Presently, the latest handsets are designed to satisfy the communication as well as entertainment needs of the mobile phone users. With the advancement in technology, there are special phones made for business and personal use. Also, there are devices which are image focused and others which are music focused. The sophisticated phones have made our lives comfortable and convenient.

One of the top mobile players in the market, Samsung is famous for its slider phones. Samsung is offering great designs in its sleek and slim devices. Features like high quality music players, impressive displays and highly capable multimedia features are common in these handsets. The two popular phones from Samsung which have attracted the users worldwide are: Samsung i620 and Samsung i640.

The Samsung i620 appeals to the masses as it is incredibly stylish and boasts of smart phone capabilities. The handset offers multitasking capabilities with the help of 3G HSDPA technology. The second camera allows the user to enjoy video calling. Experience fast data transfer rates with the help of EDGE & GPRS. This 3G smart Samsung i620 phone supports a high resolution 65k colour screen in both open and slide closed positions. The impressive features of the handset include smooth touch sensitive call & option keys. The QWERTY keyboard can be accessed even in slide open position. The handset supports a Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system version 6.

Samsung i620 is a powerful business focused phone that comes with superior quality media & imaging features. The built in music player, 2 megapixel camera, Java games and messaging features are some of the outstanding applications of the device. The music player feature of the handset lets you play music in MP3, AAC, AAC+, OGG & WMA formats. The camera comes with excellent video recording capabilities.

Microsoft doesn’t actually sell an application server, so what the heck is it doing in this roundup? Well, a great many sites are using Microsoft technologies to do the very things that application servers do. One advantage to this approach is that if you’re using Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, you’ve already got the engine for application server functions.

Other pieces of Microsoft’s solution are Visual Studio, Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA), and Application Center. The Microsoft equivalent to J2EE’s EJB components is COM+ objects, and instead of JSP (Java Server Pages), we have ASP (Active Server Pages). One advantage of COM+ objects is that they can be built in several languages, and multilanguage programming is common in COM+ systems.

ISA can improve the performance of a Web site by caching frequently accessed static content. It handles requests directly, without having to contact an upstream Web server. ISA servers can also be configured in arrays, for fault tolerance and load balancing. Application Center helps administrators work with clusters, letting them, for example, change configuration settings on all servers or perform rolling upgrades of applications.
At the heart of COM+ is a simple premise: Write the code and declare what services it requires. Developers can write code using RAD (rapid applications development) tools such as Visual Basic (VB) or Delphi and package it into COM+ components, or they can get more control over components by coding in C++.

One of the key innovations in COM+ is the concept of attributes. An attribute is data that declares what services a component needs at runtime. In practice, different people decide on a component’s attributes. In one case, a developer declares that one component must have a transaction. In another case, an administrator declares which groups of users are allowed to access a given component.

Attributes are the key to extending COM+; developers can add future services by defining new attributes. Alas, only Microsoft can add new attributes today. This limitation is removed in the .NET Framework, where developers can define their own attributes. Visual Studio.NET is currently in beta, and Microsoft says it will ship this year.

Equipment maintenance

TRADITIONALLY, BANK ADMINISTRATORS TEND TO REMAIN WITH MANUFACTURERS LONG AFTER THE INITIAL EQUIPMENT PURCHASE FOR MANY REASONS, NOT THE LEAST OF WHICH IS THE “SAFE CHOICE” RATIONALE.

I recently had lunch with Bill D., a senior vice president of a major regional savings bank. I’ve known Bill for almost five years. During this time, my firm has submitted annual service and maintenance proposals for his bank’s item processingbranch and IT eQUipment with estimates we believe were lower than what he was paying. Six months before our lunch, he called to tell me the bank decided to accept our latest proposal.

“Would you believe that we were hit with increases ranging from thirty to fifty percent every year from the various manufacturers of our equipment, and the service got worse each year,” he said. “And before you ask why we stayed with them for so long, bear in mind that my bank’s management has a policy of going with the ’safe choice’ whenever possible.”

