Seapine Software, a leading global provider of quality-centric application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions, announced today that AG Interactive, the e-card and interactive division of social expressions producer American Greetings Corporation, has selected Seapine’s TestTrack TCM to manage its test cases, improve team collaboration, and provide visibility into testing activities and project progress.

The QA group at AG Interactive is responsible for testing over 10 unique websites including AmericanGreetings.com, BlueMountain.com, Egreetings.com, PhotoWorks.com, AGKidZone.com, and Webshots.com. Seapine’s TestTrack TCM will replace the use of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to manage the organization’s test cases. TestTrack TCM gives the group comprehensive capabilities to manage all phases of its software testing process, including test case creation, scheduling, execution, measurement, and reporting. It also allows the group to easily assign test cases to QA analysts and provides visibility into project progress without having to perform difficult and tedious calculations in spreadsheets.

With testing activities dispersed over three continents, AG Interactive will use TestTrack TCM’s communication features to keep distributed team members in the US, India, and Romania informed of each other’s tasks and progress. TestTrack TCM’s communication features include RSS feeds and comprehensive email support, such as email notifications, email conversation tracking, and URL access, to improve team collaboration.

If you use Google Docs and Microsoft Office, you’ll appreciate the new Outlook sidebar from Mainsoft. Called Harmony, and currently in beta, the sidebar lets you share, e-mail, download, upload, and edit your Google Docs right from your desktop using Outlook 2007.

Harmony is available as a free download from Mainsoft’s Website, and there is also a version for Microsoft SharePoint users. Here’s a quick look at Harmony for Google Docs:

Harmony features drag and drop functionality to send documents via e-mail, upload a new file to Google Docs, or just view a Google Doc right in Outlook. The Harmony sidebar also travels with you, so when you open up a compose message window, the sidebar appears there, too, so you don’t have to navigate between the main Outlook window and the message window to use Harmony.

To send a Google Doc via e-mail, you just choose the file from the Harmony sidebar, drag it into your message window, and Harmony creates a link to the Google Doc online instead of attaching it to the e-mail.

When the recipient gets your e-mail, they click on the link and the document opens up on the Google Docs site. If the recipient doesn’t have a Google account, they will be prompted to create one before accessing the document. Harmony will also give you the option to set editing or viewing permissions for your document before you send it through e-mail.

By default, Harmony sends your Google Docs as a link, but if you prefer, you can have Harmony send an attachment by adjusting your options in the Harmony sidebar settings.

If you receive a word document, spreadsheet, PDF, or presentation via e-mail, you can upload the attached document to your Google Docs account; to do so, you just drag the attached file into the Harmony sidebar.

Check it out yourself.

DETAILS OF Microsoft’s Courier tablet device have been sprayed all over the Internet.

Information on the Courier was leaked to Engadget back in September but Microsoft’s “Digital Journal” has also been spotted starring in a Youtube video. The internal Microsoft video is a demo of the Courier’s interface and its similarities to Apple’s Ipad and HP’s Slate cannot be overlooked.

While the demo only showcases the interface, it’s obvious that the Courier has a dual stylus or digit touchscreen and is intended as an e-book organiser with web browsing and handwriting recognition capabilities.

Engadget’s sources go a few steps further. They claim it is powered by Microsoft’s Tegra 2 chip that the Vole uses for its Zune HD music player rather than Windows 7 and will have a built-in camera, a feature that’s missing in Apple’s first Ipad. Engadget goes on to guesstimate a release date in the second half of this year.

So far Microsoft hasn’t released any statements to confirm or deny Courier. But the Vole always wants high volume sales so we’re betting on a price much lower than either the Ipad or the Slate.

Predictive analytics can play a pivotal role in the planning and day-to-day operations of your business.

SAS has been named a leader among nine vendors in  The Forrester Wave: Predictive Analytics and Data Mining Solutions, Q1 2010. SAS predictive analytics and data mining solutions were evaluated by Forrester against 53 criteria in three categories through vendor surveys, product demonstration and vendor-reference interviews. SAS earned top overall ranking in all three categories – current offering, strategy and market presence – including perfect scores for functionality, professional services, licensing and cost, direction, and company financials criteria.

As per the Forrester report, “SAS provides a diversified solution portfolio with comprehensive feature-rich modeling/mining and statistical analysis tools, as well as model and data governance platform, for mining complex structured and unstructured information.” The report also notes that “SAS offerings integrate out of the box with a wide range of third-party data warehouse platforms and with the vendor’s own analytics platform and wide range of prepackaged analytical applications.”

