SYDNEY, Feb. 1--AsiaNet/InfoQuestNEW SURVEY... SINGAPORE: According to Shunra, a Growing Number of ITProfessionals are Optimising Distributed ApplicationPerformance by Bringing the Application and Network TogetherDuring All Phases of the Development Lifecycle. http://www.shunra.comCUSTOM HOUSE... VICTORIA, B.C.:In an effort to show their continued supportand tell Canada's hard working IRB 7s how proud they really areto sponsor them, Custom House had the whole team over fordessert this weekend at the Taylor's home (Ian Taylor andfamily) in Victoria. The IRB 7s have wrapped up practicesessions at the Shawnigan Lake training site on their way tothe next leg of the tour to Wellington, NZ, followed by LosAngeles. www.customhouse.comLIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT... VICTORIA, B.C.: Peter Gustavson, President, CEO & Founder ofCustom House Global Foreign Exchange www.customhouse.com haswon the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' in the fifth annualVancouver Island Business Excellence Awards. www.customhouse.comNEW OFFICE... DALLAS: Affiliated Computer Services, Inc., a FORTUNE 500company and premier provider of business process andinformation technology outsourcing solutions, announced todaythe opening of a new global services center in Tianjin, P.R.China, supporting business process outsourcing and informationtechnology services. http://www.acs-inc.comPROPOSAL ANNOUNCED... RIO DE JANEIRO: Companhia Vale do Rio Doce announces thatits Executive Officers will submit to the Board of Directors aproposal for payment of a minimum dividend of US$ 1 billion toshareholders for the year 2005. This corresponds to US$ 0.87per outstanding share -- common or preferred. The payment wouldbe made in two equal installments, on April 29 and October 31,2005. http://www.cvrd.com.brRESIDENTIAL VOIP... GAITHERSBURG: BroadSoft, the world's premier provider ofVoIP application software, today announced that iiNet Limitedhas selected BroadSoft's BroadWorks VoIP application softwareto support its residential VoIP offering. Mixing the latest inadvanced features with competitive pricing, iiNet's VoIPservice will launch in Australia by mid year. http://www.broadsoft.com http://www.iinet.net.auENERGY SYSTEM... VICTORIA: Located two-hours northwest of Manila, Subic Bayin the Philippines is a unique location undergoing some bigchanges. As part of an extensive upgrade of the Subic BayFreeport Zone's electrical distribution system, Subic EnerzoneCorporation has installed an enterprise energy managementsystem from Power Measurement. www.pwrm.comWIRELESS DEVICES... SAN JOSE: Micrel Inc., an industry leader in Power, Connectand Protect IC solutions, today launched the MIC2555, a USBOn-The-Go transceiver chip that enables point-to-pointcommunications, without the use of a PC, between USB devicessuch as cell phones, digital cameras, printers and PDAs. http://www.micrel.comMARKETING, SALES... TOKYO: IPFlex Inc. announced the company has startedmarketing and sales activities for its DAPDNA-2* dynamicallyreconfigurable processor**, DAPDNA-FW II Integrated DevelopmentEnvironment Software, and DAPDNA-EB5 Evaluation Kit, inoverseas markets from January 2005, based on a strong salesperformance in Japan. http://www.ipflex.comTERASEN PIPELINES... CALGARY: Terasen Pipelines is pleased to announce that ithas received strong support from 17 different parties includingexisting and new customers to proceed to the next phase of theTrans Mountain system expansion project. The TMX Project willprovide additional pipeline capacity to the west coast andoffshore markets for growing oil sands production. http://pipelines.terasen.com/tmxSMART BATTERY... SAN JOSE: Atmel Corporation, a global leader in thedevelopment and fabrication of advanced semiconductorsolutions, announced today the ATmega406, the firsthigh-voltage technology AVR microcontroller implementing full2-4 cell Lithium Ion smart battery monitoring and protection ona single chip. http://www.atmel.comMBA SCHOLARSHIPS... SINGAPORE: INSEAD, the global business school, announced onJanuary 25 that the MBA scholarships awarded to its classgraduating in December 2005. Scholarships for this classexceeded one million Euros -- meaning the school has awardedover two million Euros in scholarships for the 2004/2005academic year. This is double the amount awarded in previousacademic years.PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT... SAN JOSE: Intransa, the global leader in enterprise IP SANstorage systems, announced a partnership agreement withNorthStar InfoSys, one of Southeast Asia's leading IT servicesfirms. http://www.northstar-infosys.com/ http://www.intransa.com/HARD DRIVES... LAKE FOREST: Serving a rapidly expanding base of customersfor mass storage, Western Digital Corp. announced that thecompany will enter the market for miniature hard drives with afamily of 1-inch drives that enable a variety of handheldconsumer devices, which are experiencing explosive demand. http://www.westerndigital.com(AsiaNet is a consortium of leading news agencies distributing unedited, translated news releases for worldwide clients. Visit www.asianetnews.net for full-text versions.)