Sony India has announced their value added promotion offer on all Sony Micro Vault ranging from 4GB to 32GB.

The company will provide free Quick Heal Antivirus, internet security software, on the purchase of any Sony Micro Vault across any capacity. The offer is valid from 23rd January to 31st March, 2012.

Quick Heal Antivirus protects pen drives, laptops and desktops from unwanted virus. It also helps to secure e-mail accounts and provides protection against all kinds of internet or network-based threats.

HP has launched its first HP Indigo W7200 Digital Offset press for the Indian market. Kolor Kode grabs the first mover advantage to enhance its digital printing capabilities by installing the press in its printing press located in Bengaluru. The HP IndigoW7200 Digital Offset Press meets the demands of monochrome to 7-colour jobs, from spot to highlight colour during a single run, without stopping or changing the settings.

Kayu Dhanbhoora, Managing Director, Kolor Kode Digital Press, said, “We enjoyed great success with the HP Indigo press 5500, installed in 2008, but we simply needed more capacity.

With the installation of India’s 1st HP Indigo W7200 we will be able to take on larger volume runs and provide a faster alternative to offset printing. We are also attracting new business by promoting the capabilities of the new press. We would largely cater to segments which includes on-demand, short-run books, journals, manuals, brochures, catalogues, marketing collateral, yearbooks and magazines with unmatched offset quality and high-impact, high-volume personalized direct marketing campaigns in full colour.”

Puneet Chadha, Director, Graphic Solution Business, HP-IPG, said, “We are elated to announce this new press, which is considered as a powerhouse of digital printing, and is also the fastest-ever press from HP Indigo Portfolio. We aim to transform our print partners to grow in their role and become leaders of printing solutions by creating a high-definition digital printing  environment and an evolution in commercial market ecosystem where personalized short-run prints can be delivered on-demand, linked to a customized web-to-print workflow.”

Steve Donegal, Director, Strategic Account Programme, Graphic Solution Business, HP APJ, said, “HP Indigo W7200 Digital Offset Press being the first one in India will revolutionize the print industry with its robust productivity. It gives Kolor Kode the ability to address a wider range of long-run jobs. It will also enable green printing which will save the environment by reducing paper usage for highly variable every page is different runs.”

Microsoft has launched the Explorer Touch Mouse. Compatible with both the Windows and Mac the new mouse speeds up everyday tasks with a Touch strip optimized for quick vertical and horizontal scrolling.

Satish Parreddi, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Retail Sales & Marketing, Microsoft India, said, “With the launch of the Explorer Touch Mouse, Microsoft has now brought in India its complete family of touch mice including the previously launched Touch Mouse and the Arc Touch Mouse. The Explorer Touch Mouse responds to the lightest swipe, flick or touch of a single finger paving the way for effortless navigation. Not only is it stunning to look at, but is also specially designed keeping in mind today’s aware PC user who wants a fun, easy and convenient way of interacting with a mouse.”

This mouse comes with Blue Track Technology with which one can use the mouse on just about any surface be it wood, marble, granite or even a carpet. The Explorer Touch Mouse also has five customizable buttons and three scroll speeds that use haptic feedback (light vibration that signals scrolling speed).

IBM has unveiled new capabilities planned for its security intelligence platform designed to combine deep analytics with real-time data feeds from hundreds of different sources to give organizations, the ability to help proactively protect themselves from increasingly sophisticated and complex security threats and attacks using a single platform.

The QRadar Security Intelligence Platform, designed by Q1 Labs and acquired by IBM last fall, tackles this problem head-on by serving as a control centre that integrates real-time security intelligence data to include more than 400 different sources.

“Trying to approach security with a piece-part approach simply doesn’t work. By applying analytics and knowledge of the latest threats and helping integrate key security elements, IBM plans to deliver predictive insight and broader protection,” said Vaidyanathan Iyer, Country Manager for Security, SWG, IBM ISA.

With new integrations to be made available, the analytics platform can quickly identify abnormal activity by combining the contextual awareness of the latest threats and methods being used by hackers with real-time analysis of the traffic on the corporate IT infrastructure.

MAIT has emphasized upon the need for a stable policy regime and growth-oriented measures to boost IT hardware industry in the country. The MAIT memorandum includes 7 vital recommendations for Union Budget 2012-13. MAIT also announced new initiatives as an expansion of its charter and goals for 2012.

Dr. Alok Bharadwaj,  President, MAIT, said, “With lower-than-expected consumption of IT products in the financial year 2011-12 owing to the Thailand flood and Rupee devaluation, we are now hoping for a long-term growth-oriented and investment-friendly policies to provide much-needed drivers. In India’s economic transformation, IT is a big enabler. MAIT members have repeatedly emphasized that a long-term, holistic fiscal policy framework is the need of the hour to encourage manufacturing and a much-needed investment fillip to the IT industry in India”.

Sabyasachi Patra, Executive Director, MAIT, said, “While striving to remove the disabilities afflicting the entire ICT manufacturing ecosystem and promoting domestic manufacturing so that the imports doesn’t exceed the oil import bill, MAIT realizes that the proliferation of various consumer premise equipment (CPEs) and personal handheld devices requires a focussed effort in the creation of standards to promote energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint. MAIT will undertake initiatives to raise consumer awareness about safe disposal of eWaste.”