Apalya Technologies has been appointed as the exclusive, mobile, live video streaming provider for all Indian Premier League (IPL) matches for the next three years, including the 2010 IPL season. The rights, granted by Global Cricket Ventures (GCV)–the mobile and internet partner of the IPL, enables Apalaya to cover live video streaming for all mobile platforms worldwide for the IPL on an exclusive basis.

Commenting on this partnership, IPL Commissioner, Lalit Modi, said, “The IPL is committed to the development of such exciting initiatives, which make the tournament available to fans globally, at all times of the day, and irrespective of their location. In India, where nearly half of the population has access to a mobile phone, but far fewer to televisions, the potential to reach out to a wider audience is huge. We are pleased to be partnering with Apalya, and look forward to delivering this service to the global mobile audience.”

Due to this partnership, sports fans across the world can catch all the IPL action real-time on their mobiles and on their laptops, through mobile data cards.  In the Indian market, Apalya already has arrangements in place with several mobile operators, and for laptop users live video streaming can be accessed through Tata Photon mobile data cards.

4G Identity Solutions (4G ID) has won two bids to provide both fingerprint and iris recognition devices to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as it undertakes building the world’s largest national registry. These devices will be used in the Proof of Concept (PoC) tests and the data collected in the PoC will be used in the UIDAI’s biometrics Center of Competence.

A key requirement of the Unique ID system is to eliminate duplicate identities in order to improve the efficacy of service delivery under numerous federal and state programs. UIDAI has chosen to capture iris, fingerprint and facial biometric features as the primary mechanisms for ensuring uniqueness.

India cannot leverage other countries’ experiences in designing the UIDAI’s biometrics systems and processes. Those experiences simply do not exist in terms of scale, diversity, and environmental conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to test devices and enrolment processes in various Indian environments.

With Avaya IP Office 6.0 in place, small businesses don’t have to sacrifice easy, intuitive operation in order to get the enhanced communications features of large enterprises.

Avaya has introduced Avaya IP Office 6.0, a new version of its flagship communications solution for SMEs. Avaya IP Office 6.0 features new unified communications (UC) capabilities that deliver enhanced user experiences to employees in any location. These capabilities include advanced collaboration tools using voice, instant messaging, presence and video to drive a more productive and flexible workforce.

Additionally, Avaya IP Office is now easier and more affordable for a key market segment-
businesses with less than 20 employees-to install and use. This enables the smallest of companies to cost-effectively implement the advanced communications and customer service functions of larger systems. With this new release, Avaya makes unified communications up to 40 percent more affordable for small businesses.

To ensure small businesses have access to the best tools, while still having the flexibility to choose the platform that best meets their needs,Intuit has unveiled its online payroll for Google Apps. Intuit Online Payroll, available on the Google Apps Marketplace, which gives businesses the ability to manage payroll with the online convenience of Google Apps.

From within Google Apps, businesses can use the application to check their paystubs or create paychecks in minutes. Also companies can continue to work on other office tasks such as e-mail or word processing without needing to log into another site or launch another program. For example, a employer can check Intuit Online Payroll to see when they need to run payroll or pay their payroll taxes, while employees can easily view their paycheck from Google Calendar.

Intuit Online Payroll for Google Apps is available on the Google Apps Marketplace starting at $39.00 per month.

Obopay, a mobile banking and payment provider, was recently chosen by MIT’s Technology Review as one of the top 50 innovative companies in the world across sectors such as energy, computing, the Web, biomedicine, and materials. Obopay was conferred this honor under ‘Private Web Company’ category for bringing innovation in mobile payment services through its pioneering mobile payment service which is ubiquitous and highly secure.

With technology developed at its Bangalore based R&D centre, Obopay products are platform agnostic and global in nature. Other companies in ‘the Web’ category included names like Google, Twitter, IBM, Adobe amongst others.

The companies on MIT’s Technology Review list have been assessed on basis of their business model, deployment strategies, scalability of technologies as well as success rate. The editors of Technology Review analyzed companies over the last year that has demonstrated their superiority at inventing technology and using it for business growth as well as for transforming the lives of people. The companies identified were the ones with most promising technologies, whether they were giant corporations or fledgling startups with initial venture capital investments.