Tech forum enlightens SMEs

As part of its commitment to contribute to the economy of Nigeria via technology, Starcomms, Nigeria`s largest 3G mobile network, has partnered with HP Compaq and others to expose small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria to various technologies that could assist them to improve their businesses, states Nigerian Bulletin.

At a technology forum sponsored by Starcomms, over 600 SME operators were shown how to enhance their productivities technologically. The lectures were delivered by officials of HP and its partners.

Marketing manager of HP Ijeoma Onyuike said the forum was organised having realised the low level of SME operators in Nigeria compared to the world of IT.

Coyote Point Systems has released its biggest upgrade for its Equalizer Series V8.0 of load balancing and acceleration appliances, reports Information Week.

The upgrades, announced at Interop New York, aim to increase acceleration, offer server cluster surge protection, add Akamai compatibility, offer Microsoft Web Outlook Access support, and provide HTTP compression. They will also improve user experience and the amount of resources needed to run the equalisers.

Coyote Point targets the SME market, offering gear with pre-programmed applications that increase server availability and scalability for clusters of up to 512 servers with unlimited capacity for virtualization.

IBM, which has emerged as the largest player in the Indian domestic IT sector, is noticing increased traction from sectors like retail, travel and transportation, and government and public-sector undertakings, reports Sify.

The company is also reaching out to tier-II and tier-III cities to tap into the SME segment.

"Traditionally, our bigger verticals are telecoms and financial services. Now we are witnessing strong demand from some of the other emerging verticals, like retail and travel and transportation," said Bhaskar Anand, country executive of IT services for IBM India.