iYogi Secures $9.5M in Series B Funding Led by SAP Ventures, With Follow-on Investment from Canaan Partners and SVB India Capital Partners

iYogi Secures $9.5M in Series B Funding Led by SAP Ventures, With Follow-on Investment from Canaan Partners and SVB India Capital Partners
iYogi, a Direct-to-Consumer and Small Business Technical Support Provider, Paves the Way for Personal Offshoring to Become India’s Next Success Story

New York, 24 July, 2008: Personal Offshoring, which is driving the next wave of India’s outsourcing success story, got a huge boost today when iYogi - a remote technical support

provider from India - raised $ 9.5 million in Series B financing from SAP Ventures, a division of SAP AG, Canaan Partners and SVB India Capital Partners, a venture fund affiliate of Silicon Valley Bank.

iYogi (www.iyogi.net) delivers technical support services directly to consumers and small businesses and is the first, global, technical support brand based out of India. The company offers its customers an unlimited, annual service subscription for $119.99 per desktop that includes support for a wide range of technologies, including PC hardware Microsoft Windows operating system, software applications, peripherals and multifunctional devices.

“Personal Offshoring has created new investment opportunities in India with incredible growth potential,” said Doug Higgins, partner at SAP Ventures. “It is very exciting to see companies like iYogi challenging the traditional enterprise-focused offshore-service delivery model by creating a consumer-focused, direct-to-customer personal offshore model. iYogi is one of the fastest-growing companies in this market segment, and we look forward to working with them to create India’s next success story.”

“Our focus on the customer experience has helped us achieve a 93 percent satisfaction rate across more than 50,000 customers,” said Uday Challu, CEO of iYogi. “We are delighted to have the support of three terrific investors as we increase our market share and continue to provide the best technical support experience possible for our customers.”

iYogi will use the funds to fuel its expansion into 12 new regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, and to increase its delivery of new services including PC recovery, anti-virus/spyware, data back-up and PC optimization.

“As consumer technologies grow in sophistication, consumers will be seeking the kind of home IT support services – including remote services offered by companies such as iYogi – to help them solve their most complex problems,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst, Parks Associates. “In primary research, we found more than one-third of consumers are willing to pay for competent and professional remote support services, and 60% express a strong interest in software solutions – what we refer to as ‘PC Dashboards’ – that automate many basic PC performance enhancement and troubleshooting features, solving many PC-related problems before they even are noticed by end-users.”

iYogi had previously raised $3.1 million in Series A financing from Canaan Partners and SVB in April of last year. “iYogi is one of the most promising investments for Canaan Partners,” said Alok Mittal, managing director of India at Canaan Partners. “Third-party, vendor-independent technical support is an exciting new service category, witnessing explosive growth. Customers are looking beyond the traditional vendor-provided support to remote channels for better problem resolution, faster service, and greater overall satisfaction. iYogi has created an incredible value proposition and price offering for its customers that is hard to beat.”

”Several next generation outsourcing companies from India are delivering a range of personal offshoring services for individuals and small businesses in the U.S. including online tutoring, tax preparation, remote executive assistance and research services,” said Suresh Shanmugham, managing director of SVB India Capital Partners, a venture fund affiliate of Silicon Valley Bank. “iYogi has leveraged the technical skills available in India along with process expertise to scale as a global technical support provider for millions faced with increasingly complex technology”.

About SAP Ventures
SAP Ventures invests in innovative and disruptive software and services companies globally. We pursue opportunities across all stages for outstanding financial return. Our goal is to bring substantial benefit to all parties by facilitating interaction between portfolio companies and SAP and its ecosystem of customers and partners. SAP Ventures has a successful track record of building industry-leading companies by partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and top-tier venture capital firms since 1996. For more information, visit www.sapventures.com.

About Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners is a global venture capital firm specializing in early-stage information technology and life sciences companies. Founded in 1987, Canaan Partners has $2.4 billion capital under management and has invested in more than 240 companies, completed 63 mergers and acquisitions, and brought over 50 companies public. The firm catalyzes the development of innovative mobile, Internet, CleanTech, networking, semiconductor, enterprise software and services, biotechnology and medical technologies to build next-generation market leaders. Canaan was an early investor in Acme Packet (APKT), Aperto Networks, BharatMatrimony.com, Blurb, DoubleClick (DCLK), ID Analytics, Match.com and SuccessFactors, along with dozens of other market-leading companies. Canaan is headquartered in Menlo Park, California and also has offices in Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information visit: www.canaan.com.