Ahead of Mobile World Congress 2012, Ericsson has extended its suite of m-commerce solutions and services, designed to accelerate access and interconnection between the emerging m-commerce eco-system. Ericsson’s two new services include Ericsson Converged Wallet and Ericsson Merchant Wallet.

Adam Kerr, Head, M-commerce, Ericsson, said, “This is an exciting time for the m-commerce industry, which is expected to process over US$800 billion globally by 2016.  At Ericsson M-commerce, we are in a unique position to work with strategic partners to kick-start the next wave of growth of the m-commerce eco-system.”

“Right now, we are very much focussed on providing services that give our partners across the eco-system a fast route to provide their consumers with more m-wallet and platform independent services and greater payments choice. Through our enhanced suit of services, we will enable partners to get closer to their customers through differentiated wallet services that connect and add value to their consumers,”he adds.

Mahindra Satyam has entered into a global services agreement with FuelQuest. Mahindra Satyam has agreed to provide implementation and support services to FuelQuest as it scales its operations across India, Brazil, China, Russia, USA and other target countries.

Mahindra Satyam will augment FuelQuest’s team to provide additional onsite or remote implementation and support services with regard to international customers. Furthermore, to scale appropriately with FuelQuest, Mahindra Satyam will establish the FuelQuest Service Centre within its Delivery centre in India staffed with experienced software professionals.

C. P. Gurnani, CEO, Mahindra Satyam, said, “This agreement between Mahindra Satyam and FuelQuest marries two market leaders creating a global solution for energy companies to adopt and utilize FuelQuest fuel and tax automation software and services. This exclusive arrangement with Mahindra Satyam will support Fuel Quest’s global expansion plans.”

Matt Tormollen, President & CEO, FuelQuest, said, “Mahindra Satyam is a dominant global player in the outsourced services business, and we are excited to have them fill a critical need in our expansion strategy. Mahindra Satyam’s range of services and expertise gives us ultimate flexibility as we grow our solutions and markets.”

Fortinet has announced that the company’s FortiOS 4.3 operating system has received certification for Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL) 4. The certification process provides a third-party evaluation service for determining the trustworthiness of information technology security products.

Common Criteria evaluations involve formal rigorous analysis and testing to examine security aspects of a product or system. Extensive testing activities involve a broad and formally repeatable process, confirming that the security product functions as claimed by the manufacturer. Security weaknesses and potential vulnerabilities are specifically examined during an evaluation.

FortiOS 4.3 introduced wireless controller extensions that support automatic provisioning of wireless access points, detection and suppression of rogue access points, multiple authentication methods and unified “single pane of glass” management of both wired and wireless networks from a single FortiGate platform.

“Common Criteria EAL 4+ for FortiOS 4.3 is a critical certification as Fortinet continues a focus to grow sales in large enterprise and government markets. Attaining the EAL 4+ certification for our FortiGate operating system demonstrates our commitment to providing highly-secure, high- performance solutions for our customers,” said Steve Kirk, Vice-President, Fortinet Federal.

Research In Motion (RIM) has set up a “server” in Mumbai to provide a mechanism for lawful interception of its messenger services.

“A team of officials from security agencies has inspected the server. Test runs are going on to check its effectiveness. Required permission for direct linkage for lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) services is likely to be issued shortly,” according to an official.

By setting up the server in India, RIM has had to drop its reluctance to make an exception to its policy of securing communication from any real-time interception. The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has also asked Nokia to do what RIM has done so that its push mails can be legally tracked as and when required by security agencies.

India has been pressing RIM to provide a mechanism to intercept its messenger and enterprise services as security agencies had pointed to the use of such means by terrorist groups. The matter was pursued over the last couple of years before the Canadian company agreed to allow tracking of BBM services while the government has spared BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES) for now.

DoT has informed the Home Ministry that there are about 5,000 enterprise servers for BES. RIM representatives had earlier explained that BlackBerry mobile devices send encrypted emails routed to BES located with the service provider. BES decrypts the messages and sends it to the email server of the service provider where it is stored in a decrypted form. Then, the message is pushed to the BlackBerry device in an encrypted form.

Presently, the onus of giving access to security agencies to monitor information on these smartphones lies with service providers. According to the licensing conditions, service providers are liable to put in a mechanism to allow security agencies to intercept any conversation or message of any subscriber, whenever required.

Microsoft has unveiled that it was redesigning the logo of Windows software, making a fundamental change to the iconic four-colour Windows logo users have been used to for 20 years.

According to market buzz, the new logo is said to be slightly-angled blue block with a thin white cross in the middle, meshing with the Metro design of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8.

The new logo is designed by Paula Scher from the Pentagram Design Agency.

Microsoft claimed in a blog post, “The Windows logo is a strong and widely recognized mark but when we stepped back and analyzed it, we realized an evolution of our logo would better reflect our Metro style design principles and we also felt there was an opportunity to reconnect with some of the powerful characteristics of previous incarnations.”

The Company said, “We did less of a re-design and more to return it to its original meaning and bringing Windows back to its roots reimagining the Windows logo as just that – a window.”