Moody’s Acquires Indian firm...set for Nigeria entry

Foremost Credit Rating Agency, Moody’s has said that it had bought a majority stake in Copal Partners, a company that provides research and analysis for banks, hedge funds and private equity firms using analysts in India and other emerging markets.

Copal’s 1,250 analysts do equity research, due diligence on mergers and statistical analysis for dozens of big banks and funds, at a fraction of the cost of analysts in New York or London. The company’s revenue has increased at least 20 percent a year since 2006, and is projected to hit $50 million in 2011, Copal executives said on Monday.

Terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed. Moody’s said it would not affect the company’s 2011 results.

Mark Almeida, the president of Moody’s Analytics, called the deal a “logical extension” for Moody’s Analytics, which has more than half of its 1,800 employees outside the United States. Moody’s Analytics is in the business of providing research and data and software, he said, while Copal provides people to augment the staff of banks and other companies.

Outsourcing companies in India have taken on more sophisticated tasks in recent years, as they try to increase revenues and as companies in the developed world cut costs. Indian companies and analysts have expanded into the legal industry, where they provide document review, the pharmaceutical industry, where they do research, and in financial services.

The last few years of instability in the financial services industry have brought Copal new businesses and clients that may not have considered outsourcing in the past, said Rishi Khosla, the chief executive of Copal. “Most banks today view this as part of the operating model, and for the larger banks it’s a question of how much of this they want to do,” not whether they want to do it, he said.

In a related development, Moody’s Corporation will make its introductory foray into the Nigerian marketplace in a breakfast session on Nigeria’s corporate rating followed by a session on Nigeria’s sovereign rating on December 1, 2011.  Moody's Corporation is the parent company of Moody's Investors Service, which provides credit ratings and research covering debt instruments and securities, and Moody's Analytics, which offers leading-edge software, advisory services and research for credit and economic analysis and financial risk management.

The sessions will look at imperatives of the sovereign rating of the Nigerian economy in light of global economic crisis and its effect on sovereign ratings. The event will look deeply at how corporations can benefit from ratings and maintain strong credibility and relevance through rating institutions like Moody’s. The event, a collaboration of Moody’s, AME&T Group S.A and Futureview Financial Services Ltd. will feature the Hon. Minister of Finance & Economic Affairs Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Hon. Minister of Trade & Investment Dr. Olusegun Aganga,as special guests along with Michael Korwin, Senior Vice President of Moody’s as the Keynote Presenter and other Moody’s Analysts. The team will then proceed to Abuja on December 1 for a government only session that will discuss Nigeria’s sovereign rating.

Moody's currently rates the U.S. at a top-notch triple-A, though its outlook on the rating is negative. Moody’s affirmed the US’ triple-A rating after the US Congress reached a last-minute deal in early August to raise the debt ceiling, saying it would be a "positive rating factor " if the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction agrees on a path to trim the US deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. However, a rating downgrade wouldn't be triggered automatically if the group can't reach a consensus. "As $1.2 trillion in further deficit reduction has already been legislated through automatic spending caps if no agreement is reached.”

Nvidia CEO: Tablet makers struggling with sales

One of the biggest challenge for tablet makers is figuring out how best to sell the devices, the chief executive of chip maker Nvidia Corp., said.

Jen-Hsun Huang, speaking Friday in a media roundtable in New York, said one of the iPad's biggest advantages is Apple Inc.'s  ability to sell the device through its own stores rather than relying on retailers such as Best Buy Inc. That gives users the ability to try out the devices without the tablet maker sharing a portion of the sale with the retailer.

"Apple stores have an advantage over anything sold through Best Buy," he said. "Everything sold through Best Buy has to pay Best Buy a margin."

He added all other hurdles for non-iPad tablet adoption--including usability, craftsmanship and affordability--will soon be solved. "That's easy," Huang said. "What is less easy is how it's going to get sold."

While many companies are racing to introduce tablets, the iPad continues to control a large portion of the market. Device makers are grappling with the task of designing tablets consumers desire and building ecosystems to attract users while also providing outlets for consumers to try out the products. Small players like Ovim and Viewsonic are currently experiencing such challenges.

Sony Corp., Chief Executive Sir Howard Stringer made comments similar to those from Huang in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying trying out products is a key factor to getting customers to buy them. But it's difficult to rely on retailers such as Best Buy to provide that experience, he said.

"That's why we started our own stores," Stringer said. "We did it a long time ago and didn't do terribly well, but we're getting much better."

He added a big weakness for Sony to solve is marketing, figuring out how to spend the right amount of money to make sure consumers know about products. Tablets will be the most lusted-for gadget in a holiday season, according to the Consumer Electronics Association estimates. The group says the average consumer will spend $244 on electronics, nearly one-third of his or her overall gift spending, making it crucial for mass merchants to grab a piece of the action.