SVB India Capital Partners Fund and Silicon Valley Bank

SVB India Capital Partners Fund is a $54 million equity fund that is focused on Indian companies and co-invests across industries and stages with top-tier venture capital firms. Silicon Valley Bank is the premier commercial bank for emerging, growth and mature companies in the technology, life science, private equity and premium wine industries. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., the company serves clients around the world through 27 U.S. offices and five international operations. Silicon Valley Bank is a member of global financial services firm SVB Financial Group, with SVB Analytics, SVB Capital, SVB Global and SVB Private Client Services. More information on the company can be found at www.svb.com.

About iYogi

iYogi is the first direct-to-consumer and small business technical support service from India. Providing an annual unlimited subscription to technical support for $119.99 per year, iYogi now boasts more than 50,000 customers. The company employs 450 professionals servicing customers in the U.S., U.K., Canada fast expanding to 12 new geographies across the globe. iYogi’s resolution rate of 87 percent and customer satisfaction rate of 93 percent are amongst the highest published benchmarks in the industry. For further information, please visit www.iyogi.net.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. iYogi shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.




Contact:

Company Name:
iYogi Technical Services Pvt Ltd

Address:
iYogi Inc.
12 Desbrosses Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013
Toll Free no: 1-800-237-3901
Work Number: 1-212-229-0901
F ax Number: 1-888-867-2715

Windows Vista Ultimate Usb Edition

Windows Vista Ultimate combines the best of work and play, into a single easy-to-use operating system. It’s easier than ever to find, manage, and share information — and it’s safer than ever to connect, enjoy personal media and sync up personal devices.

Fully designed for life on the go, you’ll have all the features of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Home Premium in one package. Download cutting edge software and services exclusively through Windows Ultimate Extras, and enjoy entertainment on TVs throughout your home with Xbox 360 and other devices.

It’s the best way to enjoy work and play, with its easy connection to home and school networks. Accomplishing more each day has never been easier. Use your Windows Media Center to enjoy your favorite photos, music, TV, and movies on your PC and share them throughout the home of compatible device — including your Xbox 360.

Enhanced backup and restore — Special safeguards help protect against hardware failure, user error and other causes of lost data Get a better tablet PC experience with enhanced handwriting recognition and precise pen navigation Connect to a company network or access your PC remotely from home Get up and running with existing data and applications — fast and easy PC migration, even without dedicated IT support Supports Windows ReadyDrive technology for improved battery performance

for more on Windows Hack vist UK Support

List of Vista Media Center bugs

Here are my list of complaints. Feel free to add to them or comment :)

1. ATSC Subchannels. Considering we are capable of recieving many more channels than Media center will show you this is a huge problem. FYI with High Definition over the air channels, they are subdivided so that each channels can play up to 5 streams on the same channel. For example Channel 8 actually is sent digitally as Channel 8.1 , Channel 8.2 and so on. Vista Media Center not only is hard coded to use channel 8.1. In addition to missing channels, it messes up the guide listing on some channels because it uses the wrong listing source from some channels most notably PBS. There is a workaround (hack), but to me this is an embarrassing one for media center.

2. DVD Resolution. Whenever you play a DVD, my media center changes resolution down while watching the video. This seems OK (well not really I wish it would be scaling it up using the ridiculously powerful hardware I have) but when the DVD is over and it returns to the menu it is still at the low resolution. It doesn't return to high resolution until I select a high resolution video. This makes the Video Preview Icons unreadable and look sloppy.

3. DVD Library. For whatever reason I have still not been able to get my ripped DVD collection to show up. I have tried numerous suggestions but to no avail. I suspect the part of media center that scans for new media hangs on my system for whatever reason or the part of vista that tracks the library is corrupted (It also shows things That are not in My Library configured directories). It is almost annoying enough to reinstall Vista at the cost of losing everything.

4. Netflix streaming media Plugin (HD DRM issue). According to what i have read this is because the (Microsoft) DRM that netflix uses to stream the movies does not allow some HD hardware? This seems crazy but alas I cannot get the videos to work (even without the plugin straight off the website) due to DRM issues. This pluging would be such an awesome selling point to Vista Media center PCs but instead it is a thorn.

