In a survey conducted by Datamonitor Group (formerly the Brown-Wilson Group) involving 3,100 corporate development leaders, including more than 400 outsourcing customers, asking them to indicate their company’s inclination to consider specific offshore locations for outsourcing, Chandigarh ranks 21st in the list of 25 Safest Cities for Offshore Outsourcing in 2010.

Chandigarh is also officially the cleanest city in India, an announcement made only last month by Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy. The Govt. of India’s National Rating Exercise examined 423 cities in India which cover 72 per cent of the urban population.

And last year, TIME listed Chandigarh as Best for the Mind in their Best of Asia 2009 list, calling it an “Urban Retreat” and labeling it the “thinking man’s city”.

Not bad for a city for which the foundation stone was laid in 1952.

After months of speculation Apple finally launched the iPad, designed to fill the perceived gap between a smartphone and a laptop. It is believed to be better than a laptop at browsing the web and that could play games, movies, music and more. All these features put the Apple’s iPad in direct competition with Amazon’s Kindle, or a few steps ahead of it. The iPad looks more like a giant iPod/iPhone that runs all iPhone apps in the App Store. It can connect via USB to sync with your PC or Mac, play HD video and a lot more. The killer feature by far has been the price. The iPad was expected to cost about 1000 USD, however the starting price of the iPad is just 499 USD which is about same as Amazon’s Kindle DX.

Read about the technical specs for iPad.

With the release of iPhone SDK 3.2 beta, the iPhone development community has already started working on the iPad applications. Apple’s iPad boasts of advanced hardware in terms of its processing power which includes Apple’s own chip called the A4. It is exciting for developers with iPhone apps already on sale is that Apple has made the transition up to iPad as smooth as possible.

Since the device’s interface is essentially a facsimile of the iPhone, developers won’t have to worry about creating new icons or other assets in order to port the app across. In fact, as stated by Apple, the iPad can run all iPhone apps unmodified out of the box. Just like the user experience is somewhat like a big iPhone, development will take place within the iPhone SDK and – thanks to the device’s app scaling feature – developers won’t even have to worry about creating content in the larger device’s resolution.

Since many industry experts see the launch of Apple’s iPad as a direct competition to Amazon’s Kindle, it is worthwhile to evaluate how it is going to impact the e-books and publishing businesses. The iPad has its own bookstore: iBooks which will serve as a native application for iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. It will allow the users to browse, buy, download and read e-books. At launch, five book publishers will have publications on iBooks: Penguin, McGraw-Hill, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillian and Hachette.

It will be interesting to see how the iPad unfolds in comparison to other devices like HP Slate, Asus Eee Tablet and others. With the roll out of the new SDK for iPad applications along with the iBooks application, Apple certainly holds a definitive edge over other competitors.

The iPhone development team at Net Solutions is all set to take up the application development for Apple’s iPad. Check out our iPad application development program.

India isn’t a newly discovered land that needs an introduction, or is it? Here’s a brief introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the country!

Home to the second largest population in the world, India is recognized for its diversity in religion, culture and demographics. It’s an up-and-coming economy that’s quickly becoming a world power. It’s a country that looks towards the future – embracing big businesses such as Infosys, Tata and Reliance.  Communities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have grown into cosmopolitan cities, and today more young Turks than ever before are ready to take on the entrepreneurial world!

Learn more about India.

Being in the IT business, this introduction would be incomplete without mentioning outsourcing, something we keep harping on day-in and day-out.  So here it goes…

It started back in the 1990s…

The industry in India was given a huge impetus by the government extending its support by encouraging private participation and liberalizing the economic policies.  Spearheaded by the new economic reforms, our service sector grew rapidly as the economy opened up to the world. This put India on a fast track to success, given the strides made by the country in the business, technological and social sectors.

Are we there yet? Nah! India is just warming up. The fact that more and more Indian businesses breaking into the Forbes elite lists every year is a testament of our collective perseverance, technological ingenuity and the democratic fabric of this country.

Who can match that combination? No one – not even China.

You call it “Outsourcing to India,” we believe that it’s “Competitive Advantage India”

With the onset of outsourcing in ITES/BPO sectors towards the end of last millennium, India worked up the ladder to become a premier destination for outsourcing business. Riding high on the skilled manpower base, India has achieved a competitive advantage now acknowledged around the world.

What’s this competitive advantage that keeps India afloat when economies across the world have fizzled out? Here are a few things that work in our favour:

• Focus on innovative technologies and faster adaptability to business requirements
• Largest pool of skilled manpower in the world
• Large English speaking population
• High-end infrastructure on par with global standards
• Focused on quality
• Faster turnaround times and 24×7 access
• Positive economic policies encouraging FDI
• Friendly tax structure

Contributing and driving India’s technical prowess are cities like Chandigarh, where Net Solutions is based.

Chandigarh – The Retraite Urbaine, says Time Magazine

Sobriquet City Beautiful, Chandigarh – the first planned city post-independence and home to about a million people,  Chandigarh was designed by the French architect Le Corbusier. Legislatively given the status of “Union Territory,” the city serves as a capital to twin North Indian states. Chandigarh is situated in close proximity to the national capital, New Delhi.  The city is well connected via multi-lane roads, railways and airlines with other major destinations in the country. The two nearest international airports to Chandigarh are located in New Delhi and Amritsar.

A peek at international and national recognition conferred on the city:

• Time Magazine recently rated Chandigarh as one of the 15 best cities in the ‘Best of Asia 2009′ defining it as an ‘Urban Retreat’. In fact, it’s so well liked within in India that it’s a retirement destination for many people!
• A recent Global Services Survey conducted by Cyber Media ranks Chandigarh 9th in the top 50 cities identified globally as Emerging Outsourcing and IT Services Destinations.
• The city has topped the list of States and Union Territories in India with the highest per capita income in the country for five consecutive years. And we’re going to do that again!

In contrast to this pulsating growth, our city’s atmosphere is calm and serene.  The city famous for the Rock Garden and Sukhna Lake also boasts restaurants serving traditional and international fare to delight a gourmet – along with the finest ale to wash it down!