The Synchronous Converter

India, the dominant player in outsourcing touted as the “back office of the world,” would soon have to contend with a third-world rivalthe Philippines.

A highly skilled English-speaking labor force. A reliable telecommunications infrastructure. Low cost of qualified personnel. These are some significant reasons for choosing India or the Philippines for outsourcing support.

IT OUTSOURCING IN INDIA

India, a former colony of the British Empire for almost two centuries, has the second-largest IT talent pool in the world, a result of its Britain-influenced education system that places great emphasis on science and mathematics. With 120,000 trained IT professionals added to the Indian workforce yearly, India is gearing to be an IT giant in the third world and is ranked as the first choice of U.S. companies for software outsourcing. According to Nasscomm, a conglomerate of India-based software and services companies, Indian companies are software solution provider to more than half the Fortune 500 companies.

The launch of India’s first private undersea cable has tremendously improved the international bandwidth situation. In addition, considerable bandwidth is available with the state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, partially owned by India’s largest business conglomerate. The privatization of telecom industry has also resulted in a significant drop in telecom rates. Observers predict that the entry of newer industry players will see a further drop in telecom prices. In the last ten years, telecom costs in India have dropped by 85 percent.

Over the years, India has built a strong brand equity as an attractive destination for software development and support. India is host to established IT companies such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Sun, HP, and Alcatel.

OFFSHORE DESTINATION: PHILIPPINES

But the Philippinesone of the world’s second-largest English-speaking populationsis fast catching up to India.

With a literacy rate of 94%, the Philippines has a large pool of information technology professionals and a cost-competitive telecoms infrastructure. The country ranks third in Knowledge and Information-based jobs in the 2002 Global Technology Index research done by the META Group. Three million college graduates join the workforce each year, providing a tremendous source of talent.

An American colony for close to 50 years, the Philippines has a Western-influenced culture, a unique trait that clearly distinguishes the country from other offshore destinations. Although Asian in orientation, Filipinos watch American TV and are thus able to communicate effectively in American English.

PHILIPPINES: CALL CENTER HUB

In recent years, the Philippines has become the offshore destination of choice for call center outsourcing, specializing in customer support services. Because of the Filipinos’ high level of English proficiency and strong customer orientation, many leading multinationals have used the Philippines as a global center for customer service. American OnLine, the largest U.S. Internet service provider, maintains a staff of 600 at its call center in Clark, Pampanga. Caltex, Procter & Gamble, Barnes and Noble, among others, have built large-scale service centers in the Philippines.

One very promising industry that has sought outsourcing support in the Philippines is the medical transcription business. The Philippines boasts a large talent pool of medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and medical technologists. The demand for medical transcription has risen as U.S. hospitals are now required by federal regulations to convert medical records into data format. Seventeen medical transcription companies are now in operation, employing 1,200 Filipinos.

GIVING INDIA A RUN FOR ITS MONEY

While the Philippines may not be as a huge an offshore provider of web and software services as India, it holds great promise in the customer service industry. Although India does charge lower than the Philippinesfor data encoding work, India charges around $4 (U.S.) versus $10 in the Philippinesmore multinationals are choosing the Philippines because of the high quality of work. Moreover, Filipinos make good customer service agents not only because they are fluent in American English but also because of their helpful and friendly nature.

More companies are choosing the Philippines for offshore support. Among the services offered in Philippine-based outsourcing companies are copyediting and indexing; web design and maintenance; data conversion, data warehousing, data capture and data entry; OCR and scanning services; proofreading; encoding and keyboarding; imaging services and graphics design; call center and customer service; abstracting and document conversion; typesetting; and tagging, among others.

About The Author

Winston Pepito is the President of Phil-Am Outsourcing Solutions, Inc. (one of most successful outsourcing companies in Asia) based in Cebu City, Philippines. More details about his company can be found at http://www.outsourcing-services.net

winston@outsourcing-services.net

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Exhibits are about the seamless information dissemination of new products and services. And nothing makes exhibits more successful than attractive displays. Attractive and sleekly designed displays function by getting information effectively within reach of the intended audience. This is done with the immense colors and concepts on display in exhibits across the world.

