2012 is set to be a year in which new opportunities start to rise for IT professionals. Let’s see what other subjects we have in the IT offshore press review this week. Enjoy!

- How to cope with HTML5’s dueling standards bodies (January 17, 2012, Computer World)
- Need an agile infrastructure? Do your homework (January 16, 2012, Computer World)
- Tips for Facebook Timeline apps: Beware what you share (January 21, 2012, IT World)
- Wall Street Beat: Enterprise spending helps mixed quarter for tech (January 20, 2012, IT World)
- Public sector IT staff sees largest cut in 25 years (January 19, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- Four key trends in business analytics in 2012 (January 17, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- Innovation’s dirty little secret (January 17, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- The cloud is forked (January 22, 2012, ZDNet)
- 5 signs SOA has morphed into cloud (January 19, 2012, ZDNet)
- The Mobile Enterprise: Killing IT’s Sacred Cows (January 19, 2012, CIO)
- 4 Consumer Technologies That Could Change Your Enterprise (January 19, 2012, CIO)
- 2012: Year of Fast Changes for IT Professionals (January 17, 2012, CIO)
- Cloud Activity to Explode in 2012 (January 18, 2012, CIO)
- Cloud Computing bleibt auch 2012 eine Baustelle (January 23, 2012, CIO)
- BI, mobile Computing und die Cloud beschäftigen CIOs weltweit (January 19, 2012, IT Magazine)
- IKT-Branche erholt sich (January 19, 2012, Silicon)
- Cloud und mobile IT sind die Top-Themen (January 18, 2012, Automotive IT)
- Konzerne wollen IT-Dienstleistung aus einer Hand (January 17, 2012, CIO)
- West-Ost-Gefälle: Wechselkursprognose 2012 (January 19, 2012, Industrie Magazin)

It’s a new week, it’s a new IT offshore press review. We start with 2 articles on the cool stuff seen at CES 2012. Enjoy!

- Cool stuff from CES 2012 (January 12, 2012, Computer World)
- Scenes from CES 2012 (January 13, 2012, Computer World)
- IT shockingly misaligned with the business it supports (January 13, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- Facebook set to reach a billion members (January 13, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- Cloud solves IT innovation and maintenance imbalance (January 11, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- India OKs censoring Facebook, Google, Microsoft, YouTube (January 13, 2012, ZDNet)
- Indonesia, Vietnam favorable investment hotspots (January 12, 2012, ZDNet Asia)
- How to Retool Your IT Skills for the Cloud (January 12, 2012, CIO)
- 5 Tips to Keep IT Outsourcing on Track as Global Providers Cut Staff (January 13, 2012, CIO)
- From now on, in Europe, everything gets worse (January 16, 2012, Market Watch)
- Drei Prozent Wachstum im Jahr 2011 (January 11, 2012, Manager Magazin)
- 6 wichtige IT-Trends für 2012 (January 13, 2012, CIO)
- 12 Outsourcing-Trends für 2012 (January 13, 2012, CIO)
- 6 IT-Trends bis 2032 (January 13, Computer Woche)
- Cloud-Einsatz im Mittelstand steigt (January 13, 2012, Silicon)
- Was bringt das IT-Jahr 2012? (January 11, 2012, Computer Woche)

It was indeed one of the key functions of the Pentalog Group’s website galaxy and one of our main differentiating aspects in the context of the transparency policy introduced in 2008 with our first free download services catalog. Nothing is ever perfect, but we have thus unified our pricing practices, and pricing on a case-by-case basis, as all consultancy and outsourcing businesses usually do, has never been practiced by Pentalog.

We are equally aware of the fact that, thanks to this practice, we have brought our contribution to structuring offshore prices in Europe, North Africa and the Far East. Many of our competitors used this system to check their prices and adapt them according to the Pentalog scale. In this respect, we have played a special commercial role, even ethical. Downloading the catalog and using the estimate generator have amounted to 1,500 visits per month only for these functionalities!

