Friday, July 25, 2008

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 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

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Error Code 10: Device Cannot Start

The day before yesterday, i talked to a cousin that was having problems with his dvd drive. Windows didn’t show it in explorer and in device manager there was this error: Device Cannot Start (Code 10).

Then, i remembered having to face this problem more than once before. I offered my help as usual and the problem was solved. I thought of posting about it just in case someone needs a quick fix for it.

This problem can have many possible causes. The most common ones are that programs for burning or ripping, like Nero, AnyDVD and others sometimes left drivers installed when they are removed.

The first solution is to re-install the program. About a year ago, AnyDVD caused this, so re-installing it would solve the problem, same with some old versions of Nero. Try this to see if a program you installed/uninstalled was the cause.

The other solution involves deleting two registry entries and restarting your computer. It works for XP and Vista.

  • Open the Windows Registry Editor. Type regedit in the Run box of the Start Menu.
  • Navigate to this path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
    Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
    .
  • Go to File and choose Export. Then select Selected Branch and save this in case you run into a problem. You will be able to restore these values if something goes wrong.
  • Right click these two entries and delete them. UpperFilters and LowerFilters. If you only have one of them there, don’t worry, delete it.
  • Restart you computer. You should be able to see and use your CD-DVD drive again.

In case deleting the key causes you more trouble or conflicts, double click the file you saved and restart Windows. The entries will be restored as they were before deleting them.

Device Cannot Start (Code 10)

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

How to uninstall Windows Vista

There are many people who face a lot of problems is uninstalling Windows Vista, so I decided to post a Guide on How to Uninstall Windows Vista...

This work when both the OS : Windows XP and Vista are installed.

Start Windows XP, and Install VistaBootPro. Once you launch Vista Boot Pro Go to Manage OS Entries and then select the Microsoft Windows Vista entry. Click on the Delete button and confirm that you want to delete Windows Vista from the BCD Registry.
Now close VistaBootPro.Now Go to RUN(Windows key + R) and type in compmgmt.msc
From the left side menu select Disk Management. You will be able to see all your partitions.Select the one which have Windows Vista Installed , right click and Format.
It will ask for new Volume name and File system (NTFS Preferred).You will receive a warning. Click on OK and proceed.When you have finished with this Windows Vista will no Longer exits..

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Windows Vista Registry Repair

Vista registry repair helps in keeping your Windows Vista safe and free from various types of vulnerabilities that are caused by erroneous Windows Registry. But, the very first question, in this regard may come to your mind is why you need of Vista registry repair, as Vista, like the previous versions of Windows, offers an efficient Vista registry storage and maintenance. Vista stores and maintains the registry information whenever there is installation or uninstallation in your system or there are some changes in the system settings or the different hardware or software configurations in the system. However, errors began to flood your system registry after you use your Vista for a considerable period of time. The main reason behind this can be identified as the overflow of registry entries in your system, and this is generally caused by continuous use of Windows Registry, incomplete installation and uninstallation processes and various spyware keys. These problems gradually affect the performance of your system and soon your system starts responding very slowly.

To overcome such a situation, you need to repair your Windows registry and for this a registry cleaner for Vista is a must. The registry cleaner enables you to remove the various inconsistencies in the Windows Registry which helps in enhancing the performance your system. The primary function of the registry cleaner is to scan your Windows Vista efficiently and effectively, and delete the various unnecessary entries in the Windows Registry. A good registry cleaner always offers registry backups before deleting the unused registry entries so that whenever you need any particular registry entry in the near future, you can restore immediately. It also deletes the registry entries made by spyware and adwareprograms to provide network security to some extent. So, by performing Vista registry repair, you can keep your Windows registry up-to-date and also schedule, backup and restore the registry according to your convenience. In other words, Vista registry repair offers you to extract the maximum efficiency from your system and keeps your system safe from various spyware and adware

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Windows Vista Repair Options

Windows Vista does not contain a Recovery Console, therefore doing a repair install like that we are familiar with in Windows XP is not possible. Instead, if you need to replace the operating system, you either have to re-install Vista from scratch, or else re-image the drive from a backup source created using the Windows Vista Backup Status and Configuration application. this then effectively replaces the current copy of Windows Vista with a shadow copy you backed up previously.

This backup option is the only one provided by Windows Vista. of course there are other ways of imaging your hard drive, but these require the user to purchase a third party application.

Of course, re-imaging is one option. If, however, you are simply experiencing startup problems or perhaps you cannot readily access your system and need to do a system restore, then you need to look at Windows Vista's Repair Your Computer options.

How you access the repair options will depend upon whether you have a Windows Vista installation disk or whether your operating system came pre-installed by your PC manufacturer.

