Journal - by John Vomhof Jr. Staff Writer
BANGALORE, INDIA -- Minnesota's trade delegation arrived Wednesday in Bangalore, commonly referred to as the Silicon Valley of India, where some of the world's biggest and fastest-growing tech companies have settled.

Many American technology companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo and Dell, already have operations in Bangalore, but there's room for Minnesota companies to enter the fray, said Mark Russell, commercial consul for the U.S. Consulate in Chennai, which serves all of southern India.

"There's outsourcing, there's software development, there's all sorts of manufacturing capabilities. ... There's still a lot of opportunity here for American companies," he said.

But business leaders already operating in India said the market's strength has become high skills, rather than low salaries. "If you're looking to come to India for cheap labor, you missed it," said Walt Ling, IBM Corp.'s top Minnesota executive. "That ride's over."

IBM, which has major operations in Rochester, Minn., accounts for 15 percent of Minnesota's manufactured exports to India. The company exported $12 million of products to the country in 2006 and expects to double that this year.

IBM has 53,000 employees in India. Ling said the Indian operations aren't taking away Minnesota jobs, but rather targeting sales in India and surrounding areas.

"It's about getting the right people with the right skills in the right places," he said.

Other southern cities, like Chennai and Hyderabad, also are strong in the high-tech sector.

"Bangalore's still the hub, but the other regions in the south are also very competitive," Russell said. "Other states sometimes give more competitive packages to U.S. companies."

Kate Rubin, president of the Minnesota High Tech Association, said she was encouraged by what she heard and saw in Bangalore. She plans to give a positive report to her group's members when she returns home.

"I'm going to tell them I think it's real," she said.

''QUANTUM EFFECT'' Bangalore, Oct. 21 A day after US-based storage solutions major, Quantum Corp, opened an India-based research and development centre in Hyderabad last week, the cream of its American, Asian and Indian management teams, led by Chairman and Chief Executive Mr Rick Belluzzo, was in Bangalore.

India’s so-called ‘Silicon City’ has been a necessary ‘pit stop’ on the ‘Formula One’ tech circuit of almost every visiting international corporate leader but a small, yet subtle difference is emerging.

The Karnataka capital remains the biggest concentration of information technology companies in India, and therefore the best place to do business with technology-driven industry. But its role as the nation’s best address to find-and-hold the brains behind the business, is increasingly challenged by what is now routinely called ‘Cyberabad’.

Quantum’s Hyderabad Development Centre was opened just one day after Mr John Swainson, CEO of the enterprise management software player CA (formerly known as Computer Associates), inaugurated the new home of his company’s largest technology centre on the outskirts of the same city. India is home for one of every three developers, working with the Islandia (NewYork)-based company.
Common software

Mr Belluzzo told Business Line that its Hyderabad-based team, led by Mr Ravi Kollipara, would help create solutions for a common software plaform that will help Quantum customers seamlessly run both tape and disk-based storage products across the same hardware platform.

According to analysts, the company has strengthened its portfolio to take a leadership position in the technology of Data De Duplication — stripping away duplicate attachments to shrink the volume of data to be stored and archived.

A subtext in this recent ‘Cyberabad-chalo’ trend is the IT industry’s frustrations in infrastructurally-challenged Bangalore, for many years now. The spell of President’s Rule in Karnataka makes firm Government planning uncertain in the short term. For an industry that works at ‘Internet time’, waiting is not an option — and Hyderabad may remain the gainer, for now.
Positive on Bangalore

However, Karnataka’s official IT interfaces, that soldier on across Government changes, remain confident that the State can still make the global industry a Godfather-like “offer it can’t refuse”, based on the formidable technology ecosystem that already exists here.

The first opportunity to test this confidence, that the breeze may blow Bangalore’s way again, is just one week away — when the annual Bangalore IT.in event opens on October 29, in its new home at the International Exhibition Centre on the outskirts of the city.

UST building new campus in Trivandrum

UST Global Trivandrum campus first phase was unvieled today.

The foot print of the first tower is occupying an area of 5 acres. To give you a comparison, just imagine, the whole of the area of SFS Cyber Palms with its Five towers and the club house could be put in this single building.

It is having an atrium of the size of a 'Foot Ball stadium'.:nuts: Bhavani atrium would be a liliputian then.

The tower would be having a height of 70 m (That of a 23 floor residential apartment).

Seems it would be one of the single largest buildings of that kind in India.

Stay tuned for more details:)

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6633/usflexprintingsamplenh8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Trivandrum is making its presence felt in great Indian IT story

Kerala capital firm on IT radar

The Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram, thereby has turned into a launch pad for companies to expand inside Kerala and spread wings. And, Kerala’s chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan , who incidentally holds the IT portfolio too, is impressed.

Infosys Technologies, IBS Software and UST Global are among the companies who have kick started mega growth by building exclusive campuses in and around the Thiruvananthapuram Technopark. While Infosys has initiated the process of building a Rs 306-crore campus in the Kerala capital, close to the Technopark, UST Global has laid the foundation stone for its $130 million campus adjacent to the park.

Moving a step ahead, IBS Software this week inaugurated the first of its four-phase campus being built at a cost of Rs 125 crore, inside Technopark.

Infosys expects the new campus to create as many as 8000 seats over the next few years. Infosys’s expansion in the state is seen as reaffirming the fact that Kerala is emerging as a key IT destination in south India.

Chief minister Achthanandan had observed at the time of the groundbreaking ceremony that “the magnitude of Infosys's investment in its development centre demonstrates its long-term commitment towards Kerala and speaks volumes about the world-class facilities on offer here for its employees”.

http://www.ciol.com/content/241007101001.aspx

//

New Delhi, Oct 25: Global software firm Oracle on Thursday inaugurated two new units, Asia R&D Centre and Partner Solution Centre, in India.

"The centres, which are in Gurgaon, will focus on delivering Oracle and Partner Solutions to the Indian as well as Asia Pacific region," Oracle Corporation Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific) Brian Mitchell said here.

With the launch of these two centres Oracle now has seven development and solution centres in India.

The company did not disclose the people intake in these two centers neither they revealed the investments. Mitchell said Oracle investment in India has crossed three billion dollars in the past five years.

The new centers are part of 19 R&D and solution centers that the company has in the Asia Pacific region and Japan.

http://www.newkerala.com/oct.php?action=fullnews&id=13947

http://www.newkerala.com/oct.php?action=fullnews&id=14046

Samuel H. Fuller, VP - R&D inaugurates new facility and discusses ADI's commitment to India

Analog Devices Inc. (NYSE: ADI), a global leader in high-performance semiconductors for signal processing applications, today announced the opening of its second development facility in Bangalore. This facility is a part of the ongoing expansion of Analog Devices in India and is located in RMZ Infinity Technology Park on Old Madras Road. This centre will help Analog Devices India to further develop on its core strengths such as analog IC design, high-speed DSP IC design and multimedia embedded software. The new office was inaugurated by Samuel H. Fuller, Vice President - Research and Development, Analog Devices Inc. Samuel H. Fuller also participated in ADI’s ‘India Technology Day’ today, an annual event showcasing the work carried out by Analog Devices’ engineers. In the company’s tradition of collegial interaction and mentorship, a paper presentation competition was also organized for ADI engineers.

Commenting on the inauguration of its second office in Bangalore, Samuel H. Fuller, VP – R&D, Analog Devices Inc. said, “India’s role in Analog Devices’ global strategy is increasingly becoming crucial and the India Development Center is considered as the global lead center of excellence for a variety of core technologies and products. The new development center is a reiteration of Analog Devices’ commitment to India and we will continue investing in the growth of our employees here.”

Dr. Reddy Penumalli, Managing Director, Analog Devices India said, “Analog Devices’ growth in India is a recognition by the company of excellent results delivered and consistently improving capabilities of the India center. Over the last ten years we have built a world class development center here, carrying out complete product development. This new facility is equipped to accommodate 130 engineers and is aligned with our expansion strategy.”

About Analog Devices

Innovation, performance, and excellence are the cultural pillars on which Analog Devices has built one of the longest standing, highest growth companies within the technology sector. Acknowledged industry-wide as the world leader in data conversion and signal conditioning technology, Analog Devices serves over 60,000 customers, representing virtually all types of electronic equipment. Celebrating 40 years as a leading global manufacturer of high-performance integrated circuits used in analog and digital signal processing applications, Analog Devices is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, with design and manufacturing facilities throughout the world. Analog Devices'

common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "ADI" and is included in the S&P 500 Index.

Analog Devices India

Hyderabad Development Center (HDC)

The Hyderabad Development Center (HDC) is an Analog Devices' center of excellence for embedded software and systems development for Audio, Multi-media and RF Wireless markets. The center has technology expertise in System integration and System validation, including optimized Codecs for Audio, Video and Voice.

India Product Development Center (IPDC)

The India Product Development Center (IPDC), Bangalore is involved in some of the most challenging technologies today, such as high-speed DSP IC design, Analog IC design, and Multi-media embedded software. Other groups include DSP Application Engineering and DSP Product and Test Engineering.

Three generations of industry leading DSP SHARC processors have been developed at IPDC .Engineers at IPDC are involved in all stages of product development from "Concept to Silicon to Production".

India Sales

ADI India sales has well established sales and distribution network across India which serve and support major manufacturing and design services companies in the Telecom, Industrial, Defense and IT segments.

IT exports during the first six months up 22%
BS Reporter / Bangalore October 25, 2007

The poor infrastructure and a lack of support from the state government notwithstanding, Karnataka, especially Bangalore, continued to be the premier IT-destination in the country. During the six months period in the present fiscal, as many as 70 firms either started their operations or expanded to newer locations in the state, Software Technology Park of India (STPI) sources said.

To be precise, this entails investment by at least one company every three days in the state. The noteworthy point is that of these companies, about 32 are global firms, mostly from the US and Europe who together brought in foreign direct investment of close to Rs 1,000 crore into the state. The companies were mostly in the enterprise IT, telecom and animation space, J Parthasarathy, director, STPI-Bangalore said.

During the same period in the previous fiscal, the state has attracted investments from 65 companies. The state also saw a 22% rise in the IT exports (including IT & ITeS) to Rs 19,500 crore, during the six month period-ended September 30. Bangalore contributed about 90% of the IT exports from the state, added Parthasarathy.

From human resources point of view, IT firms operating in the state added about 30,000 people during the last six months which took the number of IT professionals in the state to 430,000.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government has allotted land to the STPI in Mysore and Gulbarga, to start incubation centres. STPI is already operating incubation centres in Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli. Parthasarathy said STPI has also reduced bandwidth prices by 40% for companies operating in STPI units, to help them maintain their edge in spite of the Rupee appreciation and certain other factors.
This will especially be helpful for the small and medium companies, who are not properly prepared to maintain their margin in the wake of rupee appreciation, he added.

The 10th edition of the country's premier IT and telecom event is going to start from October 29 at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre on Tumkur Road in the city. Over 200 companies, about 60% of which are global firms are expected to participate in the three-day event. Besides, delegations from over 20 countries including Germany, Australia, Canada , China, Taiwan, Japan and UK among others have also given their consent to participate in the event.

Gary Meyers, President and CEO, Synplicity inaugurates new facility

Bangalore, Karnataka, IND, 2007-10-30 15:29:39 (IndiaPRwire.com) Synplicity, Inc., (Nasdaq: SYNP) a leading supplier of innovative IC design and verification solutions, today announced the inauguration of its new development facility in Bangalore. This facility is a part of the ongoing expansion of Synplicity in India and is located at the International Technology Park, Whitefield. The new office was inaugurated by Gary Meyers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Synplicity Inc.

Synplicity’s India team consists of one third of the organization’s worldwide R&D team and this will grow up to 50% within the next four-five years. Synplicity India has also announced that it will increase its headcount by 20-30% by end of 2008.

Commenting on the inauguration of its new office in Bangalore, Gary Meyers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Director, Synplicity Inc. said, “India’s role in Synplicity’s global strategy has become crucial. The India center has contributed significantly to all of our products and we plan to continue increasing our presence here.”

Dr. Ananda, Managing Director, Synplicity India said, “Synplicity’s growth in India is a reflection of our commitment and the consistently improving capabilities of the India center. With India’s strong base in chip designing, the EDA industry has tremendous growth potential in the country. The Indian EDA product market is expected to grow to $1 billion by 2015. We will continue to expand our operations to leverage this market opportunity.”

October 29, 2007 18:37 IST
Realising India as its platform for globalisation efforts, US-based networking giant Cisco on Monday said it will increase its headcount in the country by over three-fold to 10,000 by 2010.
"We will have 10,000 employees in India by 2010 and would shift 20 per cent of its top management staff across all functions to India by 2012," Cisco's chairman and CEO John Chambers said while speaking at Public Sector Summit 2007 in New Delhi.

The company currently has 3,000 people in India, Chambers said. In October 2005, Cisco had announced an investment of $1.1 billion in India for the next 2-3 years.

"We are very much on target," he said, when asked how much of the investments have already been spent. The proposed amount includes $750 million on research and development, $150 million on Cisco capital, $100 million on venture capital, $100 million on expanding customer support and $50 million on campus in Bangalore.

The campus in Bangalore, which will be inaugurated on Tuesday, would have a capacity of 3,000 people.

"We look at India not as an opportunity to save labour costs but as a true partner and the platform for our globalisation efforts," Chambers said.

NEW DELHI: The country's fourth largest software exporter HCL Technologies today said it will set up five technology hubs across the country which will entail an investment of Rs 1,000 crore each.

Through the new initiative, the company would generate employment for nearly one lakh people in the next 5-7 years.

The proposed centres are expected to come up in Bangalore, Chennai, Nagpur and Madurai. The company today inaugurated its first centre in Noida.

While Bangalore and Chennai centres are expected to be operational by second quarter of next fiscal, the remaining two would come up by end of 2009.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/HCL_to_set_up_5_tech_centres_at_Rs_1000_cr_each/articleshow/2508561.cms

AP targets 20% of IT exports

Hyderabad, Oct. 28 The Andhra Pradesh Government is targeting to step up the State’s share of IT exports to about 20 per cent of the country’s total exports, from the current 14 per cent, by focussing on skill development and extending necessary support, including infrastructure.

Source (http://www.blonnet.com/2007/10/29/stories/2007102951161700.htm)

Staff Reporter

Institute of Nano Science and Technology to come up in the city soon
15 acres of land allotted for the institute
Award instituted for scientists in nano science

Bangalore: Just months after the proposal for a Nano Park was announced, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Centre has made public its plans to establish an Institute of Nano Science and Technology here.

T. Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, told presspersons here on Saturday that Rs. 100 crore would be invested in the project for five years under the Nano Science and Technology Mission that had been granted Rs. 1,000 crore by the Centre. With an anticipated 200 researchers, it would be one of the three such institutes in the country – the other two had been planned in Kolkata and in Mohali, Chandigarh.

“The institute in Bangalore will be funded by the Department of Science and Technology and partnered by Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and the Indian Institute of Science. The project will be completed in 18 months after permissions are obtained.” The State Government had allotted 15 acres of land off Tumkur Road for the institute, Dr. Ramasami said.

Nano applications


Dr. Ramasami said agriculture, water purifying, healthcare systems and nano-textiles were emerging as important areas for nanotechnology applications in India. “In treating and purifying water for instance, nano-silver can be used as a coat for ceramic filters to eliminate bacteria and viruses. A nanometre, equal to one billionth of a metre will have a sieving system finer than conventional filters. Similarly nano material used on the surface of textiles can create self-cleaning textiles that do not allow water to penetrate,” he said. As part of the Bangalore Nano 2007 conference and exhibition to be organised here on December 6 and 7, a “Research-Industry Collaboration Hub” (RICH) will be held to offer platforms to researchers seeking partnerships with investors, venture capitalists and the industry, said M.N. Vidyashankar, Secretary, Department of IT, Biotechnology and Science and Technology, Karnataka. “If innovations are not backed by capital investments, they will not translate into technology, products and wealth creation for the country. RICH will bring investors and inventors together,” he said. Bangalore, which accounts for a significant proportion of research in nanotechnology in the country, is poised to become “Nano city,” he added.

An annual award would be instituted by the State Government to recognise the achievements of scientists in the field of nano science and technology, Mr. Vidyashankar said. “It will be a national award equal in stature to the most prestigious in the country. It is tentatively called “Nano Ratna,” he said. The selection would be made by a subcommittee of the Nano Advisory Committee and the first award would be presented on December 6, he said.

Monday, 05 November , 2007, 16:49

Chennai: Organisers of Bangalore Nano 2007 on Monday announced the launch of RICH [Research - Industry Collaboration Hub], the first initiative in the world for research and industry community relating to nanotechnology to conduct business meetings. RICH would offer a platform for emerging companies seeking investment and partnering opportunities to present their research findings and technologies to industry and investors, venture capitalists, angel investors and conduct business meetings. RICH will be held on the sidelines of Bangalore Nano on December 6 & 7, 2007.

Addressing the press conference Dr T. Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India said, “RICH would provide a common platform for scientists, scientific organisations and entrepreneurs for the first time and will negate the inventor - investor asymmetry. It would help organisations working on nano research to attract investments for which the Union government was giving a major push.”

The Indian government is starting a five-year national mission to make the country a global hub for nanoscience and nanotechnology, leveraging the low-cost advantage and its vast talent pool.

“With an upfront investment of Rs 1,000 crore, the Nano Science and Technology Mission (NSTM) will create an ecosystem to make India a global hub for research and development in nanoscience and nanotechnology,” Ramasami added.