But, our work has been accomplished by now, the offer is mature, and we now wish to provide such transparency to our “real” customers, partners and prospects only. In fact, our sites have been continuously copied in particular, but not only by British, Romanian and Tunisian companies for some time. They have systematically copied our services: offer design, recruitment, commercialization and pricing processes, etc.

Therefore, we have created a very user-friendly Web2.0 space which will enable us to control the distribution of our higher value contents and to deliver our quotations, to manage project and client-teams, contracts, etc. Based on electronic document management, it will also be equipped with conversational features close to those existing on professional social networks.

Thus, in the coming days, our good old price catalog will be available again in PDF format and it may be downloaded by real customers, partners and prospects, with real identities checked via our services portal. There are also contract models, ISO-compliant quality assurance plans , our future white papers, as well as the updates of all our project documents.

So, please pay attention, this space has already been open for all the aspects related to project management for existing customers and a few prospects. But, starting with next week, we are going to launch our updated price catalog which contains no fewer than 25 new services and competence types. In the following weeks, there will be summaries of Project Quality Plans, the services catalog and the training sessions provided by Pentalog Institute, the offshore white paper, then those related to e-commerce and embedded systems, etc. All these launches will be announced beforehand on our blogs, social networks and newsletters, and they will be available to all those who do not simply call themselves website looters.

In 2011, Pentalog has taken the extraordinary initiative to invite all the employees who started working for the company in 2005 and a few outstanding employees who joined the company after this date to take part in an unprecedented event. Together, these employees have acquired 92% of the capital belonging to one of the most flourishing IT companies in Europe! All the participants invested in the company’s share capital by buying shares at their 1993 price! This unprecedented operation has enabled about 20 more people to attend the General Assembly. The dividend paid several months later granted them a 50% “refund” of their investment! Obviously, shareholding situations are eventually different from one another, as several employees hold less than 0.5% of the capital (however, this amounts to a theoretical value between €100,000 and €200,000) and I have reached 28%. But that’s the spirit! Certain people have cashed several thousand euro since their first participation. I am very proud of this operation which makes Pentalog stand out from other companies, in developing countries and elsewhere. In my view, there is no concrete way to better reward company loyalty. The company founders felt great joy on this occasion!

Welcome to the IT offshore press review. I think we should start with this question: do we really need new programming languages? Have you heard of Dart, Ceylon, Go, #F, Opa, Fantom or Zimbu? It’s just like people are trying to reinvent the wheel. But let’s see what are these new languages and then we will continue with our other subjects. Enjoy!

- 10 programming languages that could shake up IT (January 3, 2012, IT World)
- Bart Perkins: Is social connectivity friend or foe to corporations? (January 6, 2012, Computer World)
- UK IT professionals face nearshore competition (January 6, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- Gartner: Enterprise software spending to rise by 6.4% in 2012 (January 5, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- IT industry attacks plans to ditch GCSE work experience (January 6, 2012, Computer Weekly)
- CES Unveiled reveals little about tech in 2012 so far (January 8, 2012, ZDNet)
- 2012 Tech Startups to Watch Product Sampler (January 5, 2012, CIO)
- U.S. Report Sees Perils to America’s Tech Future (January 6, 2012, CIO)
- 7 Signs You’ve Outsourced Too Much to IT Service Providers (January 6, 2012, CIO)
- Wo sich Deutschlands Zukunft entscheidet (January 3, 2012, Wiwo)
- Die neuen BI-Herausforderungen (January 9, 2012, Computer Woche)
- Outsourcing ändert sich massiv (January 5, 2012, CIO)
- ERP schwach – CRM boomt (January 3, 2012, Computer Woche)
- 8 Beziehungstipps fürs Outsourcing (January 3, 2012, Computer Woche)
- Was aus Outsourcing-Trends wurde (January 5, 2012, CIO)

Welcome to the first IT offshore press review of 2012. Enjoy!