But chain stores are facing problems of their own. Electronics experts say consumers are more likely to buy the top-selling tablets--the iPad and Amazon.com's Kindle Fire--directly from their makers, who are selling their own digital entertainment such as e-books and movies in addition to the hardware itself.

Best Buy has said it hopes its new in-store "Tablet & e-Reader Central Zone" will beckon consumers, despite alternatives such as Apple stores for iPads. The company has said the feature will allow consumers to easily compare devices.

Meanwhile, Huang said Friday the rate of improvement of mobile processors will be "quite shocking to people." He said improving the performance and power efficiency five-fold every year is "very possible." 

"It's possible to deliver more performance and lower power at the same time," Huang said. "We need to keep this trend up." He added tablets using Nvidia's newest mobile processor, Tegra 3, will "easily" cost about $299 in a couple of quarters, getting closer to the mainstream price points desired by consumers.

NetApp to face US probe for Syria Spy link

U.S. lawmakers are calling for an investigation into NetApp Inc.’s role in an Internet- surveillance system that has been under construction in Syria throughout this year’s political crackdown.

Senators Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, and Robert Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, will send a letter to the State and Commerce departments requesting an investigation into two U.S. companies whose technology has been used to “monitor activities of Syrian citizens,” according to a draft of the letter. One of the companies is NetApp, whose role in the Internet surveillance system was detailed in a Nov. 3 article by Bloomberg News.

According to Bloomberg, employees of Area SpA, a surveillance company based outside Milan engaged by the Syrian government, are installing the system under the direction of Syrian intelligence agents, who’ve pushed the Italians to finish, saying they urgently need to track people, a person familiar with the project says.

The project includes Sunnyvale, California-based NetApp Inc.  storage hardware and software for archiving e-mails; probes to scan Syria’s communications network from Paris-based Qosmos SA; and gear from Germany’s Utimaco Safeware AG (USA) that connects tapped telecom lines to Area’s monitoring-center computers.

Based on this revelation, Representative James McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts and co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the House, said he has instructed his staff to follow up with government agencies regarding NetApp to make sure U.S. sanctions against Syria are being enforced.

“I find it unconscionable that a U.S.-based company’s technology is being sent to Syria to help spy on peaceful citizens,” McGovern said. “We are concerned about U.S. and U.S.-connected entities providing the tools of repression to Syria,” Kirk said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

The Internet surveillance project for intercepting e-mail and Web sessions would be more intrusive than equipment for blocking websites. It includes NetApp’s hardware and software for archiving e-mails for easy retrieval.

Early project schematics state that NetApp’s technology would provide four petabytes of storage for archiving e-mails and other data. That is more than 15 times the amount of data stored in the online archive of the Library of Congress, or enough storage space for more than a billion digital copies of the epic Leo Tolstoy novel “War and Peace.”

In their letter, Senators Kirk and Casey ask that pending conclusion of an investigation, officials consider suspending all U.S. government work with NetApp, which received more than $111 million in U.S. contracts since 2001. The Sunnyvale, California-based company has a market value of about $15 billion and more than 10,000 employees.

The U.S. has banned most American exports to Syria other than food or medicine since 2004.

NetApp on its part, says it is committed to global trade compliance. “NetApp does not condone the location or use of its products in Syria,” said Jodi Baumann, NetApp’s senior director for corporate communications, in an e-mailed statement. “We are engaged in a vigorous effort to determine what the true facts are. We have also notified the U.S. government about the Bloomberg article and offered our full assistance.”

Eric King, human rights and technology adviser for Privacy International in London, said companies shouldn’t be allowed to recklessly disregard the potential for harm.

“The fact that there may be several degrees of separation between the original seller and the end user does not negate responsibility when products designed to facilitate blanket surveillance of a population are used for exactly that,” King said.

Amid public backlash against the project in recent days, Area Chief Executive Officer Andrea Formenti said Nov. 8 that his company is weighing options that may include exiting the Syria deal. Area has never had any relations with Syrian intelligence agencies, and its dealings comply with all export rules, the company said. Work on the Syria project has been suspended for more than two months, Formenti said, declining to say why. Technical problems “could be one of the reasons,” he said in an interview.

It is worthy to note also that the Nigerian government, in the wake of rising terrorist threats, had indicated interest in intercepting telecom and internet communication and they happen to be the biggest client to NetApp in Nigeria.

Intel Plans new CPUs for Tablet PC in 2012

Intel reportedly is developing a new family of processors designed specifically for tablets, a move that would be a departure from previous plans to have the upcoming Atom “Medfield” platform support both smartphones and tablets.