5. Sound / TV / On Off Integration. This is something Tivo got right but most PC Media Centers didn't including Vista. With Tivo, you got one remote and you programmed that remote to learn your TV on/off and volume buttons. Then your Tivo remote would turn off and on the TV and control the volume. The media center green button remote that I have just simulates the TV going dim and turning off. I am not stupid, the TV is still on. I have to manually turn the TV off with another remote. Theres a thousand workarounds including having a universal remote, using a IR Blaster, etc, etc but none of those options are out of the box. I'm OK with configuring winlirc or girder but my Mom couldn't. Maybe I just bought the "wrong" Vista media center Green button remote.

6. Video Icons for Network Shares. I watch TV shows often from a network share. The strange thing is how slow it seems to be to generate the preview Icons "first frame picture" from the share. I thought these icons were saved as hidden files in the directory so it didn't have to generate them again every time so its strange how slow it is.

7. Magical Integration of multiple vista media centers is unclear. I am hoping to eventually have a media center in every room in my house, and perhaps more than one room will be running VMC on a computer instead of an extender. The problem is I don't really know much about how to integrate two VMC computers together and I am having trouble finding it on the web. Does one computer become the server and the other is a client? Can I have distributed tuners? How does VMC choose the tuner if they are distributed? Do shows save only locally, or do they save to the main VMC share? Perhaps I am just using the wrong keywords to search.

Windows Vista - Which Version to go with?

After deciding to shift to a Windows Vista OS, you need to decide on which Windows Vista version you should pick. Before you consider shelling out for a Windows Vista Ultimate license, you really should ask yourself exactly what features you need and want so you can decide whether the price is right.

Windows Vista Home Basic

This is the most rudimentary version of Vista available. It has the more secure IE 7, the firewall, the quick search functionality, and easier connectivity. When it comes to the features that distinguish Vista from previous versions of the Windows OS, though, Home Basic is somewhat lacking, though it does offer parental control.

Windows Vista Home Basic is a good choice only if you use your computer solely for web surfing and basic document processing, or if your computer is just barely powerful enough to run Windows Vista.

Windows Vista Home Premium

For an extra, you can get much more out of Windows Vista. Aside from including all the features of the Home Basic version, Home Premium offers all of the window-dressing that makes Vista look like Vista. You will have pre-packaged games and Aero interface capability. Aero gives your windows and icons a 3D appearance and smoother transitions, as well as allowing you to add transparency effects to window borders. Home Premium offers tablet PC functionality, document collaboration, and scheduled backups. Home Premium also offers the fully integrated Windows Media Center for all your home entertainment needs, plus a moviemaker which is HD format-capable.

Windows Vista Home Premium is designed for the user who uses the computer for PC and network gaming, since Premium supports DirectX 10, with its advanced graphics technologies incredible graphics rendering. Premium is also designed for watching High Definition movie, editing/making video clips, burning DVD copies, and interfacing with the Xbox 360, which Home Premium edition automatically detects to allow for Video, Audio, and Picture sharing.

Windows Vista Business

Windows Vista Business drops Parental controls, Media Center features, and pre-installed games for obvious reasons. Vista Business does have the rest of the Home Premium features plus support for business applications and business data security (fax, remote desktop connectivity, file encryption, and complete shadow incremental backup). This version of Windows Vista is, as the name implies, strictly for business purposes.

Windows Vista Enterprise

Windows Vista Enterprise adds Microsoft’s BitLocker encryption technology to the feature set found in Windows Vista Business, but this version of Windows is only offered to businesses participating in Microsoft’s Software Assurance program.

Windows Vista Ultimate

This edition has everything that is included in the Home Premium and Business editions. Vista Ultimate also adds Enterprise’s BitLocker encryption technology for the computer’s hard drives, protecting the drives so that only authorized users can boot up the OS or view the files contained in the drives.

Because of its full complement of features, Vista Ultimate is perfect for people who use the PC for fun and business in equal parts, as well as users who want to be protected from data loss and PC theft.

Is it that all Ultimate - Vista Ultimate

Windows Vista Ultimate was marketed by Microsoft as the operating system of "choice for those who want to have it all". But Microsoft has left out something very important from their "most complete edition of Windows Vista": Extended Lifecycle Support.

While browsing Microsoft's Support Lifecycle pages I observed some interesting oddities. According to the Windows Vista Ultimate Support Lifecycle page support ends on April 10, 2012, putting it in the same boat as Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium. On the contrary both Windows Vista Business and Enterprise receive Extended Support, which means five more years of support until April 11, 2017.