Exhibit displays can be of several types. They can be pop booths, popup displays, portable exhibit displays, kiosks, presentation boards, banner stands, portable desks, shipping cases, literature stands, table skirts or anything else that can achieve its purpose. Modern exhibits witness the use of a wide assortment of material, graphics, lighting, and audio or video effects that help make displays extremely attractive and professional. The scope of displays, however, is limitless, and they range as wide as one’s creativity.

Exhibit displays can be hired from professional exhibit service providers. However, exhibitors willing to showcase their products and services in exhibitions need to be extra careful when deciding on displays - their types, designs and so forth. They should use a high-impact and professional presentation that appeals to the interest of the target audience. They will also need to ensure that the construction of the displays is durable and meets stringent quality control standards. The other fronts that the exhibitor might need to consider include lower costs, scalability, superior product warranty, and after-sales support. As a general rule, to get the best display services, it is advisable to always get three bids and then decide on the best deal that suits your particular display requirements.

There are professional organizations that offer complete display solutions. They offer end-to-end solutions - from concept and creation to installation and management. These service providers are equipped with industrial designers, graphic artists, visualizers and engineers, among others.

Undoubtedly, the selection of displays is a highly creative job and requires considerable levels of creativity and visualization. The coming days are bound to witness a great spurt of creativity in display designs, as newer products and services inundate the markets with cutthroat competition and unforeseen challenges. The big question is, ‘are exhibitors ready?’

Exhibits provides detailed information on Exhibits, Trade Show Exhibits, Exhibit Displays, Exhibit Booths and more. Exhibits is affiliated with Trade Show Exhibit Display Booths.

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Beginning with Domino version R4 it has integration with the Web, and the server itself becomes a HTTP-server. The next releases of Domino Web-server add new functionality (for example servlet managers, supported JVM versions upgrade, etc). To give you general picture and abstracting from details we’ll talk about two major Domino Web-server functions:

1. Domino Web-server is the full-featured HTTP-server. In other words, it can provide static (or conditionally static) files as the reply to HTTP-browser’s requests (including HTML, image, JavaScript, applets, etc);

2. During the browser’s requests to Domino dynamic resources by specific URL, the server can create in passing HTML-pages, making the Domino object visible.

For sure, it is reasonably simplified model (we mentioned that, for example, Domino Web-server supports servlet technology), but this model allows to discuss the major issues in creation of Web-applications based on Lotus Domino technology. Following the major problems are:

• in Domino-based Web-applications creation developer is strongly limited to use built-in program languages’ possibilities. Thus, from 380 inbuilt @-commands of @-formulas language nearly 40 are supported in Web. LotusScript is supported only in three types of Web-agents, etc;

• application security problems. The standard authentication, authorization, coding, digital signatures, etc. mechanisms are simplified in Web or do not work. So SSL + x.509, etc. certificates are to be used in such cases;

• applications efficiency. HTML-pages generation in passing surely takes the server resources, so if the application is poorly constructed, it may cause the server failure. For example, if the first page of the site is generated by an agent, then concurrent request from rather big number of users may cause the service failure situation. Developers are to take care themselves for loading balance putting into different parts often changed and more static data;

• result of HTML-pages generation in passing from Domino resources is not every time obvious. Often such a procedure issues appearance in generated page additional by developer point of view tags (for ex.,

,
,

, etc). As a consequence, most developers put on Domino only those features which can not implement themselves. If look through the codes of full-blown Web-sites, designed on Domino technology, then, for example, in Domino forms we see only fields, all extern design is based on DHTML.

