IT NEWS IN TODAY-22/12/2011

DAILY EXPRESS
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/index.cfm

E-payment to be promoted as key medium for economic transactions

 

Published on: Thursday, December 22, 2011-BERNAMA

Kuala Lumpur: E-payments will be promoted as a key medium for economic transactions and for more expedient, secure and cost effective means of moving funds, says Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).
In the Financial Sector Blueprint 2011-2020 report, BNM said the growth in e-payments has been encouraging with notable growth registered across all e-payment methods.
E-payments usage per capita doubled from 22 in 2005 to 44 in 2010, with substantial growth in the usage of debit cards, which increased 8.2 times, Internet banking by 6.3 times and Interbank GIRO by 4.5 times.
"In the next 10 years, the Bank aims to increase the number of e-payment transactions per capita to 200 by end 2020, from 44 transactions, recorded in 2010 and reduce cheques by more than half, from 207 million, at present, to 100 million annually," it added.
BNM said measures would be undertaken to encourage switching from paper-based payments to e-payments and facilitating wider outreach of e-payments infrastructure, such as point-of-sale terminals and mobile phone banking.
"The Bank will continue to provide the necessary regulatory environment to drive the migration to e-payments agenda, enhance efficiency including initiatives that will derive cost savings for the country as a whole and contribute to the payment system stability.
"The benefits of migrating to e-payments is not only limited to financial efficiency gains as it also promotes a more eco-friendly environment," it said.
Besides promoting e-payments, a comprehensive approach to consumer protection and education will also be introduced in an effort to promote a culture of mutual responsibility shared between consumers and financial service providers.
"This includes the formulation of a new consumer credit law and targeted financial literacy programmes based on life events," it said.
The central bank will also ensure adequate supply of talent equipped to handle the complexities of the new landscape through a collaboration and coordination with parties beyond the financial sector.
"In this regard, a Financial Services Talent Council will be established to drive the financial sector talent development agenda and oversee and coordinate talent development efforts in the financial sector," it added. - Bernama

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY

THE STAR NEWSPAPER

Friday December 9, 2011

ICT is catalyst for innovation

By JO TIMBUONG
bytz@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is an increasingly competitive nation in Asia Pacific and such development can be further accelerated through ICT (information and communications technology), said software giant Microsoft Malaysia.
"Exciting things are happening in Malaysia with the projects under the Economic Transformation Programme and ICT will be the catalyst for many of them," said Ananth Lazarus, Microsoft Malaysia managing director.
Microsoft, he said, will continue to support the country's innovative spirit through its many programmes and initiatives aimed at transforming lives, businesses, and the education sector.
To this end, the software vendor has launched various initiatives, such as organising the Imagine Cup competition to encourage students think up innovative ideas to solve the world's toughest problems.
It is also behind the BizSpark programme, which equips software startups with Microsoft development tools.
This has led to the setting up of local software companies, such as Israk Technology that is involved with online video production and Web Bytes which produces Xilnex, a cloud-based management software for the retail sector.
Microsoft has also equipped various non-governmental organisations with its software products under its Unlimited Potential programme.
This programme is targeted at narrowing the "digital divide" - the gap between the technology haves and have-nots.
Ananth was speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the Microsoft Accelerating Asia Pacific Summit here. The event highlights how technology can be used to solve socio-economic problems in the region.
Parent company Microsoft Corp sees Asia Pacific as an epicentre of growth due to the region's growing number of talents and innovations.

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY

THE STAR NEWSPAPER
Thursday December 8, 2011

Managing growing data is main challenge to enterprises

By SUBASHINI SELVARATNAM
bytz@thestar.com.my

Eggleston: "Current storage infrastructure is generally meeting business needs but data growth is the challenge."