M.N. Vidyashankar, Secretary to Karnataka Government, Dept of IT, BT & Science & Technology said, “If innovations are not backed by capital investments, they will not translate into technology, products and wealth creation for the country. RICH will bring investors and inventors together.”

Researchers and organisations, interested to participate in RICH, have to apply before November 15, 2007 to showcase their innovations. 24 entries would be selected to participate in RICH after the entries scrutinised by an expert committee. The application form can be downloaded from http://www.bangalorenano.in/rich.htm.

Mumbai (PTI)L: Software services firm Aztecsoft Ltd said it has launched a new SEZ facility at Whitefield, Bangalore.

The new SEZ facility would be an addition to the existing 1,200 plus strong seats in Bangalore, Aztecsoft said in a communique to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

"The new SEZ facility at Whitefield is a part of the strategic growth plan of the company which would allow us to better serve our extensive and growing client base and support our growth in all of our functional units," Aztecsoft Ltd CEO Samir Bodas said.

The new facility in Bangalore is being built to operate as an additional global delivery centre for clients across verticals and geographies, the company added.

Spread over 3.15 acres of land, the new SEZ facility would have a built-up area of up to 2,30,000 sq ft having two office blocks and would accommodate over 2,000 professionals.

The new SEZ campus at Whitefield is expected to be fully operational in phases from October, 2009, the company said.

Earlier, Aztecsoft had also started operations at a 2,000-plus seat global delivery centre in Pune.

Shares of the company were last trading 0.30 per cent down at Rs 49.10 on BSE.

Microsoft keen to expand Indian R&D (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/businessline/blnus/15061307.htm)


MUMBAI: IT giant Microsoft, is keen to expand its Indian R&D platform and plans investments to bolster its research operations in the country, a top Microsoft official said.

"Yes, we are certainly looking at possibilities to expand our R&D (Research and Development) platform (in India)," Mr John Walthall, Microsoft TV's Vice- President (Global Sales), said here.

The official, however, did not divulge the quantum of investment, if any, in the country for the purpose.

Microsoft, which spends nearly $7 billion annually for product innovation and research, is already present in the country with two research centers - in Hyderabad and Bangalore.
The Hyderabad centre, established as early as 1998 and known as Microsoft India Development Center (MIDC), has nearly 1,400 developers, who are working on more than 50 different Microsoft projects.

Though Microsoft officials would not offer any comment, it is understood that the centre has filed 180 patents in the last three years.

The Bangalore centre was established in 2005. Microsoft, which on Monday joined hands with Anil Ambani-spearheaded Reliance Communications to deliver IPTV services in India, has its core research division headquartered in the US.

The $500 million, eight-year contract, between Microsoft and the Indian blue chip, entails the use of the former's technology in Reliance's IPTV project.

Presently, state-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) and private sector player, Bharti Airtel, have launched IPTV services in the country.

Mr Walthall, however, expressed confidence about the tie-up with Reliance Communications and said, "I don't see any big challenges from these competitors." - PTI

Thirukkural' in the form of animated movie

After the success of the animated film Hanuman and Krishna, it is now time for Tamil fables to get a new lease of life. Very soon viewers will get to watch a 3D animated movie, South India Fables based on Thirukkural, which will cater to a global audience.

Says S. Muralidharan, Chief Technology Officer, Accel Animation Studios, "We have decided to produce 133 episodes, each of which is approximately of 10 minutes duration. The main objective is to impart the message in Thirukkural couplets to children. We are trying to narrate it in the form of simple animated short stories. We have designed and animated interesting characters, which children would enjoy watching. A good blend of visuals and sound have a better impact in getting the message across."

"Moreover, it is said the morals in Thirukkural are universally acceptable irrespective of country, race, religion and culture. To begin with, we had planned to produce it in English and Tamil languages. Subsequently it would be dubbed into other regional languages in India. For global audiences this would be marketed by LongTale International, a pioneer film distribution company based in US that has distributed films like Superman, Three Musketeers and New Adventure of Pinocchio." adds Muralidharan.

Thirukkural is an important work in Tamil literature written by Thiruvalluvar, in the poetic form called kural or couplets each one having a moral. Thirukkural has 1330 couplets, which are divided into 133 chapters of 10 couplets.

Says Omar, Managing director, Long Tale, "Once these 1330 fables are strung together into the 13 hours that we are planning, we expect a good response from the audience, particularly children, and these characters will keep lingering in their minds. It's like the Aesop's Fables, which were first written down thousands of years ago that you can still read them today."

Says Sankaralingam, Production Manager, Accel Animation Studios, "Presently more than 50 artists are working on this project and most of them are from Chennai. The creative director works on the storyboard where the characters, the background, colours and the aesthetic aspects are decided. After this the sound is recorded separately and synced with the visuals."

http://www.televisionpoint.com/news2007/newsfullstory.php?id=1186200971

TCS, Infy among world's top-20 FinTech list

NEW YORK: Four Indian companies, including two of the country's biggest IT firms, TCS and Infosys, have been named among the world's 100 biggest technology providers to the global financial services industry. Tata Consultancy Services has also emerged as the first Indian firm to be named among the top 10 in the annual FinTech 100 list of financial industry technology vendors that was released here.

Read On (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ITeS/TCS_Infy_among_worlds_top-20_financial_tech_cos/articleshow/2529869.cms)

TCS------->10th
Infosys--->14th
I-flex----->30th
Patni----->45th

Oracle University Certifies Over 42,000 Oracle Professionals in India (http://http://www.businesswireindia.com/PressRelease.asp?b2mid=14311)


New Delhi, Delhi, India, Monday, November 12, 2007 -- (Business Wire India)
As part of its ongoing commitment to enhance the skills of IT professionals in the country, Oracle today announced that Oracle University, one of the largest corporate training organizations in the world, has trained and certified over 42,000 Oracle Professionals in India since it began operations in the country in 1995.

Oracle University offers training and certification programmes to Indian students through its own six classrooms across India – in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata, and through the classrooms of over 325 Authorised Training Partners such as NIIT, SQL Star and New Horizons.

Oracle University enables individuals to learn the use of leading Oracle technologies including Oracle Database, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel and E-Business Suite Applications through classroom as well as Web-based training that can either be self-learning or instructor-led. Oracle awards different levels of certifications to students such as Oracle Certified Associate (OCA), Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) and Oracle Certified Masters (OCM) on its technology and applications offerings. On average, Oracle University conducts 2000 exams every month across all its certification tracks in India. Oracle also offers Workforce Development Program (WDP) to working professionals through a wide education partner network.

“Oracle Certified Professionals have the proven skills and training to maintain projects on time and on budget, leading to a quicker return on investment for customers,” says Mr. Parag Bhayani, an Oracle Certified Professional at Infosys. “Infosys collaborates with Oracle University and certifies their large pool of Oracle professionals on various OCP certificates like E-Business Suite and Oracle Database.”

“Oracle certified professionals have provided measurable benefits to our customers and have helped them gain higher productivity for their organizations,” said Mr. Alok Tandon, Director – Education, Oracle University in India. “In fact, according to a recent survey conducted among Oracle certified professionals, over 88 % of respondents think they are better qualified to manage more complex issues and projects because they are Oracle-trained and certified”.

Workforce Development Program and WDP at Engineering Colleges
In order to make Oracle training and certifications more accessible to working professionals and also to bridge the demand - supply gap of Oracle Certified Professionals, Oracle has designed the partner-driven Workforce Development Program. Over 90,000 students in India passed through the WDP program in the last year (June 06-May 07).

As part of this program, in the past 12 months, Oracle University partnered 100 engineering colleges across the country including Symbiosis Institute, Pune Institute of Cost and Works Accounts of India, Thapar Institute of Technology and Maharashtra Institute of Technology. Through this program, students get trained and certified on the latest Oracle technologies on campus while continuing to pursue their engineering degrees.

About Oracle University

Oracle University is the premier provider of Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Retek, and Siebel training, and one of the largest corporate training organizations in the world, providing education solutions in more than 400 training locations, 70 countries, and 9 different languages. Thousands of in-class, onsite, and on demand Web-based and CD-ROM courses, along with education services such as custom content creation, end user training, and change management services, allow Oracle University to provide education solutions specific to each customer’s unique needs.

About Oracle India

Oracle entered India in 1987 and set up an India Development Centre in 1994. Today, Oracle has two India Development Centres as well as Indian hubs for Oracle's global support, consulting and financial services operations. Through its extensive network of more than 400 channel and alliance partners under the Oracle PartnerNetwork, Oracle India markets the complete range of Oracle products and services across India. Oracle Database products are supported on 13 major Indian languages. Oracle India has more than 6,700 customers in the telecommunications, banking, insurance, manufacturing and utilities industries, across the government and private sector. Oracle India is a major partner for E-Governance initiatives of Central and State Government bodies in India. The Oracle-HP E-Governance Centre of Excellence is located at Oracle India’s head office in Gurgaon, near New Delhi. Oracle also has its Retail Centre of Excellence at Bangalore.

Google thinks green to power its business (http://http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=internet_business&articleId=9046259&taxonomyId=71&intsrc=kc_top)


Nine thousand two hundred and twelve. That's the number of solar panels that cover eight rooftops at Google Inc.'s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.


But that's only the beginning. To reach its goal of creating 50 megawatts of renewable generating capacity for its operations by 2012, Google is looking into the use of various forms of renewable energy, including solar, wind, geothermal and fuel cells, said Robyn Beavers, director of green business and operations strategy at Google.


"We'll make sure we evaluate them all thoroughly and make the right choices that work for Google," said Beavers, who was at the Conference on Clean Energy in Boston this month to talk about Google's plans to become a more energy-efficient company.


"This past May we switched on our system, which is 1.6 megawatts of solar panels in our Mountain View headquarters campus," she said in an interview. "And we've also built two carport structures -- shade structures over outdoor parking lots -- and mounted solar panels over the tops of those. You can park underneath the solar panels and charge your hybrid vehicle from the sun."


In addition, Beavers said Google installed solar hot water modules that use the sun's energy to heat the water in its new office in Hyderabad, India. The solar modules will cover all the hot water usage in the entire office building, she said. The company also negotiated discounts with residential solar panel installers in California so it can offer discounts to Google employees who want to put solar panels on their own homes, she said.
"We try to encourage our employees to become more environmentally friendly in their own lives," Beavers said. "So we also offer employees a fuel-efficient vehicle incentive. If an employee buys an eco-friendly vehicle, we give them a rebate; the less gas an employee's vehicle uses, the more money they get, starting at $1,000 for a typical hybrid."


Google is also in the process of doing a massive energy-efficiency overhaul, which includes performing energy audits at all of its office buildings, she said.


"We're counting light bulbs, figuring out where we use electricity and how much, and then we make energy-efficient retrofits based on that data," Beavers said, such as replacing old fluorescent bulbs with more energy-efficient ones, she said.


"We'll change all of our lighting and use fewer bulbs, which will save money in electricity and help pay for the overall project," she said.

Zensar set to buy European SAP service provider (http://http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Healthcare__Biotech/Zensar_set_to_buy_European_SAP_service_provider/articleshow/2533964.cms)


HYDERABAD: Global IT and BPO services firm Zensar Technologies is set to acquire a SAP services provider in the DACH — Germany, Austria and Switzerland — market for an estimated $10-12 million.

The proposed acquisition will help Zensar get a toe-hold in continental Europe and also bolster its revenues from SAP, reckoned as one of the fastest growing segments of the industry.

“We have short-listed 21 potential companies for acquisition and this will be further narrowed to a dozen. We expect to announce the acquisition this fiscal,” said Zensar Technologies deputy chairman and MD Ganesh Natarajan.

The transaction could be an all-cash deal with earn-outs to be paid over a stipulated period. To start with, the company may spend around $4-5 million on the proposed acquisition.

Early this year, Pune-based Zensar acquired US-based Thoughtdigital, a firm specialising in Oracle applications, to strengthen its presence in the enterprise solutions space. It also inked a joint venture with a Tokyo based software company, EZA to foray into the media and entertainment space in the Japanese market.

If the proposed deal fructifies, it would mark the second acquisition for Zensar in the SAP services business. In December 2005, the company acquired a US-based SAP services provider OBT Global Inc and its offshore affiliate — Hyderabad-based OBT Global Pvt Limited — in an all-cash deal.

Zensar-OBT Global provides SAP implementation and support, ABAP programming and SAP help desk services. “Our SAP business was only around Rs 10 crore when we acquired OBT.

The target is to raise it to around Rs 100 crore by 2008-09. The focused vertical strategy with templatised solutions has helped us expand our SAP business,” he said.

The company recently bagged a contract from US-based AccuMed Global, a privately held company in the life sciences industry, to implement and support SAP. Its clients also include Bajaj Finance, CLSA in Hong Kong, Sirpur Paper Mills, SEW EuroDrive, Ankur Pharma, Sharda Exports, Spentex, Sutlej Textiles (KK Birla Group) and Sangam Group, among others.

Currently, close to 90% of the SAP work is done out of Hyderabad, besides small operations in Europe.


The plan is to move the entire support to India. Zensar has now set up an innovation centre here that would focus on research and template development for pharma and textiles industries.

The company is targeting what it calls ‘tactile acquisitions’ which entails having a presence in a new geography or for a language capability. SAP, headquartered in Germany, is the third largest independent software company and is operating in a field dominated by US companies. “Understandably, Zensar has zoomed in on the German speaking market as it reckons that DACH countries offer a huge business potential for SAP,” said an analyst.

The company already has a sales and marketing presence in the UK.


USE AS BOX SAP gain

SAP refers to Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing. Enterprises that use SAP solutions can lower costs, improve performance and gain agility in responding to changing business needs, according to SAP.

Microsoft’s UC software to change office communications (http://http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Microsofts_UC_software_to_change_office_communications/articleshow/2536737.cms)



HYDERABAD: Microsoft is planning to penetrate deeper in the Indian market with the launch of its unified communications (UC) software.

The software will enable employees within organisations to communicate and collaborate with each other through e-mails, phone calls, instant messaging and video conference in a simple and efficient manner using any device such as computer, cell phone. This can be done while in office or on the move.

“The UC software market is estimated to be at $40 billion worldwide and is expected to touch $45 billion by 2010. The Indian market for this software is comparatively smaller at about $400 million. But it is expected to log a faster growth rate than the global growth rate,” said Microsoft India business lead (unified communications) Vibhu Ranjan.
The company has over 300 customers worldwide and its clients in India include Godrej, Marico and NIIT.

“Our UC solution offers substantial cost savings to customers as it allows businesses to leverage on its existing IT and telephony infrastructure. Organisations that install the solution need not replace their telephony infrastructure such as EPBAX systems,” said MSIDC general manager (unified communications group) Nagesh Pabbisetty.

Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) has played a major role in the development of UC solutions. Over 100 employees have worked for providing Microsoft’s instant messenger over phone.

“IDC has filed 12 patent applications with the MS legal, of which five have been filed with the US patent office. MSIDC has also created some key features in the new video conferencing solution — Live Meeting 2007,’’ he said.

Microsoft’s UC and VoIP software includes Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and the service pack update of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

“Customers have already witnessed an increase in productivity due to time and cost savings of about 30% over traditional communications technologies. Forrester Consulting study suggests that UC customers can achieve over 500% return on investment in three years by deploying Office Communications Server,” said Pabbisetty.

NIIT in India, for instance, has moved its hiring practice to the Office Communicator. This has helped the company to hire quality talent pool from different part of the country, without deploying many people to be physically present to conduct interviews and other procedures.

“To help the SMBs, we are offering them the new software as a service. So they do not have to buy it by paying the entire amount. Besides, our solutions are about 25% cheaper compared to other players in the market,” he said.

According to him, with Indian businesses expanding their geographical footprint and growing employee strength, the solution will become an integral tool to ensure anytime, anywhere access and increase in productivity.

//
Indian American Shantanu Narayen has been appointed as the new president and chief executive officer of Adobe System Incorporated replacing Bruce Chizen.

Narayen, currently president and chief operating officer, will assume the new responsibility from December 1 and also join the board of directors of the company.

The 43-year-old had occupied several high management positions at Apple before founding photo-sharing software company Pictra.

Narayen joined the maker of the popular Photoshop, Flash and Acrobat programmes in January 1998 as vice president and general manager of Adobe's engineering technology group.

In January 1999, he was promoted to senior vice president, worldwide products and in March 2001 he was promoted to executive vice president, worldwide product marketing and development.

In January 2005, Narayen was made the president and chief operating officer.

Narayen holds five patents and serves on the advisory board of the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley and holds a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from Osmania University and master's in business administration from the Haas School of Business

New Delhi, Nov 13: After proving its mettle in areas like steel, automotive and IT services on the global arena, corporate behemoth Tata group has now developed the world's fourth fastest supercomputer that can do 117.9 trillion calculations per second.

The supercomputer "Eka", which means number one in Sanskrit, was named Asia's fastest and the world's fourth fastest in the top 500 supercomputer list announced at an International Conference for high performance computing at Reno (California), USA, yesterday night.

This is the first time that such a system developed in India has been ranked among the world's ten fastest.

http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=407081&sid=ENV&ssid=365&news=Tata%20supercomputer%20named%20fastest%20in%20Asia,%204th%20in%20world

//

IT services vendor Tech Mahindra has announced the setting up of a state-of-the-art software development centre in Chandigarh at an initial estimated cost of Rs 200 crore.