THE FINAL STRAW
He explained that each year, the three manufacturers whose equipment the bank operates sent less experienced field personnel to service his equipment. Service had slipped and downtime increased alarmingly. The final straw was hearing from one of the manufacturers that it was time to upgrade to a new platform. This meant a major investment in equipment or skyrocketing maintenance bills.

“If I knew then that by switching to a third-party provider I would get better and faster service at a significantly lower price tag, I would have made a stronger argument against selecting the `safe choice,”‘ he told me.

This is a fairly accurate recounting of a real event. Is this always the case? Do “third parties” always wear a white hat? Absolutely not. Just ask anyone responsible for a financial institution’s equipment who has had a third-party provider suddenly close his doors and disappear from the face of the earth, leaving the bank scampering to find a replacement. In fact, many third-party service providers-increasingly referred to as alternative service providers, or ASPs-have caused untold bank executives to conjure up images of ghastly medieval tortures as a result of bad or slow service.

TATA Internet Services, ISP subsidiary of industrial giant Tata Industries, plans to offer corporate clients ASP services.

The services offered will include value added services such as network management, messaging solutions, information backup and recovery.

The companies marketing focus will be on clients in the fields of finance, retail, manufacturing and automobile.

The program is now in initial testing and is expected to be offered commercially within the next couple of months.

The services will be offered initially in Mumbai and later in cities such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi.

What is an ASP (Application Service Provider)? In my town, it is no longer necessary to cook in order to eat at home. Two chefs, a father and a son, will contract to bring your family’s food to your home each and every night. You just choose from a menu the day before, and you pay a fixed fee every month. If we were talking about software instead of dinner entrees, that would be an ASP. In an ASP arrangement, you pay a monthly fee for the use of a software application, and the vendor takes care of everything else: acquiring the software, hosting and operating it, and delivering it to your doorstep, either via a private WAN or the ‘Net.

The ASP industry was invented during the dotcom boom, and went through some rough times during the shakeout. Certainly, it has learned some lessons and taken some new directions since the wild and crazy days. What the ASP model has to offer to higher education institutions right now is a challenge to the way we have traditionally thought about owning and operating software.

ASP-ING A WHOLE CITY
The City of Houston is blazing a trail that may prove instructive. Any Houston resident, armed with a free Houston Public Library PowerCard, can tap into a suite of office applications to write a resume, maintain a personal calendar, or keep records for a business. The city signed a contract with Internet Access Technologies (IAT) in June 2002 to provide the SimDesk and SimMedia applications from an Internet server and to provide remote storage for citizens’ documents. In effect, the city (through its contractor) has become an ASP on a wide scale. In the first phase, over 60,000 people have used SimHouston and have stored over a quarter of a million documents on the city’s servers.

If the SimHouston project can flourish, it may introduce the ASP model to more ordinary people than ever before. Of course, one could argue that Web-based e-mail services, or even eBay, also deserve to be called ASPs. But somehow, complex as they may be, Web e-mail and online auctions feel more like front ends to services, rather than complex software applications that are being delivered into users’ hands remotely and without an up-front purchase.

INTERNET BUSINESS NEWS-(C)1995-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

Clickit, an Italian based direct e-mailing company and IN3-Incube, a distributor for 2G streaming video technology developer oplayo, have teamed to develop on-line advertising ASP services for the Internet.

The services will use oplayo powered streaming video technology to develop advertising services focused on videobanners - an online banner featuring TV images and sound. The oplayo-powered MVQ streaming technology will also be used for e-mail and video-based marketing campaigns.

The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

SOUND INTERNET SOLUTIONS

Should you delegate running your software to someone else?

When computers first arrived on the scene, they were too expensive for agencies to buy and operate, so service bureaus arose to allow agents to share computers, software, and data center infrastructure. Mini-computers, then networked PCs running DOS, then Windows software put management system, rating, and other software in reach of most agencies, and conventional wisdom had it that the right approach wasn’t to share but to have your own system.

