HP’s board had for years come under fire from shareholders and business leaders such as Oracle’sLarry Ellison, most recently after it forced out Mark Hurd as CEO in controversial fashion. The new directors will bring fresh thinking to the world’s largest technology company by revenue , including much-needed expertise in areas such as telecommunications and international experience, the company said.

In addition to Whitman, HP named as directors Shumeet Banerji, CEO of Booz & Co; Gary Reiner, former chief information officer of General Electric; Patricia Russo , former CEO of Alcatel-Lucent ; and Dominique Senequier, CEO of AXA Private Equity.

The technology giant said directors Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille Salhany will not stand for reelection by shareholders.

“This change was two things – the handling of the Mark Hurd situation, which was very controversial, and that with a new CEO it makes sense to have someone new,” said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu.

The four directors leaving are doing so voluntarily, HP said. Hyatt and Joyce have been directors since 2007, Ryan since 2004, and Salhany since 2002. The changes leave HP with 13 board members.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Salhany and Ryan pushed hard for Hurd’s ouster from the outset. Hyatt and Joyce were more supportive of Hurd at first but eventually went along with the unanimous decision to seek his resignation.
Whitman is arguably the best-known of HP’s new directors. At eBay, she oversaw a period of robust growth but was criticized for her acquisition of web telephone company Skype. “With Leo coming in as CEO, we both thought it was appropriate to look at the board,” HP chairman Ray Lane in an interview.

Lane said Russo will bring a strong track record in the telecommunications industry, called Reiner an “iconic CIO,” and lauded Banerji’s and Senequier’s international experience . Gleacher analyst Brian Marshall said investors should welcome the move.

“To shake it up a little bit and get some of the old-school guys out of there and get some new-school blood in there, highlighted by Meg Whitman, this is a positive development,” he said. Apotheker, the former CEO of SAP AG, took over as chief of HP in November and analysts are widely expecting to see more changes at the company.

NEW DELHI: The Indian digital camera market posted a 69 per cent increase in sales at 845,000 units during the quarter ended Dec 31, 2010 as against 501,000 units sold during the like period in the previous year, a study.

“The overall market touched an all-time high of 845,000 units for the first time in a quarter in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2010,” said research firm CyberMedia in its quarterly digital camera market review.

“The digital single lens reflex camera category witnessed a significantly higher uptake, registering a growth of 120 per cent year-on-year during this period,” it added.

In the point-and-shoot category, Sony was the market leader with a market share of 31 per cent in terms of unit sales during the quarter under review, followed by Nikon with 24 per cent, Kodak 13 percent and Canon 12 per cent.

“Multiple market forces have converged to drive the rise in sales of digital cameras in the Indiamarket in recent quarters,” said Anirban Banerjee, associate vice president, research and advisory services, CyberMedia Research.

“The most important ones are increase in availability and sharing of digital content, increase in real spending power and reduction in average selling values,” he added.

According to the study, the digital camera price segment of below Rs 10,000 contributed around 75 per cent of the total sales in the country.

The number of mobile handsets with cameras sold in India during the quarter under review stood at 304 lakh units, a 63 per cent of all phones, as compared to 138 lakh units or 42 per cent of all handset sales in the like period of the previous year.

“MTNL has entered into an alliance with Bharat Berry Technologies to provide push email services for all its mobile subscribers in Delhi,” state-owned service provider said in a statement.

It will provide existing users to stay connected to their e-mails, calendar and contacts through the servers hosted in India. In addition company is providing over-the-air (OTA) synchronisation of calendar and contacts for multiple mail accounts.

Bharat Berry is a mobile communication service that works with most of the mobile phones and provides more advanced push mail with over the air backup of your contact, task, calendar and notes along with sync to your outlook.

For enabling access to all services including e-mails and Personal Information Manager (PIM) sync users will be charged Rs 80 per month for the combo pack, while the individual services will be available for Rs 50 each per month.

“All necessary steps have been taken for ensuring customer privacy and security,” Bharat Berry Director Ajay Data said.

The service will be available for both the pre-paid and post-paid Dolphin subscribers. The subscriber must have GPRS data plan enabled on its device before subscribing this service.

“This partnership will provide its customers with an easy to use, cost effective solution for their mobile push e-mail requirements. While the service is available for 2G also, user experience on 3G will make the service more pleasurable,” MTNL ED WS AK Bhargava said here.

NEW DELHI: IT industry is likely to witness attractive salary hikes and job offers for experienced professionals, resulting in high attrition over the next few quarters as demand for talent will outstrip supply, say experts.

“It looks like a talent war among the IT companies, where people hold multiple job offers and try to select the best firm. And companies are also making efforts to select best talent pool for their requirements,” said Sunil Goel, Director,GlobalHunt, an executive search firm.

Echoing similar view, staffing services firm Manpower India Head (Sales and Marketing), Namr Kishore said, “In India, demand far outstrips genuine qualified supply. Companies are vying for the best talent and are ready to offer hefty packages for the same, luring the employees to switch jobs at a swift pace.”

Wage hikes have been very good in IT companies this year. It has been 15-25 per cent. And for niche and critical skills, companies have given 30-45 per cent hikes while recruiting or retaining talent for specific projects.

“The trends seen so far is as per expectation and after tier one companies having set the expectation other companies can do not much but follow the trend to a large extent,” said Thammaiah B N, Director, India Kelly IT Resources, Kelly Services, a global workforce player.

Thammaiah said he expects hikes in the range of 10-15 per cent broadly, and around 20 per cent for niche skills or business critical roles.

Experts said that such high salary hikes by IT companies will be sustainable at least for the next few quarters as firms usually deliver projects through a mix of freshers and experienced resources.

