Dell outsources Mini 3, MID

Dell is outsourcing the production of its Mini 3 smartphones to the Foxconn Electronics Group and also plans to outsource the production of its mobile Internet device (MID) products to Qisda, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report, says Digitimes.

Foxconn will manufacture the Mini 3 on an ODM basis with the production including a 2.75G Ophone version for the China market and a 3G version for the Brazil market, the paper said.

Meanwhile, Dell has teamed up with Qisda for the development of its MID line-up, and plans to release its first MID model in cooperation with AT&T in 2010, the paper added.

An $863-million outsourcing deal between the state of Texas and IBM has come under fire again, this time in an independent report commissioned by the Texas department of information resources, states InformationWeek.

The report, by IT consulting firms EquaTerra and Sierra Systems Group, urges overhauls to the arrangement. "In the final analysis, the current relationship is not sustainable," the report finds. "Texas has yet to realise all the benefits the state anticipated from this initiative, and we believe IBM has yet to reach even a financial break-even point."

Under a seven-year contract, IBM is managing and consolidating the state's 31 data centres into two data centres, in Austin and San Angelo, and putting into place new disaster recovery and security capabilities.

India's fraud office has announced there will be a prosecution of the founder of the Satyam outsourcing firm, according to Cambodia News.

Satyam's founder B Ramalinga Raju has admitted he overstated profits for years and inflated the company's balance sheet by over $1 billion. Police have said it could be the nation's biggest corporate fraud and have kept Raju in custody ever since the announcement.

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office will begin prosecution this month to determine the extent of the fraud.