However, in the last two years the picture has changed. Some vendors are now offering their customers a choice: Install and run the software locally or have the vendor host the software, then you access it through the Internet. And as a further development, a few vendors have developed packages that can be run only from the Internet; you can’t install the software and run it in your agency. Typically, vendors that offer their software through the Internet are called ASPs-application service providers.

Some agencies have made the switch to ASP-but most aren’t ready Are the early adopters on to something? Or are their more conservative peers right to wait and see?

A few years ago, during the Internet Bubble, experts predicted that shortly everyone would “rent” hosted software rather than bother buying and installing it. There were clear advantages to the ASP option-or so it seemed. The ASP would keep the software up to date, do backups, upgrade server hardware as needed, and generally take over many of the increasingly complex technical duties businesses found themselves saddled with.

The Internet Bubble burst and with it the prospect that the world would move wholesale to hosted software services. But interestingly, over the last two years, the ASP concept has caught on with at least some agencies, and scores are migrating monthly. Still, most agents aren’t planning to outsource their software hosting anytime soon. After a long struggle, they’ve gotten to a point where things seem to work pretty well with in-agency software. Why do something new-and look for trouble?

So what’s the truth about the ASP alternative? Is it something all agencies should be interested in? This article will focus on four central questions:

* What is an agency ASP?

* What are the dangers with an ASP?

* Can an ASP save you money?

* Do ASPs have important advantages over traditional in-house hosting?

TATA Internet Services, ISP subsidiary of industrial giant Tata Industries, plans to offer corporate clients ASP services.

The services offered will include value added services such as network management, messaging solutions, information backup and recovery.

The companies marketing focus will be on clients in the fields of finance, retail, manufacturing and automobile.

The program is now in initial testing and is expected to be offered commercially within the next couple of months.

The services will be offered initially in Mumbai and later in cities such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi.

Hughes Escorts Communication Limited (HECL) has entered into a strategic alliance with Talisma to offer Talisma’s eCRM product suite in an ASP model for the Indian market.

As part of the agreement, HECL will host and provide Talisma’s Online eCRM hosted solutions including modules for eSales (sales force automation), eService and eMarketing.

The eCRM solution will be hosted out of HECL’s new Internet Data Center at Gurgaon and will be offered on an ASP basis. -(World IT Report)

SSP Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq:SSPX), has announced its Secure Services ASP (application service provider) offering, targeted to small- and mid-sized public and private sector organizations. This offering promises the same level of security infrastructure that SSP provides primarily to large enterprises and government agencies, and is an extension of SSP’s marketing program “Demanding Your Digital Rights.”

SSP’s “Demanding Your Digital Rights” campaign responds to the public’s current concern for safe and confidential environments securing electronic transactions in a digital age. SSP’s ASP offering addresses those concerns by enabling strong authentication, digitally signed and encrypted email, secure file access and transfer, secure access to Intranets, Web pages and VPNs, secure work-group collaboration, and additional enterprise security features for remote IP-based network and ISP access.

“Security is no longer solely an enterprise concern — with businesses of all sizes seeking new ways to protect customers, data and revenue,” said Richard Depew, president and chief operating officer, SSP Solutions, Inc. “Our ASP model recognizes the need for protected digital rights within the workplace or family environment, and makes it possible for individuals or firms of any size to participate in the same high assurance security protocols and applications being used in the government or other large enterprises.”
Core to the ASP model is the hosting of SSP Profile Manager, SSP’s comprehensive PKI (public key infrastructure) management system. Profile Manager is designed to facilitate the secure generation, management and recovery of token file keys and certificates, and offers a complete key and certificate lifecycle management service. Profile Manager offers the highest levels of authentication together with encrypted transmission of digital data — essential requirements for trusted communication, trade and information exchange.