According to a report from news Website DigiTimes, the new tablet-focused lineup of chips will come out in 2012, and Intel executives expect it will enable the giant chip maker to compete more directly with ARM Holdings—whose chip designs dominate the mobile-device space, including smartphones and tablets—particularly in terms of thermal design power (TDP) and performance.

Quoting “industry sources,” DigiTimes reported that over the next two years, Intel will work to drive down the TDP levels of chips for both smartphones and tablets to less than 10 watts while speeding up the cadence of upgrades to new chips from every two years to every year.

According to Digitimes’ sources, Intel also is planning to launch three new chipsets—the 32-nanometer “Saltwell,” 22nm “Silvermont” and 14nm “Airmont”—over the next three years.

Intel is looking to make an aggressive move into the booming mobile-device space, and next year promises to be a key one for the chip maker. Intel is taking several avenues, not only with its Atom platform for smartphones and tablets, but also with its Core processors in both tablets and ultrabooks, very thin and light notebooks that executives say will offer traditional laptop capabilities and features found in tablets. Intel also has a partnership with Google in which the search engine giant will optimize its Android mobile operating system around Intel’s Atom platform.

Having tablet-focused chips would add to Intel’s arsenal as it tries to compete in the mobile space. The ultrabook strategy holds promise for Intel, which is the world’s top chip maker but has little if any presence in the mobile-device market. Executives introduced the idea in May at the Computex 2011 show, outlining a device that is no thicker than 0.8 inches and has tablet-like features, ranging from long battery life and instant-on capabilities to the use of solid-state drives. Eventually, other features, including touch capabilities, will be added.

Pricing has become the key issue, however. To compete with Apple’s popular MacBook Pro, the ultrabooks need to come in at less than $1,000, and probably significantly less for them to compete with the myriad tablets on the market, particularly Apple’s iPad. However, the first ultrabooks out this quarter—from the likes of Acer, Asus and Toshiba—include some priced as low as $899, but most are well over $1,000.

Intel is looking to help drive down the costs of components through a $300 million fund designed for companies making hardware and software for ultrabooks, as well as through reference designs for OEMs. The first ultrabooks are based on Intel’s 2nd Generation Core Sandy Bridge chips, though Intel executives say they expect significantly more OEM designs when Intel’s “Ivy Bridge” processors are released next year.

Intel is unlikely to hit its initial goal of having 40 percent of all notebooks sold by the end of 2012 being ultrabooks, but market research firm IHS iSuppli said in a report Nov. 7 that they could account for 43 percent by 2015.

“To compete with media tablets, notebook PCs must become sexier and more appealing to consumers,” Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS iSuppli, said in a statement. “With media tablets having already reversed the expansion of the previously fast-growing netbook platform, PC makers now are keenly aware that the notebook must evolve to maintain market growth and relevance. Enter the ultrabook, which borrows some of the form-factor and user-interface advantages of the media tablet to enhance the allure of the venerable notebook.” 

Telco Partners Dimension Data to Launch 4G Services...as it delists from JSE

Alepo, a leading provider of control plane & business management solutions for next generation services, has announced a partnership with one of the industry's foremost system integrators, Dimension Data, to rollout 4G data services across Zimbabwe for internet service provider Utande.
Together, Alepo and Dimension Data will build upon Utande's existing network to create a convergent network environment, enabling the delivery of 4G services over WiMAX, Wi-Fi and high-speed Metro Ethernet. The project marks the first collaboration between the two veteran telecommunications vendors.
"We are very pleased to partner with Alepo to launch 4G services at Utande," said Calvin Menyennett, Chief Technology Officer at Dimension Data. "Alepo's proven core network solutions and industry experience are true assets to this project."
Alepo will implement its convergent charging & billing platform, Service Enabler, as well as its 16e AAA Server for real-time policy & subscriber management. Alepo's Subscriber Portal will enable customers to register for services and manage their accounts online, independently.
Alepo will also provide a carrier-grade Wi-Fi Hotspot Management solution, which will allow Utande to easily expand a Wi-Fi hotspot network through partners and resellers. Alepo's open and endlessly scalable solutions will enable Utande to readily support the growing needs of Zimbabwe's residential and business consumers.
"The collaborative effort by Alepo and Dimension Data to deploy 4G services will afford Utande the competitive edge to be positioned as Zimbabwe's premier internet service provider," stated Jonathan Garini, Alepo Vice President of Products.
Ironically, it has also been a year that has seen tech companies delisting from the South African stock Exchange. After a year in which the JSE saw the delisting of behemoth IT stock Dimension Data and minnow UCS, analysts say more could follow. Vox Telecom which is currently in the process of exiting the JSE, could be indicative of the challenging terrain that similar companies face on the exchange says Richard Hurst, senior analyst of emerging markets at Ovum.
According to Hurst, Vox’s move off AltX “signals that other entities might follow suit in the short term.  These entities are likely to be in a very similar position and find the private-equity route an easier option at their early stages of their growth”

Etisalat Gets set to fight Corruption Charges in India

UAE telecoms operator Etisalat has said Indian affiliate Etisalat DB would contest charges filed by Indian authorities relating to the allocation of its 2G licence in January 2008.

