extension of the use patterns of on-premises application infrastructures to hybrid computing models where on-premises application infrastructures and paaS will coexist, interoperate and integrate.