- 2012 tech predictions: From IDG’s editors worldwide (December 30, 2011, Computer World)
- Cloud computing changes everything (December 23, 2011, Computer World)
- Five open source technologies for 2012 (December 28, 2011, Computer World)
- Top 10 social media stories of 2011 (December 30, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Top 10 outsourcing stories of 2011 (December 22, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- 2012: Nine business tech predictions (January 3, 2012, ZDNet)
- Words and expressions I want banned in 2012 (December 28, 2011, ZDNet)
- 12 IT Outsourcing Predictions for 2012 (December 22, 2011, CIO)
- Polen sind die Gründerkönige der deutschen Wirtschaft (December 29, 2011, Welt)
- Die IT-Trends 2012 (December 30, 2011, Silicon)
- Die 6 meistgefragten IT-Jobs 2012 (December 29, 2011, CIO)
- Trotz Krise steigen die IT-Budgets leicht an (December 28, 2011, Silicon)
- Cloud Computing etabliert sich nur langsam (December 27, 2011, Automotive IT)

I have just spent 3 very instructive weeks in Vietnam touching our cloud projects. I had the chance to assess the project development process right from within the project. My expectations were confirmed, it is indeed a good team: motivated, involved and dedicated to the Virtual Fanatic cause. The time is still running short for the January release of Cloud@VirtualFanatic.

Next, I held Cloud seminars at the Institut de la Francophonie pour l’Informatique (Francophonie Institute for Computer Science) and at the PFIEV (Programme de Formation d’Ingénieurs d’Excellence au Vietnam – a Vietnamese training programme for excellence in engineering). I had already participated in trainings at these universities and it is always a real pleasure to have direct contact with the students. I focused my training on presenting cloud related concepts, the vision of Virtual Fanatic and I finished with the likely consequences of cloud on the developers’ business. The presentation on cloud is available here (in French only).

I can say that they are eager to hear about cloud. I have been bombarded with questions on the SaaS model, the consequences on facilities management, the free cloud models,…

As Pentalog (IT outsourcing company) has started a business activity in South-East Asia, I took this chance to meet the main local players in the IT industry. I can say I identified a desire to create new types of services for Vietnamese companies for which technical and commercial models as well as the services are not ready yet. But they know how to progress fast.

For my friends, I managed to taste an ant egg salad, sauteed worms as big as my thumb and even fried bugs (photos are available ). All in all, I spent quality time with two French (or nearly French) people.

It is not our business policy to speak about potential contracts before signing them. However, these 3 particular business deals have a highly significant meaning. Their respective volume, in countries which are very far from each other, prove to what extent our nearshore service brand has henceforth become well-known. In Romania, Pentalog brand stands out as a national leader whose name is the first conjured up by those who want to carry out significant projects in sectors like software and internet. In Germany, our IT services company holds a place which can be henceforth comparable with the one held in France, not so long ago, in 2006 or 2007. We have gained our position in less than 3 years and we can see that things are definitely evolving. At the end of 2011, Pentalog is known practically throughout the EMEA area, as one of the main players of the Eastern Europe nearshore.

How much are these 3 contracts worth?
At least €11M overall per year. In a more optimistic view, these 3 business deals could yield €17M sales figure per year for Pentalog, which equals roughly our sales figure for 2010. These 2 contracts would have a minimum life span of 3 years… so this could mean a total amount of as much as €33M to €51M!
If I’m talking about it, it is because in 2011 Pentalog managed to sign a few contracts worth several millions. In addition, there are also smaller offers, which are still under negotiation. Therefore, I am fairly more optimistic as to 2012 than my colleague Monica, who shows more moderation .
Then of course, we might sign none of the 3 contracts… and this has to be considered. Or, on the contrary, all 3 ? The smallest is worth 2 millions per year and the biggest up to 10 millions. I consider that, whatever the case may be, although 2012 is heralded as a very difficult year, Pentalog’s position and market share on its areas of choice will record new progresses and that our company will become even more appealing, thus continuing to attract the best employees in the countries where it operates. We remain one of the few platforms in Romania which is able to develop projects involving up to 100 employees and which allows our project managers, Delivery Center managers and project directors to benefit from a 40% average annual growth in the last 4 years.

Therefore, keep an eye on our recruitment offers in case we sign these contracts as they will bring great technical and management opportunities. And in case we don’t, well, we’ll be happy to have been considered for so highly rated projects and it will be just a matter of time until we make it!