It is not so bad. There are a lot of sites, supporting large number of users, accessing Domino data. Domino technology from release to release offers new possibilities for Web-design (for ex. JSP custom tag library, inbuilt HTML-editor, etc). The author himself used Domino to create portals with requests with more than 2000 visitors per a day. Summarizing the own and my colleagues experience in Domino Web-design field, I can recommend the following:

• Before creation of Web-project on Domino it is necessary to evaluate the whole Domino infrastructure in frame of concrete organization. If the Domino infrastructure at this company is on opening or initial stage, than Web-design based on Domino is hardly appropriated. The fact that Domino Designer is the environment for rapid application development (RAD), including Web- applications, can not be the reason to create Web-projects on Domino;

• as far as possible allowing to Domino transfer in passing only objects, which can not be or hardly implemented by using other Web-technologies (so-called HTML-design is to be developed by programmers). The author thinks that, if a site needs to operate with Domino data, then to view them it is necessary to avoid the use of standard URL working with Domino objects. In this case exchange of data between site and Domino can be done by using any integration technologies supported by Domino (ex., XML, CORBA, JDBC, etc). In other words, Domino will play a role of data storage and their viewing is to be done by other mechanisms. Implicitly, the issue is confirmed by IBM. In R6 Domino Don’t allow URL open feature may be assigned to databases , so the usage of standard URL Domino is protected in Web-applications;

• attention needs to be paid to Web-application security. Even when your site does not allow non-authorized access to information via Internet, you can expect hackers out there challenging your web-site security;

• only the tested by loading technologies are to used in Web-applications;

• minimize as much as possible the traffic Web-server <-> browser. In Web-design the issue is to be considered that Internet channels are usually narrower than local channels Domino <-> Lotus.

Good luck in your system setting up and contact us for any help in USA: 1-866-528-0577, Germany: (0177) 8349 806! help@albaspectrum.com

P.Gottmann is a technical writer in Ronix Systems ( http://www.ronix-systems.com ) the European branch of Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), IBM and Microsoft Business Solutions Partner, serving clients in Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, Germany, UK, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Moscow.

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If you have Microsoft Great Plains and support it for your company and have light or heavy Great Plains customization, written in Dexterity - you need to know your options in upgrading Great Plains or migrating it from ctree/Pervasive to MS SQL/MSDE.

Great Plains Dexterity is proprietary programming language/environment, which was created in early 1990-th to provide platform / database / graphical interface independence for Mac and Windows based Great Plains Dynamics. Today it is legacy and Microsoft Business Solutions is phasing Dexterity out.

However Great Plains 7.5 and even 8.0 is Dexterity based application, so you have to deal with it and it’s customization.

Good news. Prior to version 7.0 Great Plains had plans on expanding GP functionality and so was changing tables structure - forcing Dexterity customization to be analyzed and partially rewritten with each upgrade. Not any more - GP structure stays the same - Microsoft is doing new modules acquisition and unifying it’s graphical interface to move all it’s ERP packages: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta to web-based Microsoft Business Portal.

Still pain. Dexterity has possibility to customize existing Great Plains screens, so called Alternative Great Plains forms. This was upgrade problem in the past and it stays now - there is no way to do it in house (until you are willing to pay for full-time internal developer - who is usually in the learning curve). You got to bring in consultant.

Recommended approach. You should have the strategy to migrate Dexterity customization to SQL, Crystal Reports, custom web publishing - Visual Studio.net and slowly abandon Dexterity customization

1. SQL Stored procedures - performance improvement. Consider replacing dexterity data manipulation with SQL stored procedures. Dexterity is cursor-driven language and it is not efficient when processing huge datasets.
   
2. Crystal Reports. Take advantage of open and leading technology. Crystal Reports will eliminate the need in the future for painstaking Dexterity reports upgrade. Base you Crystal report on the SQL view or stored proc
   
3. Do direct web publishing off your GP database. Use Visual Studio - it is easy to find specialists and have them in staff. We are in the World when web publishing is very easy.

Good luck and if you have issues or concerns - we are here to help! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, New York, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Seattle and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

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