Hitachi Acquires Software Assets From Nortel Networks

Hitachi Ltd, the Tokyo-headquartered electronics company has acquired software assets from Nortel Networks and group companies. The cost of the deal is put to USD 10 million.

The software assets are the Serving GPRS Support Node on Advance Telecommuting Architecture (ATCA), Gateway GPRS Support Node on ATCA, Mobility Manager Element, AGW Serving Gateway, AGW Packet Data Gateway. Besides these, the company has also taken in possession all relevant non-patent intellectual property, equipment, other related tangible assets, a non-exclusive license of certain relevant patents, etc.

Besides Nortel Networks Ltd, other group companies involved in the deal were Nortel Networks Inc and Nortel Networks Technology Corporation.

Hitachi plans to strengthen its Long Term Evolution (LTE) equipment with the help of this acquisition. The company expects the LTE market to expand worldwide, and the standard was established as recently as in March 2009 by 3GPP, an international body that sets industry standards. The demand is mainly in broadband-intensive communications in the mobile communications field, including mobile phones and data card devices for PCs. Applications that necessitate large-volume file transfers, music and video streaming services are the ones that drive LTE. This purchase will give Hitachi a quick head-start.

Read about the latest inorganic growth achieved by Hitachi Ltd, here.

New Online Services From Microsoft For ERP

Redmond, Washington-headquartered Microsoft Corporation has announced a set of three new online services built around its ERP platform, Microsoft Dynamics.

The first service, Sites Service, is built on Azure platform and allows users to create websites in the Dynamics app. This is especially useful for customers who are looking for a seamless way to interact with the external environment such as customers (feedback and registration), vendors (request for quote), prospective employees (recruitment), etc. The service provides capabilities such as embedded intelligence and optimization models to provide analytics.

The second service, simply called “Commerce”, links ERP and ecommerce for the users by providing a single interface that hooks up to B2C e-commerce marketplaces, dedicated e-commerce storefronts, etc. The service has an inbuilt shopping cart functionality, enabling customers to interact with the user’s organization from within their own sites.

The third service, called “Payment”, handles payment transactions from Microsoft’s Dynamics ERP interface. This service works with leading payment processing services such as First Data Merchant Services Corporation, and handles all the major credit cards. Microsoft is on a agreement-signing spree with all major payment processing services across Europe and the rest of the world to bolster this particular service.

Read about the latest in online services being offered by Microsoft, here.

Fujitsu Launches Its Very Own SaaS Edition

Tokyo-based sister organizations – Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu System Solutions Limited have jointly entered the SaaS market with their own SaaS edition of “WebSERVER smart e-COMMERCE”. This service is now being offered to customers in Japan, and will assist them in their ordering and procurement functions.

Most customers find the incompatibilities between e-commerce systems and customer ICT systems difficult and inconvenient to surmount. There is often no seamless interaction between the e-commerce set up by one organization vis-a-vis the other. This particular niche requirement is being sought to be addressed by the new SaaS service.

Fujitsu’s offering helps companies at two levels. First, it enables companies to shift to an online commerce system that is secure and seamless, and because their suppliers and customers too will be in the same cloud, transactions will happen without hassles. And second, the two companies will operate the SaaS center and take care of its maintenance. Since customers will pay only when they use its services, a major chunk of the company’s costs is lopped off.

The system will work on the popular Windows OS using IE 6.0 / 7.0 browsers. A start-up service will cost from JPY 1.8 million onwards, while a basic package of 100 IDs will work to around JPY 300,000 per month.

Read more about the entry of one more player in the SaaS market, here.

Lotus Notes And Domino Now Available On Mobile And Internet Devices

In a sign of the heating up of the space of mobile and web-based devices, Armonk, New York-headquartered IBM Corporation has announced the availability of two of its open source softwares – Lotus Notes and Domino to this space.

The latest version of Lotus Domino, 8.5.1, now natively supports the iPhone through its Lotus Notes Traveler Software, and extends the automatic synching facility of Lotus Domino for email, contacts and calendar data to the iPhone. An added attractive feature for business users is that, were the iPhone to be stolen, all its data can be erased remotely.

The Lotus set of software is also available for Nokia’s Symbian, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and RIM’s BlackBerry, and is supported by device manufacturers such as Nokia and Samsung, besides working seamlessly with the infrastructure of carriers such as At&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint. IBM has thus covered a vast majority of mobile devices in the global market for its open source softwares.

Read more about the latest move by IBM to offer open-source software in the mobile and internet devices domain, in competition with Microsoft, here.

Intel Invests In Korean Company For MID Push

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Capital, a division of Intel Corporation, has invested USD 5 million in a Korea-based software company for development of softwares and applications aimed at the MID (Mobile Internet Device) platform.

The name of the company is Infraware. The company is headquartered in Seoul, Korea, with offices in San Jose, California and Beijing, China. Founded in April 1997, the company is a leading player in the Korean market for internet-based applications, and lately has moved into broadcasting and telecommunications domains in a big way. The company went public in 2005 and is listed on the Korean Stock Exchange KOSDAQ.

As part of the agreement arrived at between Infraware and Intel, the former will focus its energies on the development of Moorestown, Intel’s next-generation MID platform based on the Atom processor, besides the development of related middleware, UI and Total solutions. The outcome of this agreement will be a set of products that have been scheduled to be showcased at CES 2010.

The two companies have also roped another player, SK Telecom, which will address the international MID application market.

Read about the latest move by Intel in its game plan to forge ahead in the burgeoning MID market, here.

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