I wish you all have lovely winter holidays and a great new year in 2012!

The results of a hiring survey show that the IT job market will improve in 2012, but most companies choose not to expand. This and other subjects in the IT offshore press review.

- IT hiring expected to rise in 2012, says survey (December 15, 2011, Computer World)
- Cloud adviser: Where’s your data? (December 13, 2011, Computer World)
- CIOs must trade off innovation and maintenance in 2012
- Pages stalemate for Google, Facebook (December 19, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Cloud UI Design Mistakes to Avoid (December 15, 2011, CIO)
- IT Outsourcing Year in Review, Rating Our 2011 Predictions (December 14, 2011, CIO)
- This Week in Cloud: PaaS, Virtualization Leading Trends (December 17, 2011, Silicon Angle)
- France finally realizing what a bad deal euro was (December 19, 2011, Market Watch)
- Euro schlägt D-Mark (December 16, 2011, Focus)
- Europäer laden die meisten Android-Apps (December 16, 2011, CIO)
- Deutsche ITK-Branche “sehr zuversichtlich” (December 15, 2011, Silicon)
- IT-Markt wächst auch 2012 noch kräftig (December 15, 2011, Automotive IT)
- 10 Gartner-Trends bis 2017 (December 13, 2011, CIO)

In my view, the 10th edition of the ASEAN forum organized in Malaysia (27 – 29 November) stood out in terms of quality and business perspectives which could ensue.

Around 300 business people attended the forum, among which the Minister of Transport, Mr. MARIANI Thierry, the French ambassadors in Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, representatives of large French companies in Asia (EADS, Alstom, Total, etc.), representatives of CCIFE (French Chambers of Commerce and Industry Abroad), French top level foreign trade advisers, heads of economics departments in ASEAN countries, companies from all sectors willing to develop their businesses in Southeast Asia, and, of course, about thirty SME under the umbrella of UbiFrance, Pentalog (IT services company) being a member thereof. This was really representative for the presence of French companies in the area.

The forum was held over 3 days and it consisted of discussion panels on different topics regarding development in Southeast Asia (economic context, legal matters, investment funds, experience sharing, etc.), B2B meetings along with the first encounter with Malaysian companies.

I must admit that, even if Pentalog has been present in Vietnam for 3 years already, we still have to gain more insight into the market from companies with more than 10 years of experience in Southeast Asia and having extremely valuable market know-how. Their willingness to share information has enabled us to enhance our understanding and shorten the research process on our target markets (Malaysia, Singapore, or even Indonesia and the Philippines).

The general conclusion of this forum comes as no surprise: at present, the Southeast Asian market has the highest potential in the world. France abandoned it a little too soon during the 1997 crisis, and yet, one of the key success factors here are endurance and long-term perspective. Consequently, those who stayed and believed in it have been very successful. The others are always welcome to come back, but they should avoid making the same mistake again. Determination is really important and the participants of this forum were very convincing in this respect. Moreover, France seems to be aware that exporting is one of the solutions for overcoming the crisis in France, and it also seems ready to implement several measures to support companies.

At the same time, our opportunity to meet so many interesting business people could turn into real business opportunities in the near future. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed; it is going to be a challenging 2012.

Several photos:

Gartner considers that IT budgets and responsabilities are moving out of the control of the IT departments and into the hands of others, due to consumerization and cloud computing, among others. That is the Gartner vision for 2012 and the coming years. Don’t miss the other subjects of today’s IT offshore press review.