According to an official release issued by the company to the BSE today, the integrated north campus at the Rajiv Gandhi Technology Park will be built on 15 acres of land. It will seat 2,500 professionals in the first phase, and 5,000 when fully complete. The center would have video conferencing facilities, training centres, food courts, an amphitheatre, recreation facilities, a swimming pool, a gymnasium and a sports complex.

Vineet Nayyar, vice chairman, MD & COO, Tech Mahindra said: "The organisation has been on a continuous journey of transformation, addressing new players in the telecom ecosystem and expanding service lines. We have chosen Chandigarh because of its rapidly developing infrastructure, IT-friendly policies and access to a pool of high quality software professionals.

Once completed, Chandigarh will be integral to the expansion of the company's service offerings and delivery capabilities."

Tech Mahindra currently employs over 600 IT professionals at it's Chandigarh Development center. Over 90% of these were hired locally

Now pre-paid Office 2007 tool from Microsoft (http://http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14561091)



Hyderabad: Just like a pre-paid mobile telephony card, you can now have a pre-paid Office 2007 productivity software from Microsoft in India.



This offering that comes with the purchase of new personal computer allows a user to access this software for six months and thereafter with the option of renewal with additional payments.

This new approach is part of Microsoft Corporation’s effort to help small and medium sized enterprises and home users to access Office 2007 advantages at a much lower cost.

Unlike the perpetual licence option of Rs 15,000, the starter edition comes for Rs 1,499 and allows usage for six months, according to Sanjay Manchanda, Director, Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft India.

“Having tested this approach in South Africa and Romania to cater to the need of users, we are now introducing this in India through channel partners,” Sanjay told Business Line.

Asked if this is the beginning of more such offerings, he said that this is an innovative business model that would help reach out to a much larger user base. It is estimated that about $640 million would be invested in application system and software

Satyam to offer rental services for SMEs (http://http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14561205)



Satyam Computer Services is all set to offer a software rental and hosting service for small & medium enterprises (SMEs).



The new offering will be based on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, which holds a special appeal to SMEs that don't want to be bothered with the hassles associated with installing, running and updating a software application suite; a bigger company may want to use it for niche application.

Satyam will charge a monthly rental for providing the application and hosting it for the client which needs just an Internet connection and a browser to access it.

Initially, Satyam is looking to provide an enterprise financial solutions package with a pilot kicking off in Hyderabad with 10 companies. "We have not yet arrived at the pricing for the services as we are establishing the model and giving the proof of concept," Subu D Subramanian, director and senior vice-president, manufacturing and automotive, told DNA Money.

Satyam has roped in apex industry body Nasscom, the Federation of AP Small Industries' Association (FAPSIA) and the government of Andhra Pradesh as part of a consortium to push its SaaS offerings to companies.

The applications will be provided by ERP services company Ramco Systems. Satyam will launch similar initiatives soon in Tamil Nadu and Haryana.

According to Saurabh Kaushal, head, ICT practice, at research firm Frost & Sullivan, SaaS has a huge potential in India as it is particularly suited to small enterprises that prefer the opex model to the capex model for investing in anything. The potential is so great that many companies, including Google, Microsoft and other Indian IT vendors and telecoms providers in the country are eying the market.

Microsoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan had told DNA Money sometime back the world's largest software firm would launch the entire suite of its Live Services in India soon.

The Live platform is built on the software plus services model of Microsoft on the lines of SaaS. Some Windows Live services like mail, messenger and blogging are already available in India, but the company has an aggressive rollout map for the enterprise, small business and consumer segments over the next few days, he added.

The estimates on the potential size of the market for SaaS in India are not available. IDC had predicted sometime back it would be a $8 billion market growing at a CAGR of 25 per cent globally. SaaS is available in three different forms of managed services, hosted applications and software-on-demand.

Indian software vendors are well placed to tap the global SaaS market successfully given their lower costs and proven offshoring prowess, said Kaushal.

The enterprise business for Satyam constitutes 45 per cent of its overall revenues currently and the current initiative will add significantly to this. "There are some 50,000 small companies with revenues under $100 million per annum. Even if we are looking at tapping 10 per cent of them to provide end-to-end enterprise solutions it is a huge potential," Satyam's Subramanian said.

According to Arup Roy, senior research analyst at IT research firm Gartner Inc, a recent IT spend user survey of SMEs in Asia-Pacific has shown that only 7 per cent of the companies surveyed believe that SaaS is suitable for their organisation. Only 9 per cent said they will consider it when its adoption becomes more widespread.

However, Gartner expects that as the Asia/Pacific market matures, SMEs will embrace SaaS even for their critical applications.

So to that extent, Satyam could clearly have an edge over other Indian IT services vendors

TCS bags $200 mn deal in Mexico (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=BO&autono=304471&chkFlg=)

Mumbai-based IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a four-year, $200 million (around Rs 800 crore) contract with the Social Security Institute of Mexico (IMSS) — one of its biggest deals and its first government contract in the region.

With this deal, the value of its multi-million dollar deals signed over the past one year amounts to slightly over $2 billion (around Rs 7,850 crore).

TCS will provide end-to-end IT services, including application maintenance and support, custom software development, business analysis services, management of strategic IT programs and value-added initiatives for the organisation’s affiliates.

Cisco Closes Purchase of Securent (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/11/19/ap4354041.html)



SAN JOSE, Calif. - Network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. said Monday it completed the $100 million acquisition of privately held security software maker Securent Inc.

Securent has 57 employees and is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with development operations in Hyderabad, India. The company specializes in software that manages user access to data on computer networks.

Securent's team and technology is expected to move into Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people )'s collaboration software group, which is led by Senior Vice President Don Proctor.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=22&theme=&usrsess=1&id=177138

New software for budget-conscious firms

KOLKATA, Nov 19: In an effort to help small and medium enterprises (SME) manage their affairs efficiently, a Kolkata-based software company has developed a new software which will provide an effective and affordable solution to organisational management and ensure better profitability.
A very distinct advantage that the new software, named Coral ERP, developed by Coral Soff'wares Limited has over other enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions already available in the market, is affordability. The company is banking on this advantage to market its product for the cash-strapped SMEs in the state.
“Finance is a major area for concern for small industries. Thus, these small enterprises cannot afford the ERP solutions available in the market. However, they have evolved as indispensable tools to manage a company properly and viably in today's competitive environment,” said Mr Prem Chand Kankaria, MD and CEO of Coral. The new software package will be available for nearly Rs 5 lakhs compared to others which cost nearly 50 lakhs.
The software will have all the features of the high-end variety and will help in manpower and money management, planning, and accounts management.
This apart, the software is completely customisable to make it compatible with the needs of a particular industry. The company will also provide training to buyers for managing the software after installation.
“Coral ERP has been developed with an objective to address all the shortcomings of conventional ERPs like flexibility, scalability, connectivity, security, implementation time, skill requirement, maintenance, support and affordability,” claimed Mr Kankaria. Initially the product is being launched in the state but the company is aiming at revenues of Rs 50 crores, from the software, by 2009 after the all-India launch early next year.
The company is keeping its focus on SMEs, which are slated for fast growth with the booming economy and has tried to keep the product affordable. Coral ERP has been developed after more than four years of research and has been exposed to various business domains to help the SME segment manage their growth.
The company is planning major business expansion, including new branch offices, training outfits and marketing bases throughout the country as well as in the overseas market for marketing the software.

Intel’s India-made chip to be out early next year (http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1134151)



HYDERABAD: Dunnington, the exclusively India-designed-and-developed multiprocessor (MP) Xeon server from Intel will be out in the second half of 2008.

Coming over two years since an earlier chip, codenamed Whitefield after the IT hotspot in Bangalore was abandoned by Intel, Dunnington is expected to add fillip to the country’s claim as a global chip design and development destination.

“The new Xeon chip is targeted at the high-performance segment and is the most sophisticated design of any independent family of processors,” Thomas M Kilroy, vice-president and general manger, Digital Enterprise Group at Intel Corporation, told DNA Money.

The MP segment may be small in numbers but strategically it is very significant with companies looking at virtualisation and other technologies as future growth areas which Dunnington is expected to address.

But then Dunnington is the not the only feather in Intel Bangalore’s cap. The recently launched series of 45 nm chips have a major contribution from the Bangalore centre which employs close to 2700 engineers.

The centre has been helping out with the chip-set and server designs and has contributed significantly to the Penryn which is akin to reinventing the transistor itself giving Moore’s Law a new lease of life, Kilroy said.

Intel launched 16 new server and high-end PC processors, which the company claims are eco-friendly, faster and cooler thanks to the new 45 nm technology using hafnium-based high-K metal gate transistors

Birlasoft to raise headcount to 6,000 (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/146381.html)



New Delhi, Nov 22 - India IT services major Birlasoft (India) Ltd Thursday said it would be increasing its headcount to 6,000 globally by next year from the current 4,400.

'Birlasoft is in expansion mode. The last three years have witnessed our headcount more than doubling to 4,400. The ramp-up shall continue as we are generating new business opportunities, winning new clients and entering new service and technology domains,' Kamal Mansharamani, Birlasoft CEO, said in a statement.

The company also announced the opening up another development centre in Noida, spread over 1,28,000 sq ft and with a capacity of over 1,200 people.

Part of the $1.4-billion C.K. Birla Group, Birlasoft has development centres in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, and has its headquarters in Noida.

Unfazed by issues arising out of rupee appreciation, the Indian division of Capgemini, a consulting, technology and outsourcing French company said it plans to raise its employee strength from the current 17,500 to 40,000 by 2010.

With operations in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune, Capgemini Consulting India offers its services across several verticals including retail, telecom, manufacturing, energy, utilities, finance and public sector.

In terms of personnel strength, the parent company Capgemini, which has a presence in almost all European countries apart from United States and Australia, stands at 80,000 and aims to take the number to 110,000 by the end of the decade.

Source (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c_online.php?leftnm=11&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=30492)

Bangalore to host outsourcing meet

Staff Reporter
BANGALORE: What could be a more appropriate place to host the Indian Sourcing Summit 2008 (ISS) than the outsourcing capital of India?

The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, in collaboration with the international network of the Supply Management Institute (SMI) will host a conference with participants from leading companies, industrial giants and academicians from India, China, Europe and U.S., in the city.

The two-day conference, scheduled to begin on February 8, 2008, will be based on the theme: ‘India as the emerging hub for global outsourcing.’

The conference will bring together chairpersons, directors and CEOs of leading companies to educate them about supply management, in the context of the ongoing boom in economy fuelled by outsourcing projects.

The conference will cover topics ranging from strategic supplier management and different levels within companies to the division of products outsourced from India and China.

“This is purely to educate these companies so that they can carry back expertise which will help them generate better output,” said Constantin Blome, chief secretary of ISS. It was necessary to identify the bottlenecks and risk factors to solve them, said Mahadevan from IIM-B.

“Due to our infrastructure limitations, several companies have gone out of the sourcing radar because they don’t know how to manage.

“The conference will help solve that,” said Toby Simon, research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MUMBAI: Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd, a Hinduja Group company, on Monday said it has received an approval from Karnataka Udyog Mitra to build an IT Park on its 40 acres plot at Yellahanka.

The approved master plan prepared by the Indian arm of Singaporean Architects -- RSP Architect Planners and Engineers -- sprawls over a total area of 5 million sq. ft and is situated on the Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Source (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gulf_Oil_gets_nod_to_build_IT_Park/articleshow/2571726.cms)

New Delhi, Nov 26: India's fourth largest software exporter HCL technologies has been ranked as the world's top vendor in the infrastructure space, a recent survey said.

HCL technologies topped the list of 276 vendors, while beating global and domestic giants like IBM, Accenture, HP, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Satyam.

HCL tech is followed by US-based Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) on second and third positions, according to an annual survey by Brown-Wilson survey for "the black book of outsourcing."

A total of five Indian companies made to the top-20 list, including Satyam (13), Wipro (14), Infosys (18) and Tata Consultancy Services (20)

http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=409715&sid=BUS&ssid=53

A 650-acre IT park is coming up in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi. Being built by the Noida Development Authority, over 100,000 IT-ITeS employees are expected to work here

HCL Technologies has announced a 46-acre technology hub for 15,000 employees in Greater Noida

The IT services major Birlasoft, a part of the $1.4 billion CK Birla Group, is keen to develop a campus in Noida by 2009

Together, Noida and Greater Noida are set to emerge as a major IT campus hub in Uttar Pradesh. Not that the two locations do not have IT company offices.

In fact, they are home to a multitude of multinational outsourcing firms and software majors, especially Noida which boasts of companies such as Adobe Systems, HCL, EXL, American Express, Impetus, STMicroelectronics and Xansa, among others.

Now, a bunch of IT companies want to grow their footprints in Noida and Greater Noida and they are thinking big. Needless to say, their first USP will be space

Source (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=305491&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=)

Satyam IT partner for two FIFA WCs (http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusinessnew.asp?id=41952&template=&cache=11/26/2007%206:47:39%20PM)



http://www.ndtvprofit.com/images/satyamlogo.jpg

Indian global consulting and information technology service provider, Satyam Computer Service, has become the first Indian sponsor of FIFA World Cup, having been selected as the official IT service provider for 2010 and 2014 events in South Africa and Brazil respectively, Bua news agency reported on Monday.

According to a FIFA announcement, the software group, based in Hyderabad, is the fourth sponsor of the 2010 World Cup. It has also bagged contracts for two FIFA Confederation Cups that will take place within the same period.

Anheuser-Busch, McDonald's and MTN are the other groups to sign up for the 2010 World Cup.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter and Satyam Chairman and founder Ramalinga Raju confirmed the partnership on Saturday at a signing ceremony on the eve of Africa's first taste of world cup action, the 2010 FIFA World Cup preliminary draw.

"I am very proud that Satyam has chosen the World Cup for this historic move. Satyam's commitment is testimony to the immense appeal of FIFA as a superior marketing platform for transporting a brand around the world," said Blatter.

"It is a big advantage for all those involved in the events to have such an experienced IT service partner on board.

"We look forward to working with such a dedicated partner who shares our ideals and identifies with our mission to use football as a tool to touch the world and build a better future," the FIFA president added.

As the official IT service provider during both the world cups in 2010 and 2014, Satyam will play a crucial role in developing the IT event management system for FIFA and its service partner for IT, hospitality and accommodation, as well as local organising committees during the next seven years.

A gaming summit is being organised by IAMAI in Mumbai today.

The Indian gaming market is growing at a dizzying pace. The figures tell the story. The Indian gaming segment — comprising mobile, computer and console games and development — touched Rs 192 crore in 2006, and is likely to cross Rs 1,700 crore by 2010, states Nasscom.

The compound annual growth rate is 72 per cent over 2006-2010. Industry players are more bullish. They peg the figure for 2010 at almost Rs 2,500 crore.

“Interactive online entertainment is changing the way an entire generation consumes gaming... it is expanding beyond passive consumption to include story-telling and that is where we get our casual, first-time gamers,” said Rohit Sharma, COO, Zapak, which is collaborating with Intel and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), to organise a gaming summit on November 28, in Mumbai.

Source (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=305720&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=)

Ness Technologies to expand India operations (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/149617.html)



Ness Technologies Ltd, the US-based global provider of IT services and solutions, is expanding its India operations to focus on strengthening the three verticals of independent software vendors (ISVs), financial services and life sciences.

'Ness India forms a crucial part of our global best-shore proposition. In line with our margin and revenue expansion strategy for 2008, we will penetrate the American and European markets through offshoring and grow through organically and strategic acquisitions,' Ness Technologies CEO Sachi Gerlitz told reporters here Wednesday.

With offshore development centres in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune, the four-year-old Ness India employs about 2,500 software engineers, which is one-third of its global workforce.

Ness India managing director Bharath Kalyanram said the company's global business model would deliver high value to its customers worldwide through innovation and speed of delivery.

The $474-million Ness recently acquired MS9 Consulting, a US firm, with strong presence in the life sciences industry.

It also bought out FMC Consulting and Informatics Ltd, a privately-held Hungarian IT consulting and services firm.

Ness' India centres house outsourced software research and development (R&D) labs for about 40 ISVs, leading clients in financial services and the emerging life sciences and healthcare clients.

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2007/nov/29orissa.htm

Coming up: First Private IT Park in Orissa

Nirmalya Mukherjee in Bhubaneswar

November 29, 2007 03:35 IST

Keeping to long-standing demands from the Information Technology companies in the small and medium enterprise sector, the inter-ministerial committee of the Centre has approved the first private software technology park of Orissa.

The Bhubaneswar-based JSS Group, operating as a BPO / KPO company in the banking and financial back-end services, has received the distinction. The new private STP has been christened as JSS Software Technology Park.

The private STP is being set up by the JSS Group at Infocity in Chandaka, Bhubaneswar.

Alongside, JSS is also embarking on an expansion plan of setting up a 300 seat call centre at Kolkata and 300 seat banking service hub at Hyderabad. The company is also putting up a development centre at Dubai and is actively planning to start a similar centre in Singapore.

According to a study by AMI Partners, put forward by the JSS Group, small and medium companies in India are set to spend over Rs 32,000 crore in 2007-2008 in IT infrastructure development, which is almost 24 per cent higher than 2006-2007.

This is likely to have a spiralling effect in the employment generation as well overall business growth potential. The gross IT revenue is expected to grow at a

CAGR of 20 per cent for the SME sector with employment by a CAGR of 45 per cent.

When contacted, chairman of JSS group, Bijoy K Sahoo said, "For long we have been urging for setting up a private STP in the state. Finally it has been awarded to us. We thank the Orissa government for helping us achieve our aim. This would open the flood gates for more private STPs".

Neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh already have more than 100 private STPs, for the ITSME sector, followed by other states like West Bengal. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Almost 98 per cent of Orissa IT companies registered with the Software Technology Parks of India belong to the SME sector. The state has set to itself a software export target of achieving Rs 1,000 crore in the next couple of years.

BANGALORE: Global provider of processing solutions in computing AMD today announced the opening of a new silicon design and platform research and development facility.

The third R&D facility in India and second in Bangalore can accommodate 350 engineers. Dr Hector Ruiz, chairman and CEO of AMD traveled to Bangalore to inaugurate the new facility.

“Our engineering employees in India play a critical role in AMD’s global design network, and this new R&D center gives them equipment and resources they need to excel. Apart from this, India is a good market in itself for us. So, we see great possibilities ahead ” said Ruiz.

He said that the new facility is vital to help design and deliver solutions specifically tailored to the needs of AMD's customers in India.

He said that the company is open for more partnerships with semiconductor companies in the country." we hope that partnering with Indian semicon companies will help us understand manufacturing opportunities in the country". AMD is already having a technology partnership with Hyderabad based SemIndia.

The R&D teams in Bangalore are playing the lead role on “Shanghai”, AMD’s 45nm quad-core microprocessor, and are currently involved in design testing and optimization of the new chip. Prior to their efforts on Shanghai, the teams were responsible for delivering key IP for the first AMD quad-core Opteron microprocessor, previously codenamed “Barcelona”.

The company officials declined to give any investment numbers.

Incidentally, the AMD’s new facility `Poddar Heritage’ was earlier occupied by Intel Technologies, arch rival of AMD.

source (http://www.ciol.com/content/291107101850.aspx)

Nipuna, the Satyam BPO Wins Golden Peacock National Training Award 2007 (http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/information-technology/200711295922.htm)



Hyderabad, India: November 29, 2007 – Nipuna Services Ltd, the BPO arm of Satyam (NYSE:SAY), has been conferred the prestigious and internationally recognized Golden Peacock National Training Award for the year 2007.

Venkatesh Roddam, CEO, Nipuna, said “This is a great achievement and makes Nipuna the first BPO in the country to win this award. As we have been selected as the winner from 186 entries that the organizers received, this Award stands testimony to our focus on Associate and Leadership Development and our focus on ‘growing leaders faster than competition.”

“The Award will help organizations like ours benchmark against the best, and set new standards of training excellence, a measure that will hold the key to business leadership in the 21st century”, added Roddam.

The Golden Peacock Award will be presented at an event in the presence of business and political leaders from over 20 countries and will be a part of the 18thWorld Congress on Total Quality, with the theme “Boardroom Strategies for Risk Management”, which is scheduled to be held in New Delhi between January 11th and 13th, 2008.

Manoj K Raut, Director Client Services, Golden Peacock Award Secretariat said, “Nipuna is providing the best training practices in the fiercely competitive market of today ".

The Award identifies excellence in training practices, relates effective training with improved business and is open to all training organizations. Winners are selected by the Award Jury, under the Chairmanship of Justice P N Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India and Chairman, Golden Peacock Awards.

flauntR (http://www.flauntr.com) has announced the launch of a widgetized version of their online creative suite of photo editing applications. The widget will support all the photo editing features, including the 6 applications in the suite, along with photo storage, sharing and embedding solutions, and provides integration with social networks like Facebook and storage services like Picasa and Flickr.

Since launching 8 weeks ago, flauntR has garnered 1000's of positive reviews by users for ease of use and design. The flauntR creative suite now includes 6 applications for photo editing, photo styling, social network photo profile creation, mobile wallpaper generation and download and text overlays. The flauntR widget packs entire applications, without compromising on the user interface. This goes beyond conventional widgets that revolve around data updates, and operate through downgraded interfaces.

flauntR is created with the vision of enabling consumers to enhance photos or images without reading through heaps of user manuals or purchasing and downloading expensive software.


flauntR is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland and engineered in Trivandrum, India. The company is led by Balaji Bal, founder of SurfKitchen( http://www.surfkitchen.com). flauntR is incubated by DeviceDriven (http://www.devicedriven.com).


source (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/11/prweb572623.htm)

//CHENNAI: Technology operations management company Cybernet Slash Support Corp is entering the European market, the company said Thursday.

Its first stop is in the Netherlands, where it is partnering $19.5-million Bergler ICT. It would offer infrastructure management services to the Bergler's clients.

As per the deal, Cybernet would manage the infrastructure of Bergler's European clients and also offer technology support from its Chennai operations, Shiva Ramani, co-founder and CEO, Cybernet, told reporters here.

"Around 200 people will be deployed in Chennai for this three-year contract," he said.

Cybernet has around 5,000 employees at its Chennai and Coimbatore centres

Source (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Latest_News/Cybernet_to_partner_Dutch_firm/articleshow/2582901.cms)

GM opens design studio in Bangalore

BS Reporter / Bangalore November 29, 2007

If during 2012 you buy a car with the famed bowtie badge from the stables of General Motors, chances are a good amount of design input may have gone into it at Bangalore. The world largest automobile manufacturer today opened its India Design Lab in Bangalore, which will have 100 professionals involved in styling the car to be fit for that bowtie.

The India Design Lab which will not only work on the cars suited for local conditions, but will also work across the 12 famous brands owned by this global major. "We have 11 such studios across the globe designing our cars and the India centre, to start with, will focus on tweaking to perfection the interiors of our models which will hit the roads during 2012," said Ed Welburn, VP (Global Design), GM.

The mandate for the Indian centre will be to work extensively on small cars that GM is planning for global markets and it will also be a listening post to gather and understand local product design requirements. The India lab will be a centre of expertise for interior trim and component surfacing, and will be enabled further to progress towards developing a full studio capability.

"With help from technologies such as clay milling capability, along with supporting equipment and virtual reality technology, the India studio will contribute to the mid-cycle enhancement of existing models and the advanced design of future products,” Wilburn said.

High-tech visualisation equipment will allow surface quality reviews, which are needed to support interior trim work. In addition, the surfacing skills of the local lab team will be enhanced through interaction with clay by enabling the sculptor to see and feel physical surfaces created in virtual environments, The India Design Lab will be an integral part of the GM Technical Centre in Bangalore which currently employs close to 900 professionals.

Six of the world’s leading technology companies — Accenture, Dell, Texas Instruments, SAP, AMD and GM — held mega events in the city on Thursday, reinforcing the city’s position as a global technology hub

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

India plays key role in 45nm chip: AMD chief

Bangalore: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Thursday opened its third R&D facility in India. The second in Bangalore, the facility has the capacity to house 350 engineers.

Terming India integral to AMD’s growth strategy, the chip major’s chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz said, “The Indian engineering team has made key contributions to our quad core microp ro c e s s o r Barcelona, and now they are playing the lead role in our first 45nm quad core chip Shanghai. We intend to enhance our engineering capabilities in India as this is a large market for AMD and we want to leverage on the opportunities here.” The new 52,000 sq ft centre will function as a new silicon design, platform R&D facility.

AMD has been in India since 2001 and has close to 600 engineers working out of its two earlier R&D centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The move from AMD comes just weeks after Intel launched its 45nm microprocessor in the country. AMD and Intel have been locked in an intense price war and AMD has reported losses for four straight quarters.

“Our number 1 goal is to return to profitability as soon as possible. But it’s good times for consumers who benefit from the falling prices. The bad news is for the companies who have to cut prices and still find means of making money,” added Hector.

AMD is in a technical partnership with Hyderabad-based SemIndia, which plans to set up a manufacturing facility in the next five years. But Hector shot down suggestions that AMD might consider setting up a fab in the country saying, “The partnership is purely technical and was to enable us to understand the local market and conditions better. At AMD we believe that it is essential that we have control over the manuf a c t u r i n g process of our products. The technology is such that all the processes have to be tightly integrated. The current manufacturing set up that we have is more than adequate for the next five years to come.”

He also added that the partnership with SemIndia was not progressing as fast as they had expected it would. AMD has also launched a new Learning Lab at the Government High School, Doddanakundi, in the city in partnership with American India Foundation (AIF).The new lab is equipped with AMD Athlon Dual-Core processor-based Microsoft IQ PCs and will provide affordable internet access to more than 200 school children.

The new lab is part of the AMD’s 50x15 Initiative to connect 50 per cent of the world’s population to the internet by 2015.



Dell unveils hi-end laptop in city
Shalini Sengupta | TNN

Bangalore: From mass driven to discerning customers — that’s Dell Computers now. The company which dominated the market by churning out competitively priced notebooks and PCs is now offering lifestyle products.

A glimpse of this came when Dell launched its Inspiron and XPS products earlier this year. In Bangalore on Thursday, the company announced the global launch of yet another XPS product — the XPS M1530 notebook and XPS 420 desktop — with some classy features. That includes a 15.4 inch display, built in webcam, fingerprint reader, touch sensitive multi-media buttons, slot load optical drive, directX 10 capable graphics, HDMI support apart from bluetooth and wi-fi support. This easy to carry notebook is just 2.62 kgs and 23.7 mm thin. Customers can also upgrade to the Bluray disc drive, include noise cancellation earbuds and a travel remote that stores away in the Exp re s s C a rd slot. The CPU of the desktop even has a slot on the top to hold digicams and i-Pods while t r a n s f e r r i n g data, so that they don’t accidentally slip.

After Hewlett-Packard displaced Dell from the No. 1 slot in 2006, Dell has revamped its entire market strategy. “We found that customers who opt for laptops look for better and optimal utilisation of devices. They don’t want to compromise on the price,’’ said Girish Mehta, marketing director in Dell India.

Your thoughts can speak for you
Sujit John | TNN

Bangalore: Travis met with a road accident in the US four years ago that dealt him a major brain injury and left him completely paralysed. He’s been confined to a wheel chair since then. But more recently, thanks to two students from the University of Illinois, Michael Callahan and Thomas Coleman, Travis can communicate with the wheelchair and command it to move the way he mentally commands it to. Not by touch, not by voice. But just his mind.

On Thursday in Bangalore, the technology was demonstrated through video to the amazement of an audience of over 600 people attending the Texas Instruments (TI) Developer Conference.

Callahan and Coleman placed a sensor on Travis’ neck that reads the electrical signals that the brain uses to command the larynx to speak. A high performance amplifier then amplifies these signals, sends them to an ADC (analogue to digital converter) which converts it into digital signals. This in turn sends it to a digital signal processor (DSP) that processes the signals, translates them into commands that are then sent via a DAC (digital to analogue converter) to the motorized wheelchair.

Different brains use different signals to form different words, but the computer can be trained to understand the brain by hooking it up to the patient. “The computer understands the patterns. And then you put in algorithms in the DSP that translates the signals into commands,” says Niels Anderskouv, vice president (digital signal processing systems) in TI, whose MSP 430 microcontroller was used to develop the solution. Anderskouv says the same system can be used by Travis to communicate with his mother. The same signals can end at the other end as words through an audio system.

Right now, the words cannot be much more than a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. But Anderskouv believes that as processor power increases, it could become a continuous flow of words, enabling people with speaking disabilities to form full sentences by just ‘thinking’ those sentences.

“In about 10 years, you may even be able to create a similar solution with cellphone signals in a way that enables you talk to somebody by just thinking, so that you don’t disturb others around you,” he says. TI also demonstrated a smart camera system that senses where people are and adjusts lights as they move. Unlike motion detectors, which often leave lights on too long because they cannot distinguish an empty room from a stationary occupant, these sensors know when to switch off the lights.

Bangalore-based Soliton has used the same technique for a variety of industrial purposes, some of which were demonstrated at the conference. In one, where a company wanted to ensure that all its bearings would have the required 16 pins on them, Soliton’s solution had each bearing rolling down an about 1 metre long slide; at one point on the slide a sensor informs a camera about the presence of the bearing, the camera clicks a picture of the bearing, sends it to a DSP which analyses if the bearing has all 16 pins. If it doesn’t, then the bearing falls into the ‘reject’ box at the end of the slide; and if it does, it falls into another box. All of this happening in fractions of seconds.

24/7 BPO to expand operations, increase headcount (http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=cd9a5e74-8268-4825-b7d0-b60b031f8790&ParentID=3a8ae665-cc6c-4cb3-b14d-f0522aa26f3d&MatchID1=4603&TeamID1=6&TeamID2=7&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1157&MatchID2=4574&TeamID3=8&TeamID4=2&MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1147&PrimaryID=4603&Headline=24%2f7+BPO+to+expand+operations)



One of India's leading BPO (business process outsourcing) firms 24/7 Customer on Thursday announced plans to expand its operations and employ over 1,000 people in the next one year.

The Bangalore-based company would be opening the new facility in IT hub Gurgaon on the outskirts of the national capital with an investment of $9 million.

"In an effort to consolidate our business we need to expand our operations to various geographies based on customer requirements," Pradeep Narayanan, executive director and chief delivery officer of 24/7 Customer, told reporters in New Delhi.

Currently the company employs 5,000 people globally, out of which 4,000 are in India.

"It is imperative for us to diversify in other geographies to leverage our talent pool and we believe in hiring freshers, mostly from the domestic market," said S Nagarajan, founder of the company.

The new facility would be the company's eighth global delivery centre along with other seven that are based in Hyderabad, Chennai, Guatemala and Manila.

The centres handle over six million transactions per month.

This is also interesting.... I am posting here because it is related to BPO!!

Krishnagiri BPO unit offers hope to rural youth

S. Prasad

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The country’s first rural BPO

unit-cum-call centre is a success

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOSUR: Over 30 young employees of a business process outsourcing unit in the Chanachandiram village near here have proved that a backward such as Krishnagiri district can be turned into an employment generating centre.

Carved out of the once naxal-infested Dharmapuri district, Krishnagiri has been witnessing an exodus by the youth in search of employment. But with this pilot project by the district administration to provide means of livelihood locally, there are hopes of more such job-oriented development in the district.

A year ago, the district administration attempted to take advantage of information technology-enabled services for the rural youth, whose minimum qualification was a pass in the X standard. Making use of the available resources of the District Rural Development Agency, the country’s first rural business process outsourcing unit-cum-call centre was started in the village. And, it has lit up the lives of many youngsters who got their salary in the form of AXIS Bank debit cards.

According to Collector Santhosh Babu, 37 employees of FoSTERA (Fostering Technologies in Rural Areas) comprising team leaders, team agents and proofreaders, received their first salary on Saturday from the U.S.-based All State Insurance (ASI), a NASDAQ-listed company. LEOsoft Technologies, Bangalore, is another client.

While team leaders and proof readers are paid a salary of Rs.10,000 and Rs.7,000 a month respectively, team agents get Rs.3,500 to Rs.5,000 depending on their accuracy levels.

The good news for non-graduates is that their entry-level salary is on a par with that of graduates.

Those who have passed only X standard and Plus-Two are trained in basic computer, English grammar, accent and communication and soft skills for personality development.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/03/stories/2007120354240600.htm

Networking company D-Link India Ltd today inaugurated its new R&D center at the Electronic City here. The new center will drive D-Link’s R&D initiatives in India by focusing on converged IP solutions, business routers and gateways, and wireless technology products for the Indian and global markets.

Addressing the media, Jangoo Dalal, CEO and managing director of D-Link, said, “Our new R&D center would further augment our product offerings to the Indians especially to the SMB segment that forms the core of our business, and to the global market. By closely studying the needs of the market, we would be able to innovate new products as well as strengthen our portfolio of products aimed at this segment.”

The new center is spread over an area of 8077 square meters and can seat more than 500 employees. D-Link mainly caters to the SMB market. Jangoo said that the requirements of today’s SMB market are the main drivers for the company to innovate. There are over seven million SMB units in India and D-Link remains focused to cater to this segment.

“We are proud that our investments in product development are bearing fruit and we are looking at achieving greater profitability and returns on the commercial success from our R&D center developed products,” said KR Naik, executive chairman, D-Link India Ltd. On the firm’s unique sales and distribution channel, Dalal said that D-Link has 22 distributors in India serving specific markets and only D-Link products. “This helps us to serve customers better.”

source (http://www.ciol.com/content/31207101910.aspx)

A Swedish team visiting the country is holding talks with companies in Technopark campus here to explore possibilities of business deals between IT firms of the two countries.

The Swedish team consisted of Maria Johansson of Aurorum Science Park, and Michael Nilsson of Center for Distance-Spanning Technology (CDT) of the Lulea University of Technology in Sweden.

Speaking to IANS, Johansson said that they held exploratory talks with a few IT companies in Technopark and have been impressed with the outcome.

"The possible areas of future cooperation between Swedish companies and IT firms here include outsourcing solutions and product development," said Johansson.

Aurorum Science Park is a member of SISP (Swedish Incubators and Science Parks), an umbrella organization for technology and science parks in Sweden.

Nilsson told IANS that they would now work as facilitators for Swedish companies who are looking forward to striking deals in places like Kerala that have good positions on the human development index.

"Our visit is the second after a team from Sweden, part of 'Invest in Sweden Agency', visited here early this year. We will now discuss with interested companies in Sweden on what we have seen here at Technopark. We are confident that possible links between Sweden and Technopark would be charted out," said Nilsson.

The role of CDT is to support their partners and customers in embracing new opportunities. CDT's specialty is to generate and exploit groundbreaking innovations with and for their partners.

Technopark houses 130 IT companies, which employs more than 17,000 people.source (http://www.zdnetindia.com/index.php?action=article&prodid=14900&chid=130&Ref=Business)

Chandigarh-based Dr IT Planets Ltd, which is in the business of software development, research and business process outsourcing (BPO), has plans to set up an IT special economic zone (SEZ) in Greater Noida.