India may have lost up to $39 billion in revenue when the telecoms ministry gave out lucrative licences and radio spectrum in 2007/08 at below-market prices as many ineligible firms won licences.

Reliance Telecom, Etisalat DB and Unitech Wireless were charged in April. Indian authorities framed these charges on Saturday, Etisalat said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi bourse, the latest step in the judicial process. Etisalat bought a 45 percent stake in Swan Telecom for about $900 million in September 2008, renaming it Etisalat DB the following year.

The 18-country operator said it had not found any basis for these charges and warned its affiliate would "defend the charges resolutely".

"The charges relate to events that occurred at least one year prior to Etisalat's investment in Swan," it said.

"Etisalat had no knowledge of any wrongdoing and in the licence application process and had no involvement in it." Etisalat DB had about 1.4 million subscribers as of September. It offers services in 15 areas of India including Mumbai, Delhi and Tamil Nadu. 

According to Etisalat, in so far as it has been able to investigate the position, it has not established any basis for the charges levied against EDB and it expects EDB to defend the charges resolutely.

“Etisalat will, of course, look to its remedies against third parties at the appropriate time in order to protect its investment and rights,” it added.

Way was paved on Saturday for the trial in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case with a special court framing charges against former Telecom Minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and 15 others for offences including criminal breach of trust that entails a maximum punishment of life term.

Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, corporate honchos, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s MD Gautam Doshi, Group President Surendra Pipara and Senior Vice President Hari Nair; Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, and Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka are among the other high-profile accused who will face trial, commencing on 11 November.

Ubuntu Plans Move to Smartphones, Tablets, TVs

Opensource Linux advocates, Ubuntu will eventually run on mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, TVs, vehicle smart screens and kitchen appliances, promised Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth.

Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens by 2014, Ubuntu's founder and Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth wrote on his blog Oct. 31. The desktop interface in the latest version of Ubuntu released this month, Ubuntu 11.10, "was designed with this specific vision in mind," Shuttleworth said.

"By 14.04 LTS Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud," he wrote. Canonical expects this long-term support version of Ubuntu will be ready to hit the market in April of 2014.

Unity is intended to provide a single core interface framework that scales across all screens and supports all toolkits, according to Shuttleworth. The investments Canonical has made on interfaces would translate well to touch-screen scenarios, and "with a little love and attention, will work equally well in mouse, keyboard or stylus-driven environments," Shuttleworth wrote, adding that there will be no screen size restrictions for Ubuntu.

"We will see our work on the Ubuntu platform land in a variety of formats current and yet to be invented," he wrote.

Along with regular updates to the Ubuntu operating system twice a year, Canonical releases long-term-support versions of its server and desktop versions of the Ubuntu operating system, which are supported for five and three years, respectively. Canonical released version 11.10 earlier this month, with the Unity desktop as the default interface. The next release, Ubuntu 12.04, will be the first LTS version to have the new Unity desktop interface.

There is a lot of competition, including Apple's iOS, Google's Android OS, and even Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. Research in Motion will still be trying to compete and Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 will feature both a desktop interface and the company's mobile Metro UI. Even so, Shuttleworth sees possibilities because most users are no longer "exclusively loyal" to a single technology provider and are willing to run a "diverse" set of devices running various operating systems to get online.

"There is no winner in place yet. This opportunity remains wide open, but only to products that deliver excellent experiences for users, across a full range of device categories," Shuttleworth wrote.

Shuttleworth said the "storage, syncing and sharing capabilities" of Ubuntu One personal cloud service are "not just a convenience but a requirement" as users increasingly share content and use diverse devices, perhaps as a reference to Apple launching the iCloud service. Ubuntu One's support for other operating systems "show the ability of Ubuntu to play nice with others," he said.

Noting that Canonical has good relationships with Intel, AMD and ARM, which will make chipsets that will power future devices, and with PC and device manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Acer and IBM, Ubuntu is well-poised for the market, he said. Canonical will have to "provide the heavy lifting" to get in the ballgame, but there will be opportunities for the broader community to get involved, according to Shuttleworth.

"We are determined to bring more free software to more people around the world and building that future hand in hand with device manufacturers is the best way to do it," he wrote.