Green computing

The inCise way

Hari Nair

‘Green computing’ is the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently. The primary objective is to cut use of hazardous materials, energy efficient devices using recyclables materials for computing device manufacturing and usage of less power consuming devices. Thus, the key driver for going for Green IT is cost savings. It is about commitment to conducting business in an environmentally responsible manner. ‘Green IT’ or ‘green computing’ offers a number of benefits, including cost reductions.

The PC on your desktop is consuming large amount on electricity and producing heat. The air conditioner reduces the heat produced by the PC, giving comfort. The actual usage vs the energy consumption comes to a cross road here. The actual usage of PC to complete a task may be 2 or 3 minutes, but all the time a large machine is switch on, consuming energy and emitting heat.

How do we reduce the size of such instruments, without which most of us can’t work in our office?. There comes the less expensive, less power consuming hand held devices. Most of it comes in the form of PDA, MCD or MID. The primary job of all these devices are, connect to server over GPRS and accomplish the task at hand accessing software. It could be updating an invoice, approving transactions, entering medical data, accessing work order requests or just sending a mail.

Communication charges are dropping and cost of electricity is increasing, thus use of low energy consuming, easy to carry devices for computing is the best way to go. Here comes inCise range of software applications for MIDs and MCDs. Easy to carry and environmentally friendly, these devices are available at a low cost and are very rigid and fast.


The number of mobile workers is on the rise and increased mobility also increases the potential for risk as handheld devices with sensitive data can be lost or stolen . Mobile middleware has been around for many years, but its basic job is to allow remote access to server-based applications from mobile devices. Middleware can hide the details of interacting with a particular network, allowing a mobile user to run an application remotely onto the small screen. inCise uses a secure server with data and to access it require only a low cost PDA/MID/MCD, there by protecting sensitive data, even if the device is lost and there are no setup necessary on the device irrespective of manufacture, make and model of the device.


Business is impacted by the rising energy prices, together with government-imposed levies on carbon production. It is becoming more important for all businesses to act in an environmentally responsible manner, both to fulfill their legal and moral obligations. Organizations are competing in an increasingly ‘green’ market, and must avoid the real and growing financial penalties that are increasingly being levied. With the increasing drive towards centralized data centers and with a shift to a power-hungry distributed architecture, the IT function of business is driving an exponential increase in demand for energy. Ability to help identify the most appropriate solutions, and help organizations on their path into green computing ’Green IT’ – the next burning issue for business is of utmost importance. When investing in new infrastructure, businesses must ensure that their activity takes into account energy consumption, efficiency and environmental issues.


Almost every application can be ported to small devices in the MID, MCD category or even on low cost mobile devices / PDAs - the inCise way of Green IT. Enjoy Green Computing and be an environmentally responsible.

Project management

One of the myth on project management is that certain people have the ability to do it well, and others do not. The ability to make things happen is a combination of knowing how to be a catalyst in a variety of different situations, and having the courage to do so.Even with sound project teams and plans in place, organization's project success rate may not be as high as it could be. Let us look at few of the aspects which effects the success of a project. Let me start with some of the major factors, which effects the project other than skill set and Training

1 Culture has a huge effect on the success rateOrganization's culture has a lot to do with the success rate of projects.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about projects all throughout organization, not just about one particular project. The term culture generally means “how we do things around here.” Communication across team plays a crucial role here.

2 Process orientation
Many organizations have good processes in place and people generally follow them provided processes are simple and easy to follow.
This is perhaps the biggest single factor in overall project success.

3 Governance
Organizations have processes in place, but many does not follows them.

This highlights a problem with management governance. In simplistic terms, governance is the management function that has to do with making sure people do what they’re supposed to do. One of the reason why governance fail, is the inability of the management to make sure that the process are generic, easy to follow and does not create unnecessary overhead for employees. Typically, if management structure is engaged and interested in projects, and if managers make sure that project management processes are followed, the project will be successful.

4 Training
Some organizations do a poor job of training project managers. Typically, these organizations do a poor job of training in general.
If project managers generally don’t have the right skills , the project won’t be successful.5 Roles and responsibilitiesIn successful organizations, people typically know the role they play on projects and what is expected of them. If we look at the above, Culture plays the biggest role in whether; organization is successful in executing projects. The organization culture should be supportive of the efforts of employees. Managers, including the head of the organization, need to step up and evaluate the project culture.

Until the culture changes, project managers will consistently struggle to be successful.In a multi-cultural organization, unless there is a flat structure, which is also rigid, Managers will fell isolated. This is possible only when the pyramid way of looking at management need to be altered. This does not mean that pyramid does not exist. It should be buoyant, so that all employees engaged in a project get equal view of the top management, which is essential for the success of any organization. Senior management involvement throughout the Project Life Cycle is very important. Inspire, involve every employee and transform every project, through organizational changes.