The company has been allotted 10 acres by the Greater Noida Development Authority for the SEZ. Besides, the company plans to increase its call centre seating capacity at Noida and to set up new call centre in Mohali (Punjab). The company has allocated Rs 25 crore for the projects.

Speaking to Business Standard, Dr IT Planets Ltd Executive Director (Corporate Affairs) Deepti Mahajan said: “The work on the proposed SEZ would start by next financial year. It would be a state-of-the-art and would also boast of incubation facilities for IT companie

Source (http://www.business-standard.com/general/storypage_general.php?&autono=305934)

BAE Systems and WIPRO in aerospace partnership (http://www.consultant-news.com/article_display.aspx?p=adp&id=4261)



The arrangement follows a memorandum of agreement signed by BAE Systems and Wipro in June.


BAE Systems and WIPRO in aerospace partnership

BAE Systems and Wipro have signed an agreement to work jointly on commercial aerospace projects.

In a partnership spanning BAE Systems' operations in Johnson City, New York and Rochester, UK and Wipro Technologies operations in Hyderabad and Bangalore, the companies will combine efforts on the design of subsystems for the air transport and business jet markets. They will also cooperate on developing subsystems for aircraft engines.

The agreement also establishes technical development centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore, the first step in partnership that could see the two companies cooperating globally in the defence and aerospace markets.

"This vital strategic partnership combines the strengths of two high performing organizations, enabling us to better serve current customers and the emerging Indian defence and aerospace market," said Dave Herr, vice president of commercial avionics for BAE Systems.

Through the agreement, a number of Wipro staff will be based with BAE Systems in the UK and US work has started in Johnson City, with Wipro staff already on site, and activity will begin at BAE Systems in Rochester before the end of the year.

//

New Delhi, Dec 04: Chinese computer giant Lenovo plans to launch its USD 200 (about Rs 8,000) personal computer in India soon.

"We will launch the product in China first and after getting the feedback we will roll out the device in the Indian market," Lenovo Group USA President and Chief Executive Officer William J Amelio said on the the sidelines of India Economic Summit on Tuesday.

The device would be Internet enabled, he said refusing to divulge further details on the timeline of the launch.

The company is also mulling over exporting notebook from its Baddi plant in Himachal Pradesh.

Amelio also asked the government to provide a uniform tax regime so that it creates a favourable environment for companies like Lenovo to do business in India.

BANGALORE: Global car major General Motors Corp on Tuesday announced setting up a new Collaborative Research Lab (CRL) in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur to carry out research in areas of electronics, controls and software.

The partners also announced that a new educational curriculum would be jointly developed leading to a post-graduate degree in these fields

Source (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/GM_ties-up_with_IIT_Kharagpur_for_research/articleshow/2594918.cms)

MUMBAI: Power equipment maker Siemens Ltd on Tuesday said its Rs 200-crore power transformer factory at Kalwa near Mumbai would provide job opportunities to 1,500 people.

"The new manufacturing facility would provide direct employment to about 500 people and indirect jobs to about 1,000 people, when in full production," Siemens Ltd said in a communique to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The greenfield factory would design and manufacture large transformers of up to 600 Mega Volt Amperes (MVA) and 800 KV voltage class, the maximum voltage established in India at present.

Source (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Latest_News/Siemens_Mumbai_facility_to_create_1500_jobs/articleshow/2594829.cms)

The next time you get that interview call from India's third largest IT services provider, Wipro Ltd, you will probably be asked to do it via video.

Wipro has already screened hundreds of applicants through video kiosks it has set up at three of its campuses — two in Bangalore and one in Chennai. The company shortly plans to extend this concept, and install over 1,000 video phones at all its 20-odd campuses across the country. Each campus accommodates over 2,000 people.

The process is simple, according to Dhananjay Ganjoo, vice-president (enterprise), Nortel India. The kiosk comprises a video phone, provided by Nortel Networks, with a 4x4 inch screen. The cost of each phone is around $250.

The candidate walks into a video kiosk and dials a pre-determined number at the given time. The human resources (HR) person or panelist at the other end picks up the phone and the interview starts.

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=BO&autono=306396&chkFlg=

//

BANGALORE: Technology services and solutions provider to select verticals, Marlabs Inc on Wednesday announced significant expansion of its operations in India with the inauguration of a new 600-seater facility here.

With this move, Marlabs has successfully integrated their three facilities here under one roof and aims to build on offshoring relationships with a growing list of clientele to facilitate growth plans in India, a Marlabs release said.

This facility will enable product development, application development and support in India, which implies that significant domain knowledge and IP would be build in India as well, it said.

This gives Marlabs an edge to expand in India, provide better support to its rapidly growing customer base and tap into the world-class engineering talent available here, the release said.

Sunil Nambiar, Head-Global Delivery, Marlabs India said: "With this facility in place we are looking at increasing our headcount to over 2000 in the next two years".

Submitted by JohnT on December 5, 2007 - 10:33.

Bangalore, 5th December, ‘07: The first edition of Bangalore Nano organized by Dept. of IT, BT and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and MM Activ will be inaugurated tomorrow 6th Dec, 07 amidst some of the leading Investors, Industry stalwarts, Scientists, Heads of Research & Development Organizations, Premier Institutions and Multinational Companies. It is the first major event of its kind in India in bridging the Research-Industry Gap in Nanotechnology. This two day long event will be held at the Grand Ashok Hotel, Bangalore.

Addressing the press conference Prof. C. N. R. Rao, Chairman, Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Honorary President, JNCASR said, “Nanotechnology is creating great excitement in the field of science. The technology cuts across all disciplines and appeals everyone from scientists, engineers, industrialists, investors and governments. India made a beginning in Nanotechnology and Bangalore Nano is the first large scale nanotechnology event in India. Bangalore Nano would bring in all stakeholders in the field to discuss and share their ideas and to envision a roadmap for India in Nanotechnology.”

“The Nanotechnology would see its applications in curing cancer and neural disorders and in industries like Pharmaceutics, Metallurgy and Electronics. The potential market size is estimated to be $100bn in 10 years. Ideally, India should get into the manufacturing of sensors in a big way as it is a Knowledge based industry.” Added Prof. Rao.

Shri. M. N. Vidyashankar, Secretary to Karnataka Government, Dept of IT, BT & Science & Technology said, “We are in the state of absolute readiness to host the 1st edition of Bangalore Nano for which European Union is partnering with us. Bangalore Nano would see big representation from Australia, Germany and China as delegates. In total, 400 delegates have confirmed their participation. 400 students from 23 colleges in and around Bangalore would attend a special session on 7th December. This particular session aims to ignite young minds on the prospects of Nanotechnology in today’s world.”

Speaking on the Nanotechnology institute coming up in Bangalore, Shri. Vidyashankar, said, “The Karnataka government would hand over 15 acres of land to set up Indian Institute of Nano Science and Technology in Bangalore. The institute already received a funding of 100 crores from the Central Government.”

Eminent researchers and industrialists in the field of Nanotechnology across the world would address the delegates during the two day event. The two highlight events of Bangalore Nano are Research Industry Collaboration Hub [RICH] and the poster session. RICH aims in bridging the gap between research and industry. There would be 18 teams of researchers from leading institutes in India making their presentations in front of industrialists and venture capitalists. After making the presentation the researchers would get to meet them in closed doors to discuss about the possible commercialization of their work. Poster Session would see researchers from institutes across the country presenting their papers. In total there would be 54 research papers from four IITs, BITS Pilani, JNCASR and more.

6 Dec 2007, 0109 hrs IST,Sujit John & Mini Joseph Tejaswi,TNN

BANGALORE: Dell's R&D division in India is shutting down its core area of hardware design, a segment for which it had big plans about a year ago. The company's site directors Vivek Mansingh and Kef Salestieu held a meeting with the staff of the division in Bangalore and explained that the work being done by the hardware unit in India is to be moved to the computer maker's facilities in Austin (US) and Taiwan.

Estimates for the number of people who will lose their jobs in India on account of this vary between a few dozens to about 170. The division has about 500 people. Sources said that employees who have to leave have been given one-and-a-half months to find alternative jobs.

A Dell India spokesperson confirmed that hardware design will move out. "Our future mission in India has been redefined. The country has great strengths in software. So our focus here will be on software development, solutions, testing and documentation. We will be hiring people in these areas," he said.

The R&D division has been steadily losing its employees over the past couple of months on account of no work coming into India. One former employee, who quit Dell about a month ago, said he had been hired late last year with promises of challenging work. "Dell said it wanted to do high end work in the enterprise hardware development space and in enterprise software management. But I ended up working on mundane stuff," he said.

At the meeting, the official reason stated for shifting the division out of Bangalore was rising costs in the city. But some employees noted that the reason does not hold water, because Austin and Taiwan are likely to be more expensive. "I think it was because of sheer mismanagement that the division has had to be wound up. I was part of the senior management of the division, and I can tell you there were no systems and processes in place, and there were too many expats," he said.

A Dell employee said the platform engineering group set up to design a new server slated to be launched during the first quarter of 2008 has already been closed down.

Staff Report

Dubai: Mercator, the IT division of Dubai-based Emirates Group, has officially opened a dedicated development centre in Bangalore, India.

The centre has been established in partnership with Covansys, a company in India.

The centre will be an extension of Mercator's Dubai-based headquarters, in which more than 1,500 staff develop and deliver IT solutions. It will provide capacity over and above the already expanding Dubai operation, boosting Mercator's ability to meet the IT needs of its customers.

Through the centre, Mercator will offer IT services and support to ensure operational efficiency and timely delivery of projects, allowing Mercator increased flexibility and scalability in terms of delivery. The facility is expected to grow rapidly.

BANGALORE, INDIA: Vanu, Inc., a developer of software radio solutions for cellular operators, announced today that it has opened a research and development center in Bangalore.

The new R&D center is a subsidiary of Vanu, Inc., and plans to expand its staff starting in 2008 to develop 3G and 4G waveforms in India. The centre will focus on technologies like EGPRS/EDGE. New product plan will include the development of 3G/UMTS Radio Network Controller.

“India is extremely important both as growth market and as a center for high quality research and development,” said Dr. Vanu Bose, CEO of Vanu, Inc. “Our technology changes the wireless industry from a hardware-based industry into a software industry, and the high level of skill and experience of Indian developers in applications software and networking make India an ideal place to grow our development teams."

"In addition, I am very excited by the prospect that our shared infrastructure product may provide a cost effective way to bring cellular telephony to the 100’s of millions of people in rural India who don’t have any form of telephony today.”

Vanu Inc is the developer of Anywave Software Radio solution, the first software radio citified by U.S Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The device uses a processor, which can handle two waveforms simultaneously. It is the only infrastructure solution available in the wireless industry, which simultaneously operates multiple standards on a single system.

It has the ability to run GSM and CDMA simultaneously on a single network. This will hopefully help Indian operators to take advantages of many of the spectrum rules changes currently under discussion.

source (http://www.ciol.com/content/61207102007.aspx)

Bangalore now to emerge as India's nano-technology hub

Dec 6, 2007, 10:32 GMT

Bangalore, Dec 6 (IANS) Having triggered the growth of IT and biotechnology, this silicon city of India is set to spearhead development of nano-science and nano-technology in the country.

Inaugurating 'Bangalore Nano 2007' here Thursday, Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur said the state government was collaborating with Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) to foster nano-science and nano-technology, leveraging the rich talent pool and science and technology (S&T) resources in the state.


'The state government has taken a lead in exploring priority areas of nano-scientific research and technology. A modest beginning was made last year and in the current fiscal (2007-08), budgetary support has been made to promote nano-technology,' Thakur told about 500 delegates participating in the two-day event.


With nano-technology becoming a talking point in the scientific community, Thakur said developments in the emerging field herald multiple opportunities.


'As an inter-disciplinary field touching all aspects of life, nano-science will herald a new world order. Applications of nano-technology in diverse products are estimated to be $15 billion,' Thakur pointed out.


'The sunrise sector holds huge opportunities as its increased usage and wider application have the potential to generate new business valued at $1 trillion over the next decade,' he added.


In recognition of eminent scientist C.N.R. Rao's contributions to the development of nano-technology, the governor presented him the first Bangalore Nano national award, instituted by the state government as part of the event.


Rao, chairman of science advisory council to the prime minister and president of JNCASR, heads the vision group on nano-technology in Karnataka.


The Bangalore 'nano' convention is being positioned as an ideal forum for researchers and industrialists to interact and explore possibilities of applications of nano-technology in electronics, bio-pharmaceuticals and engineering.


As chief mentor of the event, Rao said nano-technology cuts across all disciplines and appeals to everyone, especially scientists, engineers, industrialists, investors and governments.


'India has made a beginning in nano-technology and Bangalore 'Nano' is the first event to bring all stakeholders in the field to discuss ideas and envision a roadmap for the country in such an exciting field,' Rao noted.


State science and technology secretary M.N. Vidyashankar said the central government has granted Rs.1 billion to Karnataka, out of the Rs.10-billion fund created to promote nano-science and nano-technology in the 11th five-year plan (2007-12), to set up a 'nano' centre on the outskirts of the city.


'The centre has selected three cities - Bangalore, Mohali near Chandigarh and Kolkata - for setting up the Institute of Nano Science and Technology. We have earmarked 14 acres of land as the state's contribution to locate the institute under the guidance of Rao,' Vidyashankar added.


Nano-science is the study of phenomena on the scale of about 1-100 nanometre (one billionth of a metre).


Nano-technology is the ability to create and control objects on the same scale with the object of preparing novel materials having specific properties and functions.

Infotech to recruit 800 (http://www.business-standard.com/iceworld/storypage.php?leftnm=8&subLeft=1&chklogin=N&autono=306759&tab=r)



Infotech Enterprises, that provides digitizing services, software development and consultancy services, expects verticals like power and telecom to contribute close to 25 per cent to its overall turnover.

At present, power and telecom verticals contribute close to 15 per cent to the company's turnover. The company’s biggest business currently comes from the services it provides for the aerospace sector which makes up for about 30 per cent of its overall turnover.

The company employs 6,200 people at present, and plans to recruit 800 more by March 2008. Infotech, at present, has campuses in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Noida. It recently forayed into tier I and II cities with offices in Vizag and Kakinada.

"Real estate prices as well as attrition rates in tier I and II cities are half as compared to metropolitan cities," informed BVR Mohan Reddy, chairman and managing director of Infotech Enterprises. At present, Infotech Enterprises has an attrition rate of 12.5 per cent.

According to Reddy, emerging technologies are diverting customer interests towards new services beyond traditional voice telephony.

With high-speed voice, data and video services offered by cable companies, satellite carriers, wireless broadband providers, cellular firms and new fiber-based carriers, there is significant competition in the telecom market space.

"This, in turn, will drive demand for Infotech's solutions and services business in the telecom space," Reddy said.

Growth in business for Infotech will also come from the power and energy vertical.

World energy demand is expected to grow at 1.7 per cent per annum till 2030. Oil and gas would meet almost 90 per cent of energy needs.

As energy companies make significant investment in engineering services and IT to reduce cost and create new revenue streams, demand for services for gas, steam, wind turbines and diesel engines are going to contribute the maximum to Infotech's business growth.

According to Reddy, the aerospace industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world and Infotech provides solutions to its customers enabling them overcome various challenges that they encounter in their day-to-day operations.

The aerospace industry is also looking to build a business model that can easily scale up and down in response to the dynamic and cyclic nature of demand.

Global product development is a key element of such a flexible, scalable model that offers benefits such as increased speed to market, lower costs and enhanced flexibility.

"We have completed over five million person hours on aerospace projects and have gained extensive domain knowledge in aerospace engineering," said Reddy.

Alright everyone listen up. Can we please stop posting trivial developments in the IT industry like whose recruiting how many people and whose hosting a roadshow/conference?

If you want to post about them, then posting just the hyperlinked headline is fine. like this:

SSC-India to recruit 100 new members (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=450)

Tweaking the headline with the right information is also ok. like this:

SSC-India to recruit 100 new members from Goa (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=450)

Vanu establishes R&D Center in Bangalore
2007-12-08 17:05:56

Vanu®, Inc., a leader in the development of software radio solutions for cellular operators, announced today that it has opened a research and development center in Bangalore, India. Tapping India’s impressive resource of software engineering talent demonstrates Vanu’s continuing commitment to speed the pace of innovation while offering new solutions that are tailored to emerging markets, particularly India’s rural communities. According to Pradeep Malhotra, Managing Director of Vanu India Pvt Ltd, the research and development center is a subsidiary of Vanu, Inc., and plans to expand its staff starting in 2008 to develop 3G and 4G waveforms in India.

....................more at this below link

source:
http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/pressnews/vanu-establishes-rd-centerbangalore/19/25/316506

IT’s glorious opportunities and daunting challenges

T. Ramavarman P. Venugopal

There are jobs aplenty and lots to ponder as the State rides the information technology boom

With IT companies beginning to look at Kerala as a potential investment destination, the State is in for major investment and employment generation and this is likely to bring in its wake major challenges for the government.

The industry sees very good talent on offer here at a cost much lower than that in the big metros, good communication connectivity, a society quite cosmopolitan in attitude, the best of living conditions and, of course, sparkling environs. And it will not be just Kochi, or the capital city Thiruvananthapuram. The State is more of a sprawling town homogeneous all over in attributes attractive to the IT industry, unlike most other States with disconnected urban pockets in rambling landscapes of backward villages.