- Gartner Predictions for 2012: More Cloud, Consumerization, Loss of IT Control (December 2, 2011, CIO)
- Offshoring comes under bipartisan attack in Congress (December 9, 2011, Computer World)
- Mobile device management — what you should know (December 8, 2011, Computer World)
- Twitter unveils redesign, touts ease-of-use (December 8, 2011, Computer World)
- Making industrialisation work (December 2011, Computer Weekly)
- SOA paves way to ‘postmodern’ software regime: Gartner’s Anne Thomas Manes (December 11, 2011, ZDnet)
- 4 Facebook Security Tips to Stay Safe in 2012 (December 8, 2011, CIO)
- Infographic: Facebook Reveals Top Trends of 2011 (December 7, 2011, CIO)
- Beware Cloud Computing Advice from IT Research Firms (December 9, 2011, CIO)
- Inflationsangst in Deutschland wächst (December 8, 2011, Capital)
- Cloud-Services aus Deutschland (December 9, 2011, Computer Woche)
- IT-Budgets der Unternehmen steigen (December 8, 2011, Automotive IT)
- Bilanz 2011: Ist nach der Cloud vor der Cloud? (December 8, 2011, Silicon)
- ERP-Systeme – zu langsam für das Business? (December 7, 2011, Computer Woche)
- ITK-Branche will Frauen als Manager (December 5, 2011, Automotive IT)

Following a 1000 km road trip and 5 days of audits performed on Pentalog sites in Brasov, Iasi and Chisinau, the AFNOR auditor has just decided in favour of the renewal of our ISO 9001:2008 certificate*, and its extension to People Centric, our recruitment subsidiary.

During one week, the top and middle management, our sales activities, our human resources management activities (recruitment, skills management, training), our support activities (purchasing, information systems), our improvement loop, as well as a dozen projects have been audited. The sampling was highly representative for the diversity of projects of the group: team made up of 25 to 40 individuals, small teams, fixed-price projects, projects entirely steered by clients, outsourcing, recruitment, French projects, English projects; French, Belgian, German, Swiss customers …

In all the audited sites, the auditor was able to acknowledge the compliance and the functionality of our quality management system, its flexibility and improvement, as well as its suitability to our needs for growth and responsiveness.
Thus, there are numerous strong points emphasizing the involvement of the management in order to support and promote the continuous improvement in Pentalog (it outsourcing company), the maintenance of our growth rate and our financial results during this crisis period, a high recommendation rate from the part of our customers (93.55%), a well implemented system for the assignment of duties, the capacity of our system to adjust to our customers’ special requirements, a good use of tools to support our processes, an internal and customer communication, as well as a recognized sharing of good practices and knowledge.
In addition, several progress trackings, all related to the system improvement loop, have been identified in order to continue to improve our efficiency and our know-how.

Even if it’s not in my nature, today I am really proud of the progress we achieved together, over the past 4 years, and of the quality of the projects and activities we have presented during this week. Everybody’s involvement and efforts have not been for nothing, and today they are fairly rewarded.
Many thanks to all the audited persons for their participation, and to all Pentalog employees who invest themselves, day by day, for the satisfaction of our clients, of their clients, and to sustain the growth of company for all.

*Certified activities: SOFTWARE DESIGN AND PRODUCTION, SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT, TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE, INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS PROCESSES OUTSOURCING and RECRUITEMENT.
Sites concerned by the scope of the certification: France: Orléans ; Romania: Bucharest, Brasov, Iasi, Sibiu ; Moldova : Chisinau. Companies concerned: Pentalog, Pentalog Technology (JV with Ausy), People Centric.

Q4 is very similar to the previous quarter, being also marked by a strong boost in project renewals for 2012 and fairly higher new biz order intentions.

In France, just as in Q3, the growth is mainly due to the extension of existing contracts and very few new contracts signed in Q4. Our strategic trend towards e-Commerce has been strengthening , our efforts and the projects we have undertaken have assured us recognition as European experts in the field. The orders from a web services and e-commerce leader on the French market announced in Q3 have already increased by 25%. In Belgium, we have concluded a new collaboration agreement with with a digital native service company, for several .NET and Sharepoint projects.

We have recently signed our first contract with an Italian client in the field of embedded R&D. At the end of 2011, this amounts to 10 countries where we have sold our services this year! The fact that we have local presence in 6 countries and commercial teams in only 3 of them is an unquestionable proof of effectiveness for the commercial virtualization (Digital Salesforce) strategy undertaken in collaboration with Virtual Fanatic.