Support for consumer products ends after five years and have no Extended Support option, according to Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Web page. It was always assumed that Windows Vista Ultimate, marketed by Microsoft as having the most consumer and corporate features, would be supported for more than five years. Microsoft currently offers Vista Ultimate to businesses for volume-licensing purchases.

The problem of limited support potentially creates numerous problems for small businesses looking for improved security. BitLocker Drive Encryption, which is extremely helpful in protecting sensitive data from theft, is available only in Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate. However, Vista Enterprise is available only through volume licensing purchases, which is very rarely utilised by small businesses.

The designated five years of Mainstream Support for Windows XP Home Edition and Media Centre Edition ended one month before the release of Windows Vista. However, Microsoft responded by extending its support for Windows XP for another five years up until April 8, 2014.

It is highly likely that Microsoft will bow to the increased pressure from customers to extend its support for Windows Vista Ultimate, much like they did with Windows XP.

An even more baffling contradiction is that the Microsoft Office product range is treated in a different way. The Office 2007 Support Lifecycle page, states that the Student and Home Editions will receive extended support right up until April 4, 2017. Even though these two editions are lower-end versions for consumers, they receive extended support just like their more expensive counterparts.

It seems Microsoft has decided that its ultimate version of Windows Vista, the “choice for those who want to have it all", is not worthy of Extended Support, while the lower cost consumer editions of Microsoft Office are. Only time will tell if Microsoft bows into the pressure from consumers of Windows Vista.

Just Figure Out Which Vista Edition Are You Useing

To find out which edition of Windows Vista is running on your computer, do the following:

	• Open Welcome Center by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Welcome Center.

The edition of Windows Vista you are running is displayed with your computer details near the top of the window.

Vista SP1 Released to Automatic Update

Windows Vista customers can now receive the first service pack for the operating system via the Microsoft Automatic Update service, Microsoft said Wednesday.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will download automatically to PCs that have the automatic update feature of the OS turned on, the company said. Previously, Vista was available to customers via Windows Update, but people had to specifically download it.

Not all customers will receive SP1 immediately via Automatic Update, however. The company is distributing it in phases to "ensure a seamless download experience," Microsoft said. A timeline for when all customers would receive Vista SP1 via Automatic Update was not immediately available.

SP1 is a rollout of software updates that fix bugs and glitches in Vista and is seen as a milestone that will inspire many customers -- especially those in the business market -- to adopt the OS. In fact, in a recent report, "Building the Business Case for Windows Vista," Forrester Research said more business customers plan to upgrade to Vista now that SP1 is available. This comes as no surprise, considering companies often wait for the first service pack after a major Windows release to update corporate desktops.

However, even SP1 will not guarantee that enterprises and business customers currently running XP or an earlier version of Windows will upgrade, as some have said they would skip the OS altogether. The same Forrester report said as much, although the research firm is recommending that companies don't skip Vista because they would not be well-positioned for future versions of Windows if they do.

Microsoft has acknowledged problems with application compatibility and lack of driver support, among others, that customers have had with Vista. It says SP1 and other updates that the company continues to make should remedy these problems. What the company hasn't said is why there were so many problems with the OS when the company had more than five years between the releases of Windows XP and Vista to ensure a smooth transition.

In fact, Microsoft seems to be looking past Vista to the future rather than addressing continued concerns about the product. In a meeting with reporters on Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus on Tuesday, a presentation on Windows Vista turned out to be anything but that.

Instead, Shannen Boettcher, general manager of Windows product management at Microsoft, discussed future plans for tools to virtualize corporate desktops and applications. He implied this would be an important aspect of the Windows client OS going forward, but was vague about timing.

Apart from that, Boettcher's main discussion specifically about Vista was a mention of its green-computing merits. He asserted that upgrading 10 corporate desktops to Vista is comparable to taking one automobile off the road in terms of reducing carbon footprint.

When asked about criticism of Vista in the marketplace and why there were so many problems after five years of development, Boettcher had little to say other than to acknowledge that Microsoft did not do "a very good job in preparing people for when we shipped" Vista.

He added, however, that the upgrade cycle for an OS doesn't begin to pick up until 12 months to 18 months after the OS is released, and since Vista was released to business customers in November 2007, it's right on schedule as a part of vista support

source :- http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145030/vista_sp1_released_to_automatic_update.html