Chinese firms top governance list

Several Chinese financial institutions have introduced measures meant to weather the global economic downturn, that have turned them into some of the best-governed corporations in China, says China Daily.

China Merchants Bank was crowned the best corporate governance performer among the top 100 Chinese listed companies and was one of 13 financial companies in the top 20 in a report co-released by the global risk management consultancy Protiviti, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the National School of Administration.

Telecommunication companies lagged behind in almost all categories, usually scoring about 30% lower than the top financial companies.

OpenLogic, a provider of enterprise open source software solutions, has extended Enterprise Edition, an open source software governance platform, reports PR-USA.net.

The platform integrates open source provisioning, open source policy enforcement, online approval processes, and full tracking and audit trail of open source usage.

Kim Weins, senior vice-president of products and marketing at OpenLogic, says: "As more enterprises increase the use of open source software due to economic conditions, prudent enterprises are demanding cradle-to-grave open source governance."

OpenMetrik, a provider of business intelligence, performance measurement and business process integration software, has unveiled its software-as-a-service framework for IT governance, says TMCnet.

Chandra Sekar, vice-president of product strategy with OpenMetrik, says that by combining the traditional IT functional silos into three layers, CIOs get huge benefits in terms of process unification.

According to Sekar, implementing total IT governance is a painstaking effort for many CIOs. Conventional IT governance solutions require excessive customisation and integration of software pieces, even when the software from the same vendor is used.