In Germany, 2 new clients have started their collaboration with Pentalog (IT services company). The 1st one is the e-commerce department of one of the largest European media groups, with more than 100,000 employees worldwide and a sales figures of 15 billion euro. They have entrusted us with the development of modules such as “payment gateway”. The 2nd-one, a German IT consulting company, has chosen our services for developing its Business Intelligence applications.
Another German software publisher in the health sector, in Microsoft technologies, has practically doubled its investment with Pentalog.

The sales activities undertaken in Vietnam and coordinated by the former Delivery Center Manager in Hanoi, Tuan Nguyen Quoc, are beginning to bear fruit. A first project, albeit small, for an insurance broker has been agreed upon at the beginning of this quarter. We target Vietnamese or foreign privately owned companies in the banking, industry, telecommunication and insurance sectors. Furthermore, we are in the process of developing on regional markets such as Japan, Korea, Singapore or Malaysia by preparing a roadshow during the first quarter of next year. We have recently attended the ASEAN forum at Kuala Lumpur. Our aim was to meet not only potential Malaysian clients for nearshoring, but also French-speaking companies who want to enter the Asian market, for offshoring.

In accordance with the Q3 forecast, we have reached 700 Pentalog employees in Q4!

The delivery center in Cluj will reach a number of 35 employees by the end of January. It is the delivery center which has reached its break-even point in the shortest period of time in our history. Bucharest and Iasi have constantly increased their workforce. Therefore, we have exceeded the number of 700 employees in 2011, without reaching the originally forecast number of 770 employees. This downturn is definitely related to the new economic crisis.

Although the growth rate in S2 has reduced by 50% comparing to S1, once again we have maintained a double digit profitability level. Our annual growth under the Pentalog brand name amounts to 26%. It even exceeds 33% if we take into account the Pentalabbs’ (Incubator) contribution. There has been a commercial boost in December. Given the sharp increase of our recommendation rate which has reached a record of 94%, it is by no means surprising to see new leads emerging. We were pleased to welcome two of our major clients who visited us during Q4; they insisted on thanking the teams in person and on presenting their strategies for 2012, including the roles of Pentalog’s teams for accomplishing these strategies.

2012 is expected to be a difficult year in our sector, and we approach it with prudent optimism, but with serenity. Our equity capital and our cash position have reached a record level and our profitability level is constantly 30% above the average in our business sector. Our key strategic elements remain focused on innovation, quality and ongoing effort towards customer satisfaction. We always bear in mind that these clear policy lines enabled Pentalog to outpace all its competitors in terms of growth and profitability in 2009, a dreadful year for many companies in the IT sector.

We start this week’s IT offshore press review with an article on Gartner’s top predictions for IT organisations and users for 2012.

- Gartner Reveals Top Predictions for IT Organisations and Users for 2012 and Beyond (December 2, 2011, CFO News)
- Mobile giving grows up (December 2, 2011, Computer World)
- Developers see growing HTML5 importance (December 5, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Cloud at ‘chapter zero’ presents opportunities (December 1, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Google’s highly profitable secret war against small businesses and jobs (November 30, 2011, ZDNet)
- Is Cloud Support ‘Racing to the Bottom? (December 1, 2011, CIO)
- Skills-Based Visa Change Helps Some, Hurts Others (November 30, 2011, CIO)
- Google’s Android 4.0 Ported to X86 Processors (December 1, 2011, CIO)
- The Big Data of Social Media: Balancing Methods and Mayhem (December 2, 2011, Silicon Angle)
- Romanian National Bank organizes public bidding for IT maintenance services (December 2, 2011, Business Review)
- Arbeitslosigkeit geht überraschend stark zurück (November 30, 2011, Welt)
- 2012: Die Bedrohungen für die IT nehmen drastisch zu (December 2, 2011, Automotive IT)
- So ergeht es Firmen in der IT-Wolke (December 2, 2011, Computer Woche)
- Was die Systemhäuser 2012 erwartet (November 30, 2011, Computer Woche)
- Lösungen für Enterprise-Resource-Planning (November 29, 2011, Computer Woche)
- Gartner: Weltweiter Servermarkt wächst um 7,2 Prozent (November 29, 2011, ZDNet)
- Der BI-Markt in Deutschland (November 28, 2011, Silicon)

E-financing, geolocation marketing, mobility, M2M.. just a few of the subjects of this week’s IT offshore press review. Enjoy!