Experts believe that there are at least a dozen towns in the State ideal for IT companies. The Government’s IT Policy aims at developing all such towns for the industry along with Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi in a hub-and-spoke model so that the trickle down effect of prosperity too will be distributed evenly across the State. New IT parks at Palakkad, Kozhikode, Alappuzha and Kollam are already in the sprouting stage.

The IT industry employs over 30,000 professionals in the State at the moment, 17,000 of them at the Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram, and 5,000 at the Infopark in Kochi.

The State’s software exports were in the region of Rs.800 crore last year, according to the estimates of Software Technology Parks of India. “This is a gross underestimation, probably because many companies report their turnovers from their headquarters outside the State. The turnover per IT professional cannot be lower than Rs.20 lakh a year. The Technopark and the Infopark, employing more than 22,000 professionals, should by themselves be having more than Rs.4,000 crore of annual export business,” says N. Radhakrishnan Nair, Technopark Chief Executive Officer.

“We are looking at something like one lakh new IT jobs in the State in the next two years. Leading firms such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS, L&T and the Leela Group are working on building facilities here. Some of them want to set up parks as Special Economic Zones,” says IT Secretary Ajayakumar.

Sajan Pillai, Chief Operating Officer of the UST Global, which employs the largest number of IT professionals in the State, and the company’s Technopark unit chief Alexander Verghese say that the present trend will take the number of IT jobs in the State to nearly one million in the next four or five years. They base their forecast on a surmise that at least 10 per cent of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) projection of IT job generation in the country during this period will be in Kerala.

Soft skills

The opportunities also throw up big challenges. The first concerns training the youth in skills beyond the ones they imbibe in the colleges to make them ‘employable’ with the necessary communication and computer skills, aptitude for IT and a ‘global attitude’ to the profession because IT is a global business.

“Finishing schools have to come up in a big way across the State to help us make the best of the opportunity. The times to come will see not just engineering graduates, but also a large number of graduates in other disciplines getting jobs in the IT sector,” says Mr. Sajan Pillai.

The curriculum will have to be revised and constantly put through fresh revisions in tune with the job market needs, he feels.

The Chief Minister’s IT Advisor feels that the government and the industry will have to show the way with right models of finishing schools and he is confident that private entrepreneurship will do the rest.

Entrepreneurship is waking up in Kerala, one can see it happening all over the State, he says. Ashokan Njarackal, a free software campaigner, is of the view that entrepreneurial skills too require nurturing.

Private players

Then there is the challenge of infrastructure and finding the resources to build it. Industry leaders suggest a string of self-contained ‘techno-cities’ in the State with good road and air connectivity.

Should it be the government’s own responsibility or should the private sector also be asked to chip in?

Ideological confusions, if any, may have to be sorted out fast. At the same time, the State has to guard against the danger of throwing the field totally open to real estate exploitation.

“The government knows the danger,” says the Chief Minister’s political secretary K.N. Balagopal.

“A joint sector company, with majority stake for the government, is being set up to facilitate investment and build IT parks all over the State. In Smart City’s case, we insisted that 70 per cent of the built-up space should be exclusively for the IT industry. Such safeguards may become necessary for other private parks too.”

On road to changes

The State is on the threshold of a change, the nature and scale of which have no precedents. The change that happened when the Gulf job market opened up in the 1970s was of a different nature altogether because a bulk of its beneficiaries belonged to the rural working class. Ultimately, it was more of a levelling process that happened in society through the Gulf boom.

In the present case, the so-called digital divide will take quite some time to vanish, notwithstanding the ‘Akshaya’ computer literacy programme of the government. Also, income divide will be a stark reality.

The emerging new section will also pressurise the system for a higher and higher share of the resources, from the government and society.

The State is entering uncharted seas. Somewhere out on the unfolding expanse, glorious promises await it; as also unknown dangers. This is the time when those who steer the ship will have to keep a very tight vigil.


Link (http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/10/stories/2007121055190500.htm)

Trivandrum accounts for nearly 80% of the IT industry in Kerala and Cochin for most of the rest, but the Government is trying to expand the industry across the state. :okay:

Deleted.....double post!

US-based co sets up Bangalore development centre

Bangalore (PTI): US-based Technosoft Corporation, a leading player in the outsourcing services, on Monday announced the setting up of the Bangalore development centre as part of its expansion plans in India.

The company, which focuses on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO), had set up its operations in Chennai in 2005 whereover 350 persons are currently employed.

"We have decided to extend our Indian operations and leverage the large pool of skilled resources in Bangalore to service our growing client base", said Rajiv Tandon, CEO of Technosoft Corporation.

"Our overall plan is to expand our existing centres of excellence here as well as launch a new portfolio of service offerings from Bangalore," he added.

The Bangalore centre is expected to employ 200 professionals over the next 12 months,a company statement said.

Currently, Technosoft has a strength of over 500 in the US and around 350 in India. Revenue in 2006 clocked around USD 50 million and its services spread across areas of applications and BPO, IT consulting and staff augmentation.

Research Scholars,Students,Innovators... A Product for you!!!

Thomson has launched a High end new intellectual property research and analysis solution, "Thomson Innovation". For the first time, researchers will be able to simultaneously search Worldwide editorially enhanced Patent data, Asian patent data translated into English, Scientific literature, and Business and news sources.

Chennai Techies' contribution to the World's scientific community.Check out the link.

http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=40390

BANGALORE, INDIA : IBM today announced its plan to set up an SOA Leadership Center in Bangalore to address the growing demand for skills needed to solve customer business challenges using Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).


The center would be the first of its kind in Asia Pacific and the fourth of a series of SOA Leadership Centers planned across the world. The Center will become fully functional during the first quarter of 2008.


IBM’s Global SOA experts will work in the center with the focus on SOA education and training; SOA implementation support; and SOA exhibitions and demonstrations.


The SLC will offer training and instruction from leading SOA experts; certification and joint education programs with top local universities; as well as access to industry models and SOA best practices and proven methodologies based on the IBM’s worldwide experience.


"Opening this center is a direct response to what our customers in India are demanding," said Panini Dwivedi, country manager - WebSphere, Software Group, IBM India/ SA. "Now the SOA Leadership Center can help customers develop the skills and knowledge to help enable them to use an SOA to attain business goals. Partnering with local universities will also be a major focus of the center, with a goal of building SOA skills in the emerging work force in India," added Dwivedi.

Source (http://www.ciol.com/content/121207102148.aspx)

BANGALORE, INDIA: Microland, a leading Indian IT Infrastructure Management Outsourcing Services Provider has announced the launch of its Global Tech Support Centre, which will house 750 personnel supporting global customers across 13 countries. The new facility will process over four million transactions a year. The facility which is located at Ecospace on Outer Ring Road was inaugurated by his Rameshwar Thakur, Governor of Karnataka. The new facility has been built using best-of-breed telecom technology from Avaya and Nortel. Integrating voice, email and chat support, Microland’s Global Tech Support Center’s uniqueness rests in the fact that the centre integrates tech support with IT Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) capability.

According to Pradeep Kar, Chairman and Managing Director, Microland, “Indian companies continually aim at moving up the value chain to command higher margins. Our move to launch a separate Global Tech Support Centre integrated with IMS is to increase our capabilities in providing high end services to meet the demands of our global customers. Tech Support and Infrastructure Management outsourcing are growing at a faster pace than traditional software development and Business Process Outsourcing.”

Earlier in the year, Microland inaugurated India’s first Multi Network Operations Center Facility housing 6 Network Operation Centers, 6 Technology Labs, 1 Penetration Testing Center and 4 Data Centers amongst other facilities. Microland has already been recognized as one of the Top 10 Best Performing Infrastructure Services Providers in 2007 by Global Services 100.
Source (http://www.ciol.com/content/121207102153.aspx)

GM Design Drives Into Bangalore

The new Design Center is the eleventh GM design studio worldwide—and situated in one of the fastest-growing emerging car markets in the world
by Eric Gallina

General Motors has opened a new Design Center in Bangalore, India. The new facility is the eleventh GM design studio worldwide and is of significant importance as it is situated in one of the fastest-growing emerging car markets in the world.

In a move to expand GM's operations and design services in India and other parts of the world, the GM India Design Studio, which is located at the GM Technical Center-India (GMTCI), is India's first digital design studio. Its new infrastructure consists of technologies such as a clay milling capability along with supporting equipment and virtual reality technology. High-tech visualization equipment will allow for surface quality reviews, which are needed to support interior trim work, and will also enhance the digital (Alias) surfacing skills of the GMTCI team through their interaction with clay.

"The design studio in Bangalore will serve as an important component of GM's 11-member global design network," said GM Vice President of Global Design, Ed Welburn, presiding over the inauguration of the new facility. "By leveraging the unmatched global resources and best practices of the GM Group, it will carry out important projects for GM in India as well as work with other design facilities on a worldwide basis."

The GM India Design Studio will complement the four-year-old GMTCI—one of four GM technical centers in the Asia Pacific region—which has a base of more than 900 employees carrying out research and development and engineering work for GM in India and globally. In addition to supporting a global design strategy for GMTCI, the studio will become a center of expertise for interior trim and component surfacing, and also play a key role for the GM Design network as a 'listening post' in India, gathering information to better understand local product design requirements. It will employ over 60 people by the end of this year.

The new facility will work with GM's Halol manufacturing facility in Gujarat, which manufactures the Chevrolet Tavera, Optra, Aveo, Aveo U-VA, SRV and Spark, and contribute to the mid-cycle enhancement of these existing models and the advanced design of future products. GM is planning to build a new manufacturing plant in Maharashtra in the fourth quarter of 2008 to further strengthen its global presence.

Yatra picks up 50% in Batanagar IT project

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, Dec. 13: Riverbank Holdings Pvt Limited, a joint venture between Bata India Limited and Calcutta Metropolitan Group Limited has finalised a 50 per cent equity participation by Yatra Capital Limited for its IT SEZ project to come up at Batanagar. Yatra Capital which is the first India focussed investment company and the first Jersey incorporated company to list on Euronext, Amsterdam, has picked up 50 per cent equity in the project for Rs 117.6 crore. The investment by Yatra has been done by a special purpose company, K2A Commercial.
The IT SEZ is a part of the Calcutta Riverside project which also includes an integrated township spread over an area of 262 acres on the banks of Hooghly river.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Sumit Dabriwala, managing director of RHPL said, the first phase of IT special economic zone will be completed by early 2010 and the entire project including the township is expected to be over by the last quarter of 2012.
The SEZ covering an area of 25 acres will offer a built-up area of 21.92 lakh sq ft comprising 15.73 lakh sq ft for IT processing zone and 6.19 lakh sq ft of housing space dedicated to the IT zone. According to Mr Dabriwala, the SEZ is expected to employ about 30,000 people when completed.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=12&theme=&usrsess=1&id=180528

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=8&subLeft=2&autono=307410&tab=r

Foreign IT firms growing fastest in India

Leslie D'Monte / Mumbai December 13, 2007

For many like IBM it's where they have the biggest staff and are getting the big returns.

India is among the fastest-growing markets for a majority of leading information technology (IT) multinationals (MNCs). Most MNCs do not discuss India figures - except for Dell and IBM.

However, industry estimates peg the turnover of MNCs like Dell, Intel, Microsoft and IBM at much over the half-billion dollar mark. Firms like Cisco are said to have crossed the billion-dollar mark in domestic sales in 2006-07, and a player like HP India is estimated to have an India turnover that is around $2.5 billion.

“We have beefed up our strategy to cater to the mid-market segment which is booming. India is one of the fastest-growing markets for us. Our growth rates range between 40 and 45 per cent, nearly double that of the industry,” said Nitin Chaudhry, director, commercial business (PSG), Hewlett-Packard India.

“The low adoption of IT in the mid-market segment, low penetration of computers in households and institutions and e-governance initiatives are helping all our business divisions - personal systems (which accounts for about 50 per cent of its revenue in India), imaging and printing and technology solutions group - to grow rapidly.”

Firms Revenues*

HP 9,500
IBM 2,800
CISCO 4,200
DELL 2,400
MICROSOFT 2,500
LENOVO 2,600


Indian ITs left behind Indian IT service providers, however, are lagging on this score.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the only player to come anywhere close, with its domestic turnover (including revenues of CMC) totalling a little over $600 million.

Indian MNCs have a strong focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs or the mid-market segment), e-governance projects, and a full suite of offerings (from hardware, software, systems integration and maintenance) which has helped them post growth rates of 25-50 per cent year-on-year.

Big deals
Players like IBM (with about 53,000 employees in India) are strong in the telecom space.

A couple of days back, IBM India signed a $600 billion, five-year outsourcing agreement with Vodafone Essar. It is already working with Bharti Enterprises and Idea, and has entered into big deals with other Indian corporates as well. Its revenues from these deals have crossed the $2 billion-mark.

The management plans to invest $6 billion in India over the next three years.

It hardly came as a surprise, then, that IBM Vice-President (Financial Management) Jesse Green told the media recently: “We expect our revenues (in India) to reach $1 billion by the end of this calendar year, up from $700 million in 2006, driven by strong factors.”

Getting aggressive
“With a US slowdown round the corner and a depreciating dollar, US tech firms are likely to push for export-led growth for earnings. Hence, the Indian market is emerging as a hot spot growth area,” says Alok Shende, head (IT & Telecom), Ovum India.

The aggression to grab more market share is showing. Microsoft India now reports directly to the company’s headquarters in Redmond. It is the only subsidiary outside the US where Microsoft has an end-to-end presence through six business units.

The company, with an estimated turnover of over Rs 3,000 crore, has reworked its price strategy and is localising its offerings. Its Windows operating system (OS) — XP and now Vista - still has over 90 per cent market share and is a leading player in the server OS segment, too.

More examples
India has also become the fastest growing market for the $57 billion IT firm Dell. In its third quarter of financial year 2008, the company posted 47 per cent growth in revenues, as compared with 22 per cent in China. Its India turnover stands at around $600 million (Rs 2,400 crore). India is also Dell’s largest employee base (13,000 employees) outside of the United States.

India is also an important market for Cisco where it has already committed $1.1 billion. It will be launching a huge brand re-positioning campaign in the first quarter of CY2008. Cisco’s IP phones have already hit the Indian market with over 200,000 sold over the last few years.

Intel India is banking on the mobility boom (laptops, mobiles), gaming, SMEs, e-governance, education initiatives and low-cost computing initiatives in India. It is also banking on its WiMax forays in the country.

For Lenovo, India is the only PC market, other than China, that contributes around eight per cent of its revenue in the APAC region.

The IBM legacy has helped in brand recall — especially for the ‘Think Pads’. Oracle India, on its part, controls about two-thirds of the domestic database market and is strong in the e-governance area.

Nortel, on the other hand, has bagged multi-million dollar deals to provide solutions to Indian airports and metro-ethernet solutions to the Indian Railways.

Intuit's Innovation Centre in Bangalore
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Dec 17, 2007

Intuit, a leading global developer of small business accounting and personal finance software, launched its US$7 million product development and innovation centre in Bangalore. The 68,000-square-foot facility is Intuit's second development centre in India, and currently houses 100 employees. It is expected to expand to some 400 employees in the next three years.

Since 2005, Intuit has invested US$18 million in its first development centre in Bangalore, and plans to spend an additional US$40 million in the next three years, bringing its total investment in Bangalore to US$58 million by 2010.

to read full report....
http://www.cxotoday.com/India/News/Intuits_Innovation_Centre_in_Bangalore/551-85276-912.html

Yahoo! Bangalore centre will remain global hub
Mumbai, PTI:

"We have almost 1,500 employees in the Bangalore R&D centre itself, which is a huge number for any one centre," official says.

India will continue to be Yahoo's research and development (R&D) hub for catering to the global information technology market, a top company official said.

more detail....source:
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec172007/business2007121741682.asp?section=updatenews

BANGALORE: Bangalore and Mumbai have emerged as top locations for operations for IT SMEs with 18 and 17.6 per cent of the companies profiled in a Dun & Bradstreet survey operating from these two cities respectively.

IT SMEs are confident of a 65 percent growth in the next two years, surpassing their growth rate of 43 percent in the last two years. This has emerged from Dun & Bradstreet’s study on ‘Emerging IT SMEs of India 2007’, covering 244 IT companies on a pan-India basis that have an annual turnover below Rs 100 million as of March 31, 2007.

The provider of global business and information covered companies from a total of 437 locations across the country. Overseas presence by 28 per cent of the sample encapsulates the changing trend in the SMEs’ perspective.

Companies in the revenue bracket of Rs 10-50 million accounted for almost 50 percent of the profiled companies. The study revealed that despite strong growth prospects, the IT SME sector is witnessing several challenges such as the acute shortage of skilled manpower.

Source (http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE120071219213342&Page=1&Headline=B%27lore+emerges+as+top+location+for+IT+SME+operations&Title=Bangalore&Topic=0&)

Reliance ADAG to launch major IT services unit in Bangalore
Raviprasad Kamila

‘TECH Reliance’ will mark the group’s foray into IT consultancy and services

Bangalore and Mangalore will be the two major centres of the company

Employee strength will be around 2,000

MANGALORE: Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R ADAG), a leading business conglomerate of the country, is planning to launch a new company, “TECH Reliance”. The company will handle Information Technology (IT) consultancy and services. Bangalore and Mangalore will be the two major centres of the company, according to sources in the group.