Windows Installation Disk

NOTE : With the Complete PC Restore Option you must have made a backup of your system, either on your hard drive or on a set of DVDs, in order to use this option. If you don't have a backup then don't use this option

1/ make sure your PC can boot directly from the Vista DVD. Obviously, most modern PCs can. With older machines you may need to check the PC's BIOS

2/ Start the PC

3/ Immediately insert the Windows Vista DVD into the DVD drive

4/ A Black screen will appear with the words 'Press any key to boot from CD or DVD'

5/ Press Any key to start the booting process

6/ A new screen will now appear with a progress bar. The legend say's 'Windows is loading files'

7/ After a few minutes the Microsoft copyright window ill appear and another small progress bar will be visible

8/ You will next see a Blue curtained screen

9/ After a short while the Language option screen will appear

10/ Select your language and keyboard language and the Click the Next button

11/ At the bottom left of the next screen - the Install screen, Click on the Repair Your Computer option

12/ The System recovery options will now search for your Windows Vista installation

13/ Once the Vista installation has been located, Highlight it and then Click the Next button

14/ You are now presented with the following set of recovery options

* Startup repair - This automatically fixes problems that are preventing Windows from starting

* System Restore - This will Restore Windows to an earlier point in time

* Windows Complete PC Restore - This will completely restore your entire PC - programs, system settings and files - from a back up that you have previously created (Available in Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions only)

* Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool - This checks your computer's memory hardware for errors

* Command Prompt - This opens a Command Window

15/ Click on the Option you require and follow the onscreen prompts

Pre-Installed Options

NOTE: If no repair options are available your PC manufacturer may have replaced the tools or customised them. Check your Computer Manual before proceeding.

1/ Start your PC

2/ If your PC has one operating system Press and Hold the F8 key as your PC starts. If the Windows Logo appear you will need to start again

3/ If you have a dual boot system a Boot option menu will appear. Highlight the Vista operating system and Press the F8 key

4/ In both cases, if all has gone well, an Advanced options screen will now appear

5/ Highlight the repair Your Computer option and Press Enter

6/ Select a keyboard layout, and then Click the Next button

7/ Next select your user Name and Enter your Password, then Click OK

8/ The recovery options should now appear

Monday, April 21, 2008

Windows Vista Backup

Although vista has been criticized a lot people are really starting to notice that Windows Vista has many great features that XP did not have with it. One such feature is the Windows Vista backup and restore center. With the backup center you can schedule an automatic backup to run whenever you want. It is recommend you use an external hard driver just in case your main one crashes.

Because most systems do not ship with a Windows Vista CD anymore it is also important that you create a full backup of your computer as well. By creating a full image backup you will not have to re-install any programs or re-do your system settings in case of a computer crash. This will save you many hours of frustration.

Now for the bad news! Only Windows Vista Business and Ultimate have the full image backup features. The rest do still have a backup but it will only take care of documents and not the programs or operating system. All is not lost however. Many companies such as HP have a one time image back that you can use. We will attempt to go over the different backup methods in the article and give you multiple options so you can choose what works best for you. Having a full image backup is a must! You will hate your self later on if you do not do this.


(HP only) To use the HP One time image backup simply click the Windows start button and browse to the “PC Help and Tools” folder. Then select “Recovery Disc”. This will create a full backup of your computer including programs. Keep the discs in a safe spot and read on for further info.

The Windows Vista Backup features for the Business and Ultimate addition are easy to use. Simply click the windows start button and in the search box type “backup” There you will see the backup and restore function. Simply open it and create a full system backup. This will be your recovery image. Do this at least every 6 months so you have a new fresh copy of your system.

For the rest of you use the above method but you will notice you can not create a full backup image. You should still create and schedule a backup of “My Documents” and any other files you have on your system. I would set the backup to run once a week.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Windows Vista Copy Protection Cracked

More than a year after Windows Vista was introduced, hackers have finally developed a clean crack of Windows Vista. There have been a variety of workarounds for Vista's copy protection before now, but this is the first time someone has figured out a way to install a cracked version that would pass all of Microsoft's various anti-piracy checks. It seems that certain OEMs found the activation process too burdensome and persuaded Microsoft to provide them with a way to bypass it in order to save their own customers the hassle. Hackers figured out how to activate this special "no activation" mode on cracked copies of Vista. I think this is one of the biggest reasons copy protection schemes fail: they almost always creates serious inconveniences for customers, and irritating customers hurts the bottom line. Companies may talk a tough line about fighting piracy, but when push comes to shove, they're not willing to cut off their own nose to spite their face by insisting on enforcing a copy protection scheme that would put their product at a disadvantage in the marketplace.

Of course, the obvious question is why companies implement copy protection schemes in the first place if they invariably wind up compromising them. The reason, I think, is that these trade-offs are almost never made explicit to corporate decision makers ahead of time. When the copy protection plan is being pitched to management, its developers only talk about how great it will work. Only later, once it's actually being implemented, do people start noticing that it will also cause a lot of problems. But by that time, the copy protection system is too far along the development process to be canned, so instead exceptions are added. These exceptions prevent the copy protection system from crippling the product, but they also undermine its effectiveness as an anti-piracy measure. So customers have to deal with annoying restrictions and the product still gets pirated.