- E-financing : a new market on the shoulders of e-invoicing (November 7, 2011, CFO News)
- The Benefits Of Geolocation Marketing (November 7, 2011, Forbes)
- Apple To Make Billions On Google’s Android (November 4, 2011, Forbes)
- Wi-Fi tethering 101: Use a smartphone as a mobile hotspot (November 4, 2011, Computer World)
- Is the offshore contact centre honeymoon over? (October 31, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Does Oracle’s Larry Ellison care about open source and Java? (November 6, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- IT operations in Malaysia could offer the near China experience (November 4, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Mobile Goes Data Mad (November 7, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Android handsets top hardware failures list (November 5, 2011, ZDNet)
- Asia-Pacific to become largest M2M market in 2013 (November 3, 2011, M2M Now)
- Are wireless sensor networks and energy harvesting coming together? (November 3, 2011, M2M Now)
- Enterprise Social Software: What Businesses Need to Do Next (November 3, 2011, CIO)
- Can You Trust One Outsourcing Provider to Manage the Rest? (November 4, 2011, CIO)
- Gartners Top 10 Technologien für 2012 (November 7, 2011, CIO)
- Informatik-Studium wieder gefragter (November 4, 2011, Inside IT)
- Wie man mehr aus BI herausholt (November 3, 2011, Computer Woche)
- Starke Tools für die Private Cloud (November 2, 2011, Computer Woche)
- 38.000 freie Stellen für IT-Fachkräfte (October 31, 2011, CIO)

Enjoy the best articles of the IT offshore press review!

- What Google+ Brand Pages Could Look Like (October 23, 2011, Mashable)
- Forrester: Tech Changes to Expect in Next 3 Years (October 21, 2011, Computer World)
- Study reveals sectors boosting investment in IT outsourcing (October 19, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- ICT sustainability maturing in APAC (October 21, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Pyramid predicts growth for cellular M2M (October 24, 2011, M2M)
- Private Social Networks Playing Facebook Role in More Workplaces (October 20, 2011, CIO)
- Gartner: the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2012 (October 18, 2011, CIO)
- Salesforce.Com to ‘unlock’ SAP’s Core Software for ’social Enterprises’ (October 21, 2011, CIO)
- A Strategy for Gaining Maximum Value from Cloud and Mobile in Your Business (October 22, 2011, Silicon Angle)
- Gefragte IT-Experten für 2012 (October 24, 2011, CIO)
- Agilität als Schlüssel zu Business Intelligence (October 24, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Weniger High-Tech-Gründungen in Deutschland (October 20, 2011, Silicon)
- Weltweite IT-Budgets steigen (October 19, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Trotz Konjunktursorgen: Firmen investieren weiter in IT (October 18, 2011, Silicon)
- Punktlandung Outsourcing – der Vertrag macht das Projekt (October 17, 2011, Silicon)

On account of liquididy stringency we are all facing in Europe, companies encounter greater difficulties in finding financing means for their big infrastructure and R&D projects. As the greatest IT services consumers under normal circumstances, banks are the first to lower their ambitions related to new projects in order to save their famous equity. In this high risk aversion context, the loans granted to companies will be curtailed as well.

Venture capital was already showing signs of weakening during the first semester, prior to this summer’s crisis deepening. Undoubtedly, there were early warning signs of a trend that is not likely to change before the end of 2012.

Being a strategy enthusiast and investor via Pentalabbs (company incubator), I asked investment funds a few questions concerning their own perspective during this difficult period. They have all reinforced my understanding from the media. They will primarily invest in e-commerce, and, more cautiously, in B2C web services. The majority of them keep away from B2B and the idea of spending money on financing hefty software R&D operations seems terrifying. Under the circumstances, software publishers, except for the firmly Cloud based-ones, are likely to encounter financing difficulties.