The sources told The Hindu that Anil Ambani, Chairman of R ADAG, had been watching the IT space keenly for over a year now and had been preparing to enter the sector at an opportune time. Like the group’s foray into other emerging sectors such as entertainment, media, and healthcare; the foray into the IT sector is one of the initiatives that will lead to the next phase of growth for the group.

‘Top 10 IT club’


The sources said that the company aimed to enter the “Top 10 IT club” and within two years be among the top five Indian IT companies, competing with IT stalwarts such as TCS, Wipro, Infosys, IBM and Accenture.

Mr. Ambani has personally handpicked a team of IT professionals to lead this initiative which includes current employees working with R ADAG. This core group of 15 members will lead various roles of “TECH Reliance”.

While the extent of investments being made in the venture are not known, the sources said that the group was ready to enter the “Top 5 club” with an investment of what it would take to get there while maintaining a healthy balance sheet.

The group is looking at Bangalore, the IT capital of the country, as a major centre.

Development centre

A development centre at Bangalore is under the final stages of construction and will be operational in the next few months.

The total employee strength is tipped to be around 2,000, of which around one-third have already been recruited or are in the final stages of being recruited, the sources said.

When contacted, a Reliance spokesperson refused to comment on the development. However, he said, “The group continuously explores new avenues for growth and enhancing value for our stakeholders.

Domestic IT/ITeS market to cross Rs 1,00,000 cr mark in 2008 (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Domestic_ITITeS_market_to_cross_Rs_100K_cr_in_2008/articleshow/2669962.cms)

CHENNAI: Indian domestic IT/ITeS market revenue is likely to touch Rs 1,10,000 crore in 2008, marking a 24 per cent growth, despite a decline in the IT spending worldwide, an industry study has indicated.

For the domestic IT/ITeS sector, year 2008 would also mark the beginning of the second growth phase characterised by the opportunities arising out of leveraging the IT infrastructure built up, leading industry researcher, IDC India, said.

"By posting a substantial jump in the domestic IT/ITeS market since 2002, the industry is now onto a new growth trajectory. IDC India expects a significant transition in the Indian IT market as part of the second growth phase", said Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, IDC India, said.

Among the BRIC countries(Brazil, Russia, India and China), India's revenues would grow fastest at least till 2011, the study said.

However, the worldwide spending on IT would be at a moderate 5.5 - six per cent, down from 6.9 per cent in 2009. This would mainly be triggered by the downside risk in the US market, it said.

Extending new-age services to the Indian enterprises and consumers, the phase will find the 'digital experience' in the telecom sector taken to the 'next level', the study said.

Fixed-line broadband would emerge as a dominant trend, though mobile internet will continue to grow as an alternate internet access medium.

During the first half of 2008, major telecom operators might offer broadband upto eight Mbps to consumers in the metros and a few other key cities.

The study also indicated that the Fixed Mobile Convergence will ensue a new "battle" in the telecom sector in which integrated service providers will gain and the stage would be set for Unified Communications services.

Virtualisation would become mainstream in 2008 and the share of virtualised servers would double from the present 22 per cent to 45 per cent by the year-end. This would also have a positive impact on segments like manufacturing, BFSI (banking, finanacial services and insurance) and aviation.

Further, heightened business risk perceptions and security concern would lead to increased investments in enterprise-wide and client-centric devices and applications.

Small and Medium Business segments would be key to wider market adoption of IT solutions.

//

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), supplier of integrated circuits and processing solutions for computing, today opened its second research and design facility in Hyderabad.

The new 30,000 square-foot centre will accommodate R&D employees focusing on AMD's graphics and computing solutions.

Dirk Meyer, president & COO, AMD, who inaugurated the centre, said: “India’s talented pool of engineering resources makes it one of the most important technology centres in the world. AMD’s inauguration of fourth R&D facility in India and second in Hyderabad is recognition of the calibre of talent and design expertise that resides within the country.”

According to Dasaradha Gude, VP & MD, AMD Hyderabad Research & Development Centre, the original centre has been working on leading edge technology over the last four years. "Those designs are found in most of the popular consumer electronic devices today. The new office showcases how we have grown and will continue to contribute to AMD in the future,” he added.

The R&D team in Hyderabad is involved in very large scale integration (VLSI) and embedded system design for consumer electronics. The centre also hosts AMD’s Centre of Excellence for Audio Technology and has designed multimedia products for leading companies in consumer electronics, including mobile phones, game consoles, LCD panels and TV tuner cards. The centre has also made contributions to AMD’s latest graphics and computing processors.

AMD will continue R&D operations in the original Hyderabad facility as well, the company said.

Bangalore: Availability of ready talent
11 Jan, 2008, 0549 hrs IST, TNN

At the lobby of the Leela Palace, Vishal Sikka is explaining the nuances of a new product , when we interrupt him to ask: Is Bangalore still a heaven for tech enterprise? SAP’s global CTO doesn’t stop to think it over — his answer is unequivocal. “Bangalore’s massive intellectual capital accumulation is irreversible,” he says. “Over the last three years, our lab here has moved up from being a cost centre to a centre of excellence.”

Forget the sceptics — led by home-grown and foreign-returned entrepreneurs, Bangalore’s enterprise beep sounds loud and clear. From being a back-office cost-cutting centre, the city has moved to creating tech solutions and products. The domains are diverse, the funding is professional and the products are cutting edge. “Bangalore leads in high-end technology entrepeneurship,” says Srini Rajam, who headed Texas Instruments India for six years before he left to start Ittiam Systems , a DSP application firm.

Leaving wannabe IT centres like Hyderabad and Pune behind , Bangalore has moved up the value chain. The new wave is best exemplified by telemedicine firm Neurosynaptics, chosen by the World Economic Forum as one of the 39 technology pioneers for its remote medical diagnostics products — the only one from India in a list dominated by 23 US firms.

The recognition is significant for Sameer Sawarkar, the company’s CEO, who is from Indian Institute of Science and has worked in Motorola. “The main draw of Bangalore is the availability of ready talent ,” he says. “The city also has an enterprise community and venture capitalists seeking out big ideas.”

Bangalore’s new breed is not afraid to plunge into areas which were once thought to be the prerogative of the West. In the past, lack of product companies were a big lament of budding techies assembling at Barcamps (informal tech meeting-grounds ). But all that is changing. Companies like Tejas Networks are leading the foray in product development.

Tejas has designed and developed telecom equipment from scratch and even now, it doesn’t manufacture it’s product but outsources production to Thailand — a business model that was hitherto a monopoly of Western companies. “Tech companies from India are making a mark globally,” says Arnob Roy, president, engineering , Tejas Networks. “From IT services, Bangalore is moving to products.”


Within technology, the new companies are targeting domestic markets. One set is targeting consumers with websites around travel, marriage and jobs. A second set is fulfilling the needs of large IT and IT-enabled firms. Aditi Technology’s Pradeep Singh, who also incubated CRM major Talisma, believes Bangalore will lead the way in creating new-gen wireless enabled services. “Given the explosive growth of mobile phones in our country, this is a space that will attract the most original ideas, specifically tailored for India, “ he says.

This is exactly what TeliBrahma , a VC-backed technology start-up which creates products in mobile computing and Internet , is doing. It has deployed a bluetooth infrastructure called Cricket@ksca at Chinnaswamy Stadium, that provides information , mobile content, and cricket updates to spectators.

Logging In

Bangalore’s new wave of enterprise didn’t start overnight. Its roots are embedded in the first phase of tech growth which saw IT services, and later IT enabled services, bursting on the scene. “A region slowly builds an environment within which new ideas and risk-taking thrive,” says Singh. “The key pre-requisite is creating academic and professional opportunities that attract talented young people. This is the role Stanford and Hewlett Packard played in the creation of Silicon Valley. Infosys , Wipro, and TI have played that role in Bangalore.”

Besides luring people, the software majors provided a safety blanket that enabled them to step out of safe jobs and pursue new ideas. S Sundararajan , who also heads the NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at IIMBangalore , says: “IT was the steam engine that triggered growth. It was a vehicle and today’s entrepreneurship is driven by technology.”

Influx of talent, creation of an excellent resource infrastructure — from high-end tech parks to quality vendors — and a strong support system in good schools and hospitals brought in a momentum to Bangalore’s entrepreneurial culture. The tech slowdown in US also pushed many to return and chart an independent course. Says Helion Venture’s MD Kanwaljit Singh: “Transnational and large Indian IT companies created an ecosystem. Stock options created minimillionaires who later ventured on their own.”

Aditi’s Singh is more effusive : “I think there is enough job security — and personal bank balances — for people to give up jobs and risk new businesses. Over the past few years, a lot more risk capital has been made available.”

KB Chandrashekhar, for one, was working with Rolta and Wipro in the US and came down to India to set up business services company e4e Labs in 2000. “More and more customers want IT services companies to become partners in their business,” he says. “This is where domain expertise has a major role to play.”

With most new ventures offering cutting-edge work, job satisfaction and talent retention is less of a problem. “For start-ups that play in the higher end of the value chain involving design, analysis and R&D , Bangalore still offers one of the best sources of talent both at entry level and lateral levels,” says Vijay Menon, VPmarketing , Quest.

MNC tech giants

Cisco and Intel, with their R&D bases in Bangalore, have been incubating and funding startups through their financing arms. To boot, the very excesses that fed the internet boom provided the basis of the sunrise sectors: venture capital, entrepreneurship culture, R&D institutions like IISc and the cluster effort of a large number of related companies.



Unlike the IT services firms and MNCs, which needed large numbers of people and thousand-acre campuses, the new start-ups don’t need huge space or people. Mobile solutions provider TeliBrahma’s Narasimha Suresh was 29 years old when he started his firm, with five people and zero investment . The company has since grown to become what Deloitte recently called “the fastest growing technology company in the country.”

“When I started in 2004, a lot of start-ups got investments ,” he says. “Most of them were first time entrepreneurs , with lots of experience and expertise in the mobility market.”

The Bugs

But there are some bugs. One problem is entry-level funding . In Silicon Valley, angel investment is a critical part of the start-up funding cycle and takes on the role of identifying new start-ups . In India, angel activity — deal sizes at this stage are in the Rs 20-30 lakh range — can at best be described as sporadic. Tejas Networks is perhaps one of the early examples of a company conceived and seeded under the guidance of an angel investor — Indian-American serial entrepreneur Gururaj Deshpande. “A ngel investing is still not big. Most of the funding is second round or late-stage ,” says Helion’s Kanwaljit Singh.

The solution, however, has come in the form of high networth individuals, including successful entrepreneurs, grouping together to form networks . Second, venture capital firms focused on angel-type investments have cropped up: Bangalore-based Erasmic Venture Funds typically invests less than $1 million per company.

Other cities are also attracting enterprise capital and the future may see stiff competition , but the pie right now is big enough.

People costs are not a bug yet. Since these newer startups offer niche or high-value services, customers do not mind paying rates well above industry averages and this compensates for the higher cost of talent. But Quest’s Menon says, “If a start-up intends to play in the middle or lower ends of the value chain where pricing power is minimal , Bangalore is no longer the only place.”

Another drawback that Singh of Aditi mentions is that “there haven’t been enough role models of personal success for young people. We need more Sabeer Bhatia’s , young people who have succeeded quickly with a great idea, not just the NRNs and Premjis who have executed relentlessly for 20 years.”

For many, Bangalore is still a Silicon Valley waiting to happen . For others, there can’t be another Silicon Valley. Never mind this very obvious comparison , Bangalore — given its ecosystem, people and funds — is still at the very top of the enterprise heap today.

IT opportunities & challenges in Russia

By Vladimir Radyuhin

Last year Russia emerged as the third largest outsourcing destination after India and China. Innovation and ownership of software could bring in lot of respect and royalty income. Imagine all set top boxes,DVDs,modems,wireless products,routers etc. (in embedded stuff) run Indian conceived,developed and owned software. We must progress to the next stage.


President of Intel Russia Steve Chase agrees that Russians are the best in tackling complex problems. "The policy we have at Intel is simple," he said in an interview. "If we can, we commit difficult problems to engineers in the U.S. If the task is very labour-intensive, we assign it to Indian specialists. If the problem cannot be solved, we offer it to Russians."

Deutsche Bank’s Daniel Marovitz explains the difference between Indian and Russian programmers:

"In India, people want to say ‘yes’ to please and to follow instructions. That can create problems sometimes. In Russia, people aren’t afraid to tell you that you have a silly idea that makes no sense whatsoever. But that’s what you need."

A study by the global research firm IDC last year revealed that many U.S. and West European corporations even today prefer Russian IT providers to Indian ones. Their choice is influenced by such advantages of Russian firms as the ability to implement complex projects, creativity and problem-solving oriented thinking.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/19/stories/2008011958851100.htm

29 Indian firms among top 100 IT-BPO cos..

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c_online.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=33178

Karnataka right on coarse to touch IT exports of Rs 70,000 crores this year compared to Rs 48,860 cr last year.

Sierra Atlantic opens new campus in Hyderabad (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/04/stories/2008020450681700.htm)



Hyderabad, Feb. 3 Sierra Atlantic has announced the inauguration of the first phase of its campus, built with an investment of $14 million, located in Hyderabad.

The CEO of Sierra, Mr Raju Reddy, in a statement said: “The campus will enhance the company’s ability to scale-up operations as per customer demand. Sierra Atlantic continues to move up the value chain, delivering higher level of IT services with the added benefits of offshore cost savings.”

The first phase of the campus has a total built-up area of 2-lakh square feet and will house 1,500 employees. Phase II of the campus, which will occupy a total built-up area of 3,50,000 square feet, is planned to accommodate an additional 3,500 employees.

HCL Tech set to clinch $1 bn outsourcing deal

Information technology services provider HCL Technologies is close to clinching a $1 billion (about Rs 3,950 crore) outsourcing contract from a European telecommunications company.

According to sources, the application development deal could be spread over a period of six years and touch $1 billion from its initial value of $500 million (about Rs 1,950 crore).

A Newswire18 report quoted a note by UBS Investment Research to investors. Analysts reacting to the note hinted that the European company could be BT, formerly British Telecom.
Read On (http://www.businessstandard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=312735&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=)

http://www.searchnewz.com/blog/talk/sn-6-20080207IndiaHasHighestNumberOfGooglersAfterTheUS.html

India Has Highest Number Of Googlers After The US!

As Google has grown so has its Indian operations, today India has the second-largest operations of Google worldwide in terms of employee count. Google operates in four prime locations...

...in India Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Moreover, as far as advertising revenues are concerned, India has become the highest growth market for Google.

Google is also eying the growing Indian mobile users and is investing huge amounts in R&D focusing on the Indian market. The special stress is being laid upon delivery of services to the mobile phone users in the country.

India is a very important part of our operations, globally,said Google India Managing Director Shailesh Rao. We have had a large engineering and operations presence through the R&D centre and global sales & support centres in India. But, the focus in the recent times has been to ramp up the market-facing capabilities for servicing the Indian market. This part is expected to clock the highest growth for Google India in the coming quarters.

A large number of Indians use mobile devices for data services for short messaging or WAP applications. Google's services would be targeted to this set of users.

We are looking at ways to provide information to users who are usually challenged with respect to access by providing transliteration capabilities while they are on the move, just as we have done for our online products, he said pointing to Google team's focus on creating non-Hindi and non-English capabilities for mobile device users.

While for Google's Indian operations are second in terms of Googlers, on the other hand for Yahoo! it's the number of Yahoo! Groups which are the second largest in India,

CHENNAI, INDIA: Polaris Software Lab Limited today announced that it has set up a Center of Excellence (COE) in Bangalore to serve the increasing demand from retail banking customers using SAP solutions.

Polaris’ new COE will support the business process platform for banking from SAP and subsequently collaborate in implementations and consulting.

Bikash Mathur, executive vice president and head of Polaris Europe, said, “This center will leverage our domain expertise to fulfill the market demand for solutions delivered on business process platform for banking from SAP. The solutions are expected to change the customer service paradigm for banks.”

Source (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Polaris-sets-up-CoE-in-Bangalore/7208103521/0/)

Wipro clinches $100m IT contract (http://news.crippssears.com/index.php?id=2908&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=11055&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=2907&cHash=fa1731a86c)

Wipro has been awarded a $100 million contract to provide Saudi Arabian Airlines with IT services, reports a source.

The company will build the airline's infrastructure as it goes through an extensive business transformation exercise, in a contract which is set to last for five years.

It will help the airline to become more customer focussed including consolidating the datacentre and integrating and managing its secure network.

Wipro has teamed up with the Dar Al Riyadh Group on this project, creating the company Wipro Arabia.


domestic clients are on the rise-

Wipro Infotech gets $50mn Pantaloon order (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c_online.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=33722)

Wipro Infotech, the India, Middle East & Asia Pacific IT business unit of Wipro, today announced it has won a $50 million five year outsourcing contract from Pantaloon Retail.

Pantaloon has selected Wipro for delivering IT operations to support its expansion plans. Wipro Infotech would be responsible for rolling out and managing IT operations across all Pantaloon outlets. The company will deliver infrastructure management and application support services, managed security services and data centre hosting, operations & management services.

Thiruvananthapuram and, to a lesser extent, Kochi, have emerged as popular destinations for IT companies.


KPMG report (http://www.in.kpmg.com/pdf/TiE08.pdf)

News source (http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=202025&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22)

IT majors asked to tap tier II cities (http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/12/stories/2008021259350400.htm)



HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy has appealed to information technology majors like the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to tap the growth potential in tier-II cities in the State and gave an assurance that the Government would provide world class infrastructure, good law and order situation and congenial atmosphere.