BI on Mobile Devices - PocketBI

Lightweight mobile devices accompany users in their everyday business and enables, quick access to reports from enterprise systems from virtually anywhere. The low cost Mobile Business intelligence software supports, Mobile devices having internet browser software; such as BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows 6 Mobile, Apple iPod, Palm, O2 xda, SyncML-compliant phones or any GPRS enabled phone or J2ME enabled device, capable of viewing HTML email.

In today's era of globalization, many employees spend a long time without access to Enterprise Systems such as ERP; either because they are traveling or interacting with business partners and customers. Organizations cannot afford to have these mobile employees disconnected from the Enterprise systems. As a result, mobile enterprise applications are becoming a necessity. Field sales force must be armed with the right information at the exact point of time needed to help turn every customer Interaction into revenue generating opportunity. Extend existing software products to the mobile world and create new mobile applications, by grabbing data from existing databases.


Some of the potential benefits of Pocket BI include:
Allowing companies to further leverage their investments in data warehouses and analytical applications by making decision support available via multiple wireless devices.
Offering secure wireless information access to information needed by mobile workers ranging from sales force personnel, service technicians, and transporters to managers and executives.

Consider the following wireless scenarios:
A company salesperson can find out the amount of business the company has already done with an existing customer the salesperson is scheduled to meet with, compute the overall value of a potential customer, access inventory, and check shipping dates on customer orders using a mobile device.

A sales manager can check sales figures from the car.
A supplier can determine how well products are currently moving through a distributor’s pipeline.

While driving to a luncheon, a customer service manager is alerted to the fact that a branch is receiving an unusually high number of customer service calls, allowing the manager to shift service calls to other operations to take up the load.

The company CXO can access key performance indicators from the airport while waiting for a flight.

Pocket BI in Insurance Industry
Pocket BI gives insurers, brokers and agents the opportunity to strengthen their relationships with their end-users, establishing a richer customer experience.
Agents: Access to insurance product information and customer data, maximizes customer loyalty. Follow up can be made anytime, anywhere.
Brokers: Product catalogues and reporting information can be made available quickly, reducing sales cycles.

Insurers: Pocket BI, can bring the differentiation to organization from the competition. Wireless technology is being used to collect information in the field. Thus creating greater accuracy, speed and creating savings in claims processing.

Employees are comfortable using mobile devices as part of day-to-day activities, so there's less of a learning curve for training and deployment. Executives are warming to the benefits of Pocket BI, such as being able to respond to critical issues faster and helping managers more proactively manage sales, production, projects and people

‘Pocket BI’ consists of delivering information from the BI system to mobile workers and key decision makers on their wireless devices. It allows companies to leverage their existing BI investment,
and extend the advantage of the analytic applications to their mobile workforce.

Delivering reports to mobile devices is not new; the advantage of Pocket BI is its ability to deliver rich content with the lowest TCO, across various software products, quickly and easily.


Capability to deliver a host of functionality
Mobility has taken the business world by storm. Since the advent of the cellular phone and its increasing capability to deliver a host of functionality, executives on the move are accustomed to unparalleled information availability. Which is why Business intelligence on mobile, can be delivered straight to the mobile phone as extension to the already deployed BI platform.

The mobile component is fully integrated with the back-office BI deployment, which can also be accessed using a browser providing roll-up, roll-down, slice, pivot and charting.
 
Pocket BI, enables access to Enterprise wide Business intelligence on the move. The users, who benefit the most from Pocket BI, could be managers / decision makers on the move. On demand access to sales results, trends, and analysis will provide these users with a new level of accessibility to enterprise reports.

BPM offers organization powerful business benefits, such as the ability to track performance, identify trends, and plan intelligently for the future.

Improve decision-making capability, when working remotely by accessing operational and strategic information. Mobile employees will continue to seek better ways of doing their jobs more effectively. No longer bound by corporate headquarters, business professionals equipped with wireless devices are increasingly able to do business anywhere, anytime. A wireless platform such as the Palm OS, Windows Mobile6, and Symbian provides robust mobile operating systems optimized for wireless devices. These platforms provide industry standards for mobile application development and delivery.


Organizations suffer from a fundamental data access issue. Executives are empowered to access, analyze and share information when they are sitting at their desks or, if they are lucky, when they are sitting in a hotel, accessing their corporate servers. Wireless BI or Pocket BI, can enhance productivity by having quick access to Enterprise Performance indicators on the move. The pull mode allows retrieving real-time reports from the enterprise system.

By leveraging mobile reporting technology, Pocket BI, can pack a lot of information into a very small space – once again, with an associated payload of data that enables users to display charts and tables using the zoom function of the browser. The Safari / Opera Mini browsers are perfect for this architecture since it includes drop-down boxes that make it easy to interact with multiple pages of information.

Pocket BI is here to stay, and the benefits are enormous. Ability to deliver enterprise BI over mobile devices at a reasonable price will enhance the overall products and service offering, across product versions.