KUALA LUMPUR: Data growth is the biggest hurdle to enterprises today, according to Hitachi Data Systems Corp, a storage systems vendor.
"Current storage infrastructure is generally meeting business needs but data growth is the challenge," said Kevin Eggleston, senior vice-president and general manager of Asia Pacific at Hitachi Data Systems Ltd.
"This is because the IT systems are not keeping up with business requirements for deeper insights," he explained.
In all Asia Pacific markets surveyed by industry researcher IDC recently, the IT executives are primarily concerned with data growth, with 56% of respondents citing it as their main challenge.
Eggleston also said that more than 50% of Asia Pacific's large enterprises that participated in the survey, are not anticipating or planning for the advent of big data.
About 67% of the respondents believe their current storage infrastructure is sufficient for the next 12 months.
However, 72% of them do not have a strategy to cope with the growth of unstructured data, such as large multimedia files.
"(All this) data needs to be shared, compared, analysed and visualised more holistically," said Eggleston. "(Only then) can the data become information and be useful as insights for business purposes."
He believes that enterprises need to embrace advanced cloud-computing technologies and solutions to manage their data growth.
However, Eggleston noted, 48% of the respondents are concerned about adopting cloud-based storage solutions due to security fears. He said Hitachi Data Systems would help allay such fears through educational programmes.
Also, he said, enterprises getting into cloud storage should examine their service level agreements to ensure that their security concerns are addressed by the storage service vendor.
More than half of the respondents (60%) said virtualisation is their most adopted technology, followed by disaster recovery (44%), and data encryption (37%).
The survey was conducted from August to September; 150 IT executives from large enterprises in Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore responded. Hitachi Data Systems commissioned the survey to better understand storage management challenges and strategies.

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY

THE STAR NEWSPAPER

Friday December 9, 2011

ICT is catalyst for innovation

By JO TIMBUONG
bytz@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is an increasingly competitive nation in Asia Pacific and such development can be further accelerated through ICT (information and communications technology), said software giant Microsoft Malaysia.
"Exciting things are happening in Malaysia with the projects under the Economic Transformation Programme and ICT will be the catalyst for many of them," said Ananth Lazarus, Microsoft Malaysia managing director.
Microsoft, he said, will continue to support the country's innovative spirit through its many programmes and initiatives aimed at transforming lives, businesses, and the education sector.
To this end, the software vendor has launched various initiatives, such as organising the Imagine Cup competition to encourage students think up innovative ideas to solve the world's toughest problems.
It is also behind the BizSpark programme, which equips software startups with Microsoft development tools.
This has led to the setting up of local software companies, such as Israk Technology that is involved with online video production and Web Bytes which produces Xilnex, a cloud-based management software for the retail sector.
Microsoft has also equipped various non-governmental organisations with its software products under its Unlimited Potential programme.
This programme is targeted at narrowing the "digital divide" - the gap between the technology haves and have-nots.
Ananth was speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the Microsoft Accelerating Asia Pacific Summit here. The event highlights how technology can be used to solve socio-economic problems in the region.
Parent company Microsoft Corp sees Asia Pacific as an epicentre of growth due to the region's growing number of talents and innovations.

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY

THE STAR NEWSPAPER

Wednesday December 14, 2011

TeAM objects to Computer Professionals Bill

PETALING JAYA: The Technopreneuers Association of Malaysia (TeAM) is the latest organisation to voice its disagreement with the proposed Computer Professionals Bill.
In a statement, TeAM president, Aziz Ismail said that although the association understands the objective to increase professionalism in the industry, the bill is not the answer. "TeAM supports the objective of upgrading the human capital of the ICT industry in Malaysia. However TeAM strongly disagrees with the implementation of the Computing Professionals 2011 bill," he said.
Echoing the views of the IT community, TeAM said that the bill is not only an unnecessary barrier for innovation and development of the industry but that it also does not take into account that IT cuts across various industries.
Another point stated that there is no need for a Malaysia-specific computing professional certification because there are numerous internationally recognised ones and that many terms in the bill will become obsolete as technology evolves rapidly.
TeAM also said ICT requires the involvement of talents from various skill sets and industries and ICT professionals are not restricted to people with a computing academic background only.
"This bill will contradict our efforts in making Malaysia one of the most innovative countries in the world," Aziz said.

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY

  THE STAR NEWSPAPER

Wednesday December 14, 2011

Kaspersky wants your ideas on beating cybercrime

PROUD MOMENT: (l-r) Kaspesky Lab head of educational programmes Svetlana Efimova handing over the mock cheque to Asnita.