The conversations I had with two major investment funds and a leading investment banker in Paris, whom I met at a fund-raising event at Audencia, sustain the strategy our IT outsourcing company has pursued for several years. First, we focused entirely on software publishing, which has been technology funds’ darling for a long time; then, we happily embarked on the M2M adventure, and, more recently, we provided web services (social networks in particular) and e-commerce solutions. The latter two sectors account for 70% of our profit growth in 2011. M2M has practically doubled its preponderance this year (!), at a time when the banking sector has registered a drop of 35% and when the telecommunication field has remained stable.
We are all aware of the fact that, with its forecast organic growth of about 22% in 2011, Pentalog registers its worst performance in the last 5 years, but I can say that this performance could have been even lower should we not have strengthened our position in these areas and their specialized technology. In 2011, we have earned 4 major e-commerce and social network budgets, amounting to an annualized total of €2.5M. Actually, there are many reasons to be satisfied with the pursued strategy if we add the M2M profits (€1M, but from existing clients).

Naturally, PHP technology requests have boomed in 2011. The demand for these expertise services exceeds by far Microsoft.net and matches Java demand for the first time in history! But we have also made progress in expertise knowledge, with know-how in the video field (in Drupal), commercial animation (in Magento), SEO constraints, and social networks (Drupal and mobile). In these business sectors, we are acknowledged as consultants and experienced contractors. Moreover, we are currently considering the proposal of two professional cloud, e-commerce and social networks offers based on Magento and Drupal for the software layers and on specialized consultants for the service layer.

We are counting on the converging cloud computing, mobility, e-commerce and social network expertise directions to ensure a reliable growth engine for Pentalog in 2012.

The best articles of the IT offshore press review. Enjoy!

- The $20 Billion Upset (October 13, 2011, Forbes)
- Transfer your MobileMe account to Apple’s iCloud service (Octobre 13, 2011, IT World)
- The limits of Agile: Emergn CEO on Universal Credit (Octobre 14, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Businesses told to work better with education to plug critical IT skills gap (Octobre 14, 2011, Computerweekly)
- PC vendors tie innovation, strategies to consumerization (Octobre 12, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- IT Outsourcing Survey: Provider Profits Shrink, Growth Slows in India (Octobre 11, 2011, CIO)
- Best Buy Rebuilding IT Capability it Outsourced, Starts Hiring (Octobre 11, 2011, CIO)
- What is a ‘Connected Device,’ and Why Does it Matter? (Octobre 14, 2011, TMCNet)
- NFC telecom’s next big thing? (Octobre 3, 2011, Business Review)
- Semiconductor inventories are rising (October 10, 2011, Electronics Weekly)
- 10 Schritte zur Outsourcing-Strategie (October 17, 2011, CIO)
- Die 15 häufigsten IT-Fehler (October 17, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Deutschlands Hightech-Exporte legen zu (October 12, 2011, CRN)
- Deutschland exportiert mehr ITK-Technik (October 11, 2011, Automotive IT)

Fresh news! Everything about the offshore IT here on Pentablog, but also on our Pentalog Fanpage!

- Technology industry figures pay tribute to Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs (October 6, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Are Western IT services providers letting the Indians in for a second time? Or is it just IBM and Accenture? (October 6, 2011, Computerweekly)
- 5 tips to manage risk in mega IT projects (October, 5, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- User-generated reviews tricky but rewarding (October 7, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Oracle reveals social network for business (October 10, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Cloud Computing: 3 Tips for Overcoming Implementation Anxiety (October 5, 2011, CIO)
- IT Outsourcing: Study Ranks Best Nearshore Locations for U.S. Customers (October 6, 2011, CIO)
- Two-Thirds of Firms Send Jobs Offshore, Survey Shows (October 4, 2011, CIO)
- Die Outsourcing-Pläne der CIOs (October 5, 2011, CIO)
- Was freie IT-Projektleiter auszeichnet (October 4, 2011, CIO)
- Weltwirtschaft stottert, Rezessionsgefahr steigt (October 4, 2011, e-Fund Research)