Besides, they added, not all employees receive such hikes. Only the top performers do, rest employees get around 8-10 per cent hike.

Profitability of most Indian software companies are likely to come down to 15-20 per cent, which are international standards, from present 25-30 per cent. But the fact that these companies are regularly bagging huge projects might help them sustain the current profitability, Kishore said.

“Attrition has become the DNA, which is required from both the sides. If IT professionals do not change jobs and upgrade themselves as per latest technology, then they may get outdated. The same applies to the companies too, if they do not innovate model and market themselves, they may get outdated,” Goel said.

NEW YORK: Country’s second largest software exporter Infosys has raised concerns that negative sentiment about outsourcing in various countries, including the US and the UK, could hurt its business prospects.

In recent times, there has been increasing criticism about outsourcing in many developed markets, especially in the wake of huge job losses due to sluggish economic activities.

“Recently, some countries and organisations have expressed concerns about a perceived association between offshore outsourcing and the loss of jobs,” Infosys said in a recent filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Legislation in certain countries in which we operate, including the US and the UK, may restrict companies in those countries from outsourcing work to us or may limit our ability to send our employees to our client sites,” it noted.

This comes close on the heels of Infosys announcing less than expected financial performance last month, with a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,818 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2011.

For the year ended March 31, the IT bellwether posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 6,823 crore, up nearly 10 per cent over the year-ago period.

Infosys expects revenue in the range of Rs 7,311-7,382 crore for the quarter ending June 30, 2011, and in the range of Rs 31,727- Rs 32,270 crore for the financial year FY’12.

Voicing concerns, the software exporter in the filing cautioned that there could be a change in existing laws or enactment of new legislation restricting offshore outsourcing.

The Governor of the State of Ohio had recently prohibited governmental entities from using public funds for offshore services.

According to Infosys, it is possible that private sector firms working with these governmental entities may be restricted from outsourcing projects or may even face disincentives if they outsource certain operations.

“If either the US federal government or another governmental entity acquires an equity position in any of our clients, any resulting changes in management or reorganisations may result in deferrals or cancellations of projects or delays in purchase decisions…,” the filing said.

LONDON: In what is being billed as a godsend for those who regularly suffer the frustration of flat batteries, Korean scientists have devised a gadget that will allow mobile phones to be recharged by using only your voice.

The technology turns sound into electricity, allowing a mobile to be powered up while a conversation is in progress – and the greater the volume the greater the charge, reports the Daily Mail.

But there are fears it will simply be an excuse for inconsiderate phone-users to make even more annoyingly noisy calls in public places. The technology could also be used to power up personal music players, raising the possibility of charging an iPod by singing along to your favourite songs.

Sang-Woo Kim, of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea, said that just as speakers transform electric signals into sound, the opposite process of turning sound into a source of electrical power is possible.

Kim’s device uses tiny strands of zinc oxide – the main ingredient of calamine lotion – sandwiched between two electrodes. A sound-absorbing pad on top vibrates when sound waves hit it, causing the tiny zinc oxide wires to compress and release.

This generates electrical current that can then be used to charge a battery.

Devices made so far can convert sounds of around 100 decibels, the equivalent of noisy traffic, a passing train or a nearby lawnmower, into a mild electrical current.

While this is not yet enough to charge a phone properly, the engineers are hopeful that altering the material the wires are made from will allow them to produce more energy at lower sound levels.

NEW YORK: Zynga Inc is hiring two key developers of cocos2d, a popular game engine that powers top grossing iPhone apps such as “Tap Pet Hotel” and “Tap Zoo” in a move that will help the social games company boost its presence on smartphone and tablets.

Zynga, the privately held social games company, has expanded rapidly through small acquisitions at the rate of about one a month in the past year, as it seeks to dominate the games market and expand internationally.

Under the agreement, the developers, Ricardo Quesada from Argentina and Rolando Abarca from Chile, will work at Zynga’s San Francisco office. The developers used to work at Sapus Media, which was acquired in the deal. No financial terms were disclosed. The employees start working at Zynga on Monday.

Zynga said it would not be acquiring cocos2d, which is a free game engine that developers use to make games for Apple devices such as iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Zynga’s Chief Technology Officer, Cadir Lee, said in an interview that Zynga already uses the game engine in its FarmVille game on the iPhone. Having the developers, who were key in developing the free platform, will help Zynga master the technology, Lee said.

“We will be paying them to continue to develop the platform, as well as work on tools for Zynga, to make sure we can leverage the (platform) in the best way possible,” Lee said.

Lee added that Zynga plans to have a diverse selection of game engines to choose from when making its games and will not just stick to one development platform.

“Over time, we’re going to do more and more with a variety of game engines, whether it’s 3D, HTML, 2D — we want to make sure we have a complete portfolio,” Lee said.

Zynga is the top games publisher on Facebook and its main revenue generator comes from selling virtual items such as tractors and weapons in games that users can play on their PCs, but it has taken steps to reduce its reliance on Facebook.

The company is creating more mobile games that users can play on smartphones and tablets, said David Ko, the executive who heads Zynga’s mobile business.

“We want to make sure we invest in mobile as the company recognises its importance going forward,” Ko said in an interview.

Ko said the acquisition of the developers Quesada and Abarca, as well as the April 27 acquisition of United Kingdom-based Wonderland Software, a nine-person studio, will give Zynga a stronger foothold in the mobile market, where it competes with companies such as Electronic Arts Inc andRovio, the maker of “Angry Birds.”

Ko said the acquisition of the Wonderland studio in April should reap “another fun game for our players” and that Zynga should be releasing more games soon.

“Where we are in the industry for mobile, we’re still in the infancy. The industry is just getting started,” Ko added.