IDG Ventures & Sasken tie-up
Sasken Communication Technologies and IDG Ventures India, a $150 million technology venture capital fund, announced in Bangalore on Wednesday the launch of ConnectM Technology Solutions (ConnectM) for providing Machine 2 Machine (M2M) enabled solutions to global markets.
    The ConnectM spin out is the result of a collaborative partnership between Sasken and IDG Ventures India. ConnectM is a niche player in the growing remote diagnostic and monitoring market and is well positioned to lead in this space. ConnectM will enable clients to benefit from increased availability through remote after market applications enabling predictive maintenance powered by M2M.
MatexNet plans major expansion
India’s first Material Exchange company, MatexNet is all set for a major expansion across the country with the launch of its two new business verticals for used vehicles and surplus retail goods, as part of the company’s expansion plans. While the used vehicles division will be a common B2B platform for the vehicle e-trading, the surplus retail division will facilitate and deal with the slow moving, readily available finished retail goods. This was announced in Bangalore on Wednesday.
SGI unveils new blade platform
SGI unveiled in Bangalore on Wednesday SGI Altix ICE, a next-generation platform that brings all the advantages of the  company’s  expertise in high-performance computing (HPC) to a tightly integrated, cool-running blade solution.
     SGI Altix ICE 8200 is the first in a new line of bladed servers purpose-built to handle true HPC applications and large scale-out workloads, claimed the company. SGI Altix ICE systems have already been installed at a number of customer sites, including the University of Exeter in England and General Atomics in San Diego.
SBI’s Tiny Card for rural banking
The “Tiny Card” with biometric identification is State Bank of India’s (SBI) answer to the challenge of financial inclusion of one lakh villages in the country. In a bid to capture the emerging rural banking opportunity, SBI is planning a nationwide roll-out of “SBI Tiny Cards,” which currently is in the pilot stage in three states i.e. Mizoram, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh, the Bank said on Wednesday in Mumbai.      
    The cards are also being used as a means of payment of government benefits directly to the poor persons, such as pension payments and wages under the rural employment guarantee programme.
Honeywell to   acquire Enraf
Honeywell announced in Bangalore on Tuesday that it has signed a definitive agreement valued at approximately $260 million to acquire Enraf Holding B.V, a division of privately held Delft Instruments based in Delft, Netherlands.
    The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals. Enraf Holding consists of six groups that offer comprehensive solutions for the control and management of transportation, storage and blending operations in the oil and gas industry. Following regulatory approvals, Enraf will be part of Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), expanding Honeywell’s global portfolio in high-growth, high-service industries.
SEBI suspends three brokers  
Sebi on Tuesday in Mumbai suspended three BSE brokers for six months on finding guilty of fraudulent and manipulative trading in the scrip of Gujarat Fiscon Ltd. The Sebi order shall come into force with immediate effect, it added. 
In a statement issued here, Dr T C Nair, Whole Time Member, Sebi said the orders were passed on June 22, 2007 against Heerachand Salecha, Jatin R Shah and Agarwal Shares & Finance. The aforementioned individuals and entity created artificial volume in the otherwise illiquid scrip and manipulated the price of the scrip, the Sebi order observed.
Sebi has also suspended a BSE member, Ramaben Samani Finance Pvt Ltd for a period of 15 days for manipulating the scrips of Gujarat Fiscon and AKL Soft & Infosys.