PETALING JAYA: Cybersecurity expert Kaspersky Lab is calling on students in Malaysian universities and other institutions of higher learning to take part in a research competition on cybercrime.
The contestants are to submit papers on technical, social, economic and legal-related topics, covering areas such as anti-spam development, cloud security, future technology to combat malware, emerging security threats, challenges and opportunities for IT, and education in IT security.
Those behind the Top Three submissions will be invited to attend and present their papers at Kaspersky's IT Security for the Next Generation - Asia-Pacific & MEA Cup 2012 conference, to be held at the City University of Hong Kong from March 14 to 16, next year.
There, the contestants will compete against other top representatives from universities and institutes of higher education in the Asia Pacific region, as well as the Middle East.
Three regional winners will be selected, and they will win cash prizes worth a total of US$3,250 (RM9,750). They will also go on to compete in the International leg, against other regional winners from the American Cup and European Cup.
The grand prize winner will receive 1,500 euro (RM7,500) while the first and second runner up will get 1,000 euro (RM5,000) each.
The venue for the International Cup 2012 has not been finalised but Kaspersky is in talks with universities in Prague, Czech Republic.
Last year, Asnita Hashim, a post-graduate Mathematics and Computer Science student from Universiti Teknologi Mara, made the country proud when she bagged second place in the Asia Pacific and MEA Cup 2011 and went on to grab a special-merit prize (because her paper was almost as good as the third place winner's submission) in the international competition in Munich, Germany.
Research papers are to be submitted online through the Kaspersky website, www.kaspersky.com/educational-events/it_security_conference_2012_asia. Registration is free and the submission deadline is on Jan 9.
Airfare and accomodation for finalists for each stage will be borne by Kaspersky.
The security conference brings together students, experts, scientists and researchers in a collaborative environment to share their respective knowledge and experiences, and aims to develop new ideas to improve the level of security in information technology.

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY

THE STAR NEWSPAPER

Thursday December 15, 2011

TM, Microsoft in Office 365 partnership

SMART PARTNERSHIP: Ghazali (left) and Ananth looking at the partnership contracts that they just signed.

By DONOVAN QUEK
bytz@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd will soon offer the Microsoft Office 365 suite of productivity tools as a part of its cloud services.
TM is targeting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and Office 365 will be made available on TM Cloud from January.
The telecommunications giant has been appointed Microsoft's exclusive syndication partner in the country to provide dedicated local support for Office 365 subscribers.
Office 365 is a cloud-based productivity and collaboration suite that brings together Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online. The tools are accessed solely via the Internet by its users.
TM, via its subsidiary VADS Bhd, will look after everything connected to Office 365, from consulting to delivery to installation and to technical support.
VADS already provides a suite of services under Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service initiatives. With the inclusion of Office 365, VADS is now expanding its cloud service offerings to include Software-as-a-Service, said its chief executive officer Ghazali Omar.
He was speaking to reporters after signing the partnership agreement with Microsoft Malaysia, which was represented by its managing director Ananth Lazarus.
According to Ghazali, cloud computing is a revolution that enables companies, even small businesses, to be more agile and cost effective in competitive environments.
"SMEs play a very important role in the our country's economy, therefore it is critical for them to remain competitive and maintain their sustainability," he said.
VADS will be targeting Office 365 at the 450,000 SMEs that are already subscribers to parent company TM's other cloud services.
Ghazali said he expects to get about half of these to subscribe to Office 365 over the next three years.
Microsoft's Ananth said that as the country's leading broadband provider, TM commands a 95% share of the Malaysian fixed-broadband market.
This, he said, makes TM an ideal partner to help Microsoft more quickly bring the benefits of Office 365 to Malaysian businesses.
In a survey commissioned by Microsoft in the United States, 50% of the SMEs polled reported cost savings after using Office 365. And 42% said that cloud computing has reduced their IT workload.
Microsoft said it is helping businesses better manage their IT needs with Office 365, whether it is the ability to leverage IT capabilities more cost-effectively, create new ways to better serve their customers, or operate their businesses without IT limits.
"This leaves them free to concentrate on what they do best, which is managing and driving their businesses," Ananth said.