HP India launches HP Software University

Courtesy:IndianExpress
Hewlett-Packard (HP) in partnership with the Indian Institute of Hardware Technology (IIHT) on Thursday announced the launch of ‘HP Software University’ (HPSU). This first of its kind program from HP in the non-enterprise training space aims to address the growing demand of software testing professionals in India.

The program will offer students accredited training on HP Software and a curriculum path surrounding various testing software from HP like Quick Test professional and LoadRunner. Certified professionals would gain access to special HP Software online resources providing the latest in software news, product information, job openings and more.

The university will be initially launched in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Noida, Chennai and Bangalore and HP has plans to add more cities over the next few months.

Keshava Raju, CEO, the Indian Institute of Hardware Technology, said, “Keeping in mind the tremendous market for soft ware testing tools, we have partnered with HP. With this program, our graduates will be equipped with unique skills that will benefit and make them more marketable.

"We want to expose our students to products and technologies used by leading corporations in the real world," he added.
“HP Software University is aimed at providing students a competitive edge in the software testing industry. With HPSU, students and professionals will have access to numerous opportunities in the technology industry," said Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, HP India.

The HP Software University is the only HP authorized program offering students and professionals the opportunity to attend an official and accredited training on HP Software testing tools.

"The HP software university’s mission is to prepare its students for the real world of business and IT," said Roy Chermana, director, Educational Services - HP Software, APJ. "The program and its students will be directly monitored by an HP worldwide team at each stage right from the inception to final certification."

HP launches program to train software testers

"As applications become more complex, testing is going to be the need of the hour, while the sector which is growing about 45 percent annually among the various verticals of application development faces shortages of trained testers," said Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, HP India. Blaming Indian IT education system which follows the curriculum that is not subjected to upgradation frequently, Neelam opines that Indian institutes fail to produce graduates who are updated with latest trends in technology.

Intending to fill the gap between education and employability and help the graduates to become well trained software testing professionals, HP, one of the testing majors has launched HP Software University (HPSU) in partnership with Indian Institute of Hardware Technology (IIHT).

The first of its kind program from HP will offer students accredited training on HP software and a curriculum path surrounding various testing software from HP like Quick Test professional and LoadRunner. Certified professionals would gain access to special HP software online resources providing the latest in software news, product information, job openings and more.

Software testing is a $13 billion market globally today and India is expected to contribute 70 percent of this. "Keeping in mind the tremendous market for software testing tools, we have partnered with HP and with program our students will be equipped with unique skills that will benefit and make them more marketable," said Keshava Raju, CEO, IIHT.

As per the estimates India is currently facing a shortage of 18,000 software testers and it may grow to 25,000 in the coming years. HP is eying to fill this gap by setting up training centers in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Noida, Chennai and Bangalore. The company has plans to extend the program to more cities over the next few months.

Sony Plans U.K. Job Cuts as Part of Global Reduction of 8,000

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Sony on Dec. 9 said it will cut 8,000 full-time jobs at its electronics business worldwide, or 5 percent of the operation’s workforce, as consumers curb spending on televisions, game machines and music players during the global recession.

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Graco Inc., announced an 8% reduction in its global employee base, citing continued negative impact of global recession on its businesses. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company would now reduce its workforce by 8% or approximately 180 people, resulting in a pretax charge of $4 million related to severance in the first quarter of fiscal 2009.

Why would IBM buy Sun Microsystems? Software, services

Source: SanJoseMercuryNews
With IBM reportedly in talks to buy Sun Microsystems, industry experts say the two tech giants — both of which earned early fortunes by selling expensive hardware — are looking to a future based on a much broader range of computing gear, software and tech services.

"It's about the whole data center," said Chris Foster, a veteran analyst at Technology Business Research, noting that a deal would give IBM control over Sun's cornerstone Java programming language and other valuable software, as well as access to hardware customers and highly profitable contracts for consulting and other services.

Both companies declined to comment Wednesday on reports that IBM is negotiating a possible $6.5 billion purchase of Sun — a deal that would shake up the global tech industry and spell the demise of a venerable but now-struggling Silicon Valley pioneer. After its founding in 1982, Sun built a hugely successful business selling powerful computer workstations and later the servers behind much of the first Internet boom.

News of the talks first surfaced Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the discussions. While those sources said a deal could be struck this week, analysts said it is by no means certain, and even suggested Sun might entertain offers from other suitors.

But if the sale occurs, analysts say it would reverberate through the ranks of other tech giants, including Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems, which are also expanding their range of data center products and services. It could open the door to more acquisitions as competitors jockey to fill gaps in their own portfolios.

It also could produce substantially more layoffs in an industry already reeling from the recession, as IBM seeks to mitigate the cost by cutting redundant positions in sales, administration, research and development.

Acquiring Sun would give IBM a boost in the computer server market, where the New York company has long competed with Palo Alto-based HP for the position of market leader. Sun is the world's fourth-largest seller of servers, the industrial-strength computers that are the building blocks of most data centers; it had about 10 percent of the market and $5.5 billion in server revenue last year.

Each company has its own lines of hardware, but there is enough overlap that some analysts questioned the benefit of a deal. Though IBM was originally known for its big mainframes, it has in recent years divested its personal computer business and shifted its focus to software and services — which contributed 80 percent of IBM's $104 billion in revenue last year and helped it post a 12 percent increase in profit for its last quarter, despite the global economic slowdown.

Sun, meanwhile, has posted losses in the past two quarters and struggled for several years because the biggest part of its revenue comes from high-end servers and storage systems that many customers are no longer buying. In acquiring Sun, Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope wrote in a note to investors, IBM would be "doubling down in one of the most secularly challenged segments in servers. In our view, the acquisition makes little strategic sense."

Reports of the talks drove IBM's stock down 1 percent to close at $91.95 on Wednesday, while Sun's stock soared 79 percent, to $8.89.

Sun has based its current business strategy on open-source software and on developing new technology for cost-conscious customers. In recent months, the company has been at the industry's vanguard in offering new storage and server systems that exploit innovations in software and solid-state memory. It's also been developing new cloud-computing services for software developers and Web-based businesses.