Inaugurating Synergy Park (SEZ unit) -- TCS’ second Global Delivery Centre (GDC) and its largest facility in the city here on Monday — the Chief Minister mentioned that there was lot of human resources talent in tier-II cities like Visakhapatnam and Tirupati. With the inauguration of the first phase of the Rs. 750-crore facility, the construction of the second phase would begin in April this year.

Lauding the company’s commitment in having its presence in the State, he mentioned how TCS and the State government had partnered in providing better services to the people and added that the association was growing in strength.

Third campus

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director S. Ramadorai announced that a third campus of the TCS would be established at Adibatla, near the Hyderabad International Airport. It would provide employment to 15,000 people. He said A.P. became the most preferred off-shore destination. He said TCS was making significant investments in creating top class infrastructure to serve global and domestic customers.

Jha said that Karnataka continued to dominate other Indian states in terms of attractiveness as an IT destination and Bangalore still seemed to be at the topmost, despite concerns of growing pollution and over urbanisation.

Andhra Pradesh, backed by the emergence of Hyderabad as a major IT hub, ranks second in the index, followed by Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, while West Bengal had ranked fifth among the 17 states into consideration, he added.
Source (http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/feb/19wb.htm)

With 140 IT and ITES companies working at the Technopark campus, more companies are looking forward to set up shop at the park here.

Several IT firms have expressed interest to set up shop, M. Vasudevan, a top official attached to the Technopark told.

"Of these, Satyam and Ford Business Solutions are the major IT companies who have already shown deep interest in Technopark. A delegation from Ford has already visited, while correspondence with Satyam is also moving ahead. Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has already written to them," said Vasudevan.

Technopark, situated on the outskirts of the capital, currently has 17,000 employees located in 3.20 million sq ft of office space.

Work is progressing for construction of another 1.20 million sq ft space. After completion in two years time, the new section will employ close to 15,000 professionals, which will finally take the number of professionals working at Technopark to 32,000.

"Right now, there is no vacant place but we have informed Satyam and Ford officials that they can be accommodated to commence their operations. Moreover, we are in a position to allocate land to companies like Satyam to build their own campus," added Vasudevan.

Besides the expansion of the Technopark campus, the state government is developing a Technocity on a 507-acre campus located close to the Technopark. Land acquisition for the Technocity has been put under the fast track programme.



Source - NDTV Profit (http://www.ndtvprofit.com/2008/02/21122138/More-IT-firms-keen-to-be-in-Ke.html)

some news from over the last couple of days -

TCS signs $120 mn deal with Chrysler (http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=8&subLeft=2&chklogin=N&autono=314505&tab=r)

IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a multi-year contract worth $120 million (around Rs 480 crore) with US automaker Chrysler.

TCS will deliver application maintenance and support services to Chrysler. The IT services initiative will encompass a portion of the functional areas within Chrysler such as sales and marketing and shared services.


TCS, Cognizant in the fray to acquire $1bn T-Systems unit
Sale of Deutsche Telekom unit likely this week

The billion-dollar systems integration business (SI) of Germany-based T-Systems, which is up for grabs for over a year now, is in the last lap. Sources said the race is now down to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Nasdaq-listed Cognizant, and may be decided this week.

T-Systems is the IT solutions unit of Deutsche Telekom, Europe’s telecommunications giant.
Read on (http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1152724)


Satyam, Infosys in pursuit of large railway deals (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/27/stories/2008022751530500.htm)

Welcoming the Railway Budget presented today, IT services provider Satyam Computer said that it was in pursuit of at least four Rs 1,000 crore to Rs,2,000 crore technology outsourcing deals in the Indian Railways.

Mr Ranjan Tayal, India-Head, Satyam Computer, said the company was in talks with the Indian Railways for such large IT outsourcing deals. They include asset management services, enterprise resource planning (ERP), RFID (radio frequency identification) and commercial portals.

In a statement, he said the Railway Ministry was looking at information technology as a strategic tool where IT partners need to engage not just at the service but at the solution level. The scope of work now goes beyond just implementing IT frameworks. It involves also post-deployment services such as enterprise-wide roll-out and maintenance through call centres for internal and external touch points.

Some of these deals are to be awarded to companies that participated in the request for proposal (RFP), in the first half of the fiscal year which starts April 1.
Read on
(http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/27/stories/2008022751530500.htm)

Infosys opens Mexican development centre (http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=lmnu9&subLeft=2&autono=314605&tab=r)

Information technology (IT) company Infosys Technologies today said its Latin American subsidiary has commenced its operations.

The Infosys subsidiary has been set up in Mexico to offer services such as business process outsourcing (BPO), infrastructure management and packaged solutions implementation, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).


Wipro launches global service management centre in Malaysia (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Wipro_launches_global_service_management_centre/articleshow/2801764.cms)

Wipro Limited, leading provider of IT solutions and services, on Thursday announced the launch of its global service management centre in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

This centre will cater to the infrastructure and application management service requirements of customers across the ASEAN region through a remote service delivery model, a Wipro release said here today.

Yahoo! Inc. today announced the expansion of its India R&D operations with the launch of Yahoo! Labs in Bangalore, its first in India.

Dr Rajeev Rastogi has been appointed as vice president and head of the new lab.

Yahoo! Labs - Bangalore will be a center of excellence for next generation search and advertising technologies, focused on making the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers.

Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Yahoo!-opens-new-lab-in-Bangalore/4308104157/0/)

Telephone, TV and internet services provider Etisalat on Monday unveiled a new subsidiary operation in Bangalore, marking its maiden entry into India.

Going by the brand name - Technologia, the subsidiary would develop software solutions for the telecommunication domain, a release said here today.
Source - ET (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/UAE_firm_Etisalat_unveils_subsidiary_operations_in_India/articleshow/2834893.cms)

BANGALORE: World's leading chip designer firm ARM is expanding its India design centre to make it the largest outside Britain, a top company official said here Thursday.

"Headcount in our Bangalore facility will be doubled to 700 in the near future from 350 presently, making it the second largest design centre after our headquarters at Cambridge in Britain," ARM chief operating officer (COO) Tudor Brown told reporters here.



http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Hardware/ARMs_India_design_centre_to_be_worlds_second_largest/articleshow/2863014.cms

http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=317366&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

Kolkata IT hardware design arm flagged off

The dream project of the West Bengal information technology (IT) department, The Indian Design Centre (IDC) to house semiconductor design and fabrication units and relevant infrastructure, was flagged off today at Salt Lake Sector V.

Synopsis India, a wholly owned subsidiary of US based Synopsys Inc., a leading supplier of electronic design automation (EDA) solutions to the global electronics market, was open to investing in setting up a unit at the IDC.

Though nothing concrete was worked out yet, IDC was open to start operations here, said Pradip K Dutta, corporate vice president & managing director, Synopsys India.

Texas Instruments India, another leading semiconductor and analog technologies company, will participate at the IDC through its link with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT) where Texas sponsors advanced research in the area of semiconductor design. Texas would be looking forward to supplying chips to the semiconductor and semiconductor-driven companies that start operations here, said Biswadip Mitra, managing director of Texas India.

Nearly 40 semiconductor companies had been sounded out to set up units at the IDC but refused to divulge further details.

The VLSI (Very-large-scale integration) Advisory Committee comprising experts from IIT Kharagpur and semiconductor companies from India and the Silicon Valley, had recommended the need to develop an eco-system as a step to be taken to promote development in the area of semiconductor and chip fabrication units, said Debesh Das, state IT minister.

The Rs 100 crore IDC project would be built on the pubic-private partnership model by Ravindra Chamaria owned Infinity Infotech Parks, selected on non-bidding basis, with Webel handing over 1.7 acres for it.

IDC was based on a concept note prepared by P P Chakraborti, dean of IIT Kharagpur.

The IDC will have a built-up area of six million square feet, and will house prototype fab units, incubators for start-up companies, apart from the semiconductor & semiconductor driven companies.

A post graduate course on semiconductor designing will be started at the IDC, possibly certified by IIT Kharagpur, claimed Das. Design tools will be given out on rent as a part of the infrastructure at the IDC, Das added.

By mid-2009 the Centre was expected to be ready and fully occupied.

India could be a hub for chip design, with fabrication done elsewhere, primarily in Taiwan.

IDC could move up the value chain and become a chip fabrication hub in the future.

IDC would have specialised training, testing, packaging, and prototype manufacturing facilities for VLSI.

IDC would tap venture capital funds, said state chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb at the event.

Jivox has announced the commencement of its Indian operations, Jivox Software India through a sales and development office in Bangalore.

http://www.zdnetindia.com/index.php?action=article&prodid=17870&chid=126&Ref=Software

News from the past week -

TCS targets $10 billion revenue in 2010 (http://www.ndtvprofit.com/2008/03/22185452/TCS-targets-10-billion-revenu.html)


insourcing is here folks! :

TCS opens largest development center in North America (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200803181967.htm)

New Delhi (PTI): The country's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services on Tuesday said it has set up a software development and delivery center in North America with a capacity of 1,000 seats to cater to the customers there.

The center located in Milford, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, can accommodate up to 1,000 associates, TCS said in a statement.

"Most of them will be locally hired from the region and its universities," the statement added.

TCS has been operating in North America since 1979 when it established its first office in New York City. Currently, it has more than 40 offices throughout North America delivering real business results to customers spanning the Fortune 1,000 firms.



Software exports expected to grow 33% in FY08 to reach $45Bn (http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=317482&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=)

Software exports are expected to register a growth of 33 per cent in terms of dollar and 23 per cent in terms of rupee in the current financial year, according to an estimate by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC). In absolute terms, exports during FY08 will workout to $45 billion (Rs 180,000 crore).

The steady appreciation of rupee against the dollar and other major currencies for the last 16 months had adversely impacted the rupee realisation from exports, he said, adding, “Our data compiled from various IT exporters indicate that the fall in rupee realisation from exports was to the extent of 12-15 per cent. This has taken place at a time when real estate prices (rentals and property prices) are skyrocketing and HR expenses - salaries and perks - have increased considerably. Such increases are felt even in tier II and III cities.”

A WiMax Breakthrough in India (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2008/gb20080312_479990.htm)

Tata Communications unveils an ambitious plan to become global leader in wireless broadband by launching the world's largest commercial network

India is about to become the frontier for high-speed, mobile Internet connections. On Mar. 4, India's Tata Communications , an emerging broadband player, announced the countrywide rollout of a commercial WiMax network, the largest anywhere in the world of the high-speed, wireless broadband technology.

Already 10 Indian cities and 5,000 retail and business customers use the product, and by next year Tata will offer service in 115 cities nationwide. The folks at Tata can hardly contain their excitement. "WiMax is not experimental, it's oven-hot," says Tata's Prateek Pashine, in charge of the company's broadband and retail business.

BANGALORE, INDIA: VMware, provider of virtualization solutions, today announced the opening of a new R&D facility in Bangalore and an investment of $100 million in India by 2010.

The new facility, covering an area of 82,000 sq.ft., is the extension of the existing R&D operations in Bangalore and Pune.


Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/VMware-to-invest-$100-m-in-India/24308104676/0/)

Pi Corporation, a software company run by Paul Maritz, announced its plans to expand its development center by 50 percent in Bangalore. The company's worldwide center of product development is located in Bangalore and will be expanding the core technical team with additional highly experienced software development and quality assurance positions.

Source CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/EC/News-Reports/Pi-Corporation-announces-expansion-in-India/28308104776/0/)

New Delhi, March 29 There has been a distinct decline in IT recruitments in India this year, mainly on account of the expected slowdown in its largest market – the United States.

According to leading recruitment firms that Business Line spoke to, IT companies in India, especially smaller ones, are treading with caution and overall recruitments are expected to see a drop of 30-60 per cent this year, compared to last year.

“There is a definite slowdown in hiring and this is reflecting in the appointment ads by IT companies. The Banking and Financial Services clients are getting conscious about their spending on development of new software and solutions, and the focus is now on maintenance of existing systems. Both Indian service providers and MNCs are going slow on recruitments — smaller ones are particularly affected,” Mr Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO & Managing Director, Head Hunters India, said.

postponing entry


In this scenario, many IT companies which had doled out lucrative campus offers last year are actually looking at postponing the entry dates of the new recruits, he added.

The recruitment firms are also anticipating muted salary hikes.

Compared to last year when the average pay-packets rose 13-14 per cent, this year the increase may only be about 7-8 per cent, they say.

“Overall, the recruitments are likely to be 30-40 per cent lower this year. The recruitment of lateral hires has been hit the hardest; but fresh recruitments and campus hirings too are seeing a slowdown,” Mr Vishal Chhiber, HR Head of Kelly Services India, pointed out.

According to TeamLease Services, a staffing company, while firms generally tend to reduce the pace of hiring around November-December (as US customers close the year), the recruitment drive gathers momentum in the first half of a year.

“But this year we have not seen that happening. The rate of recruitment has come down by about 60 per cent as opposed to last year. We had expected things to look up in March-April timeframe, but there is no clarity from our customers yet,” Mr Sampath Shetty, Vice-President, TeamLease Services, said.

utilisation rates


IT companies are also busy sprucing up the utilisation rates, and resources that were previously lying idle are being plugged into suitable roles and profiles, he added.

Agrees Mr Avinash Vashistha, Chief Executive of advisory firm Tholons.

“Utilisation of bench strength would be increased — from 70 per cent of utilisation earlier, it is likely to rise to about 85 per cent,” he said. Amongst the top companies, the utilisation rate (including trainees) in case of Infosys stood at 69.4 per cent during the quarter ended December 2007 compared to 67.5 per cent in year ago period, while in the case of Satyam it rose to 78.21 per cent compared to 68.49 per cent a year ago.

No-show also down


Interestingly, the once-rampant no-show behaviour (candidates not showing up at a new job despite accepting the offer), is also down to 10-20 per cent against 50-60 per cent levels seen earlier.

Mr Balaji E, CEO of Ma Foi Management Consultants, feels that while there has not been a slump in actual numbers of recruitments, companies are no longer offering the 50 per cent or more hikes.

“Hirers are no longer willing to buyout notice periods of new employees from the existing employer. If they find an employee too costly or that they would have to wait too long, they consider another employee who comes without such baggage,” he said.

He added that companies now tend to offer an average increase of about 25 per cent to lure in prospects.

Some firms are also ‘trimming the tail’.

“Exits related to poor performance are certainly happening. Gone are the days when companies would be more lenient and spend on training employees time and again if they didn’t measure up,” he added.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/03/30/stories/2008033051250100.htm

Handset manufacturer Nokia plans to recruit 5,500 more employees in India by the end of the financial year, taking its total headcount to 15,000. Most of the new recruitments will be towards enhancing its manufacturing capabilities at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

“A significant number of jobs will be created by Nokia’s manufacturing plant. We are also increasing the headcount in the research and development team,” said Mr Bimal Rath, Head Human Resources, Nokia India. The company has 8,000 people at the handset manufacturing plant and another 900 at its R&D facility. India is Nokia’s second-largest market with revenues of €3.6 billion, which is bigger than the revenues earned by large Indian telecom operators.

Mr Rath said Nokia has an attrition rate of about 10 per cent, which is lower than the industry average. On the manufacturing front, Nokia is investing $75 million in 2008, taking the total investment in the plant to $285 million by December 2008.

Mr Sachin Saxena, Operations Director, Nokia India, told Business Line on the sidelines of a Nokia-sponsored media event in Goa: “We have reached production volume of 125 million mobile handsets in just over two years of operations at the factory in Sriperumbudur. Our decision to invest in local manufacturing has given us the opportunity to fuel the demand for the domestic and emerging markets while also allowing India to emerge as a global manufacturing hub.”

Approximately 50 per cent of its production at Sriperumbudur is consumed domestically and the rest exported to countries across the Middle East and Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

The Nokia telecom park has signed up with global component manufacturers including Salcomp, Aspocomp, Foxconn, Perlos, Jabil, Laird and Wintek. Of these, five companies have started production and the other two are likely to commence by the middle of 2008.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/03/30/stories/2008033050990300.htm

TCS to set up Pune campus

MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has commenced construction of its largest development centre, TCS Sahyadri Park, in Hinjewadi, Pune.

The Park will be developed on over 50 acres to create a capacity of 20,000 seats with the first phase expected to be completed by March 2009 with 7,000 seats.

The entire facility is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010.

Tata Realty and Infrastructure has been mandated to develop the facility, while Frank Glynn of El Segundo, California, has been appointed as the principal architect for designing the facility along with Edifice Architects from Pune as the local architects.

S. Ramadorai, CEO and Managing Director, TCS, said, “TCS Sahyadri Park will drive the next phase of our growth in this area and help us access the skilled professionals and students from in and around Pune.

The Pune facility is of special significance to us as TCS started its first R&D centre, TRDDC, in this city well over two decades ago.”



http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/03/stories/2008040356531900.htm

Mercator, the information technology (IT) division of Dubai-based Emirates Group and Computer Sciences Corporation, has inaugurated the dedicated development center (DDC) in Bangalore.

Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Mercator,-CSC-set-up-center-in-Bangalore/4408105054/0/)

TANDBERG, a provider of telepresence, high-definition videoconferencing and mobile video solutions, today announced the launch of its research and development (R&D) technology center in Bangalore.


Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/TANDBERG-launches-RD-center-in-Bangalore/8408105088/0/)

BANGALORE: Sonata Software Limited on Tuesday announced that it would set up a new facility, its fourth here, in the Global Village SEZ.

Source - ET (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Software/Sonata_Software_to_expand_operations/articleshow/2935226.cms)

German measuring technology major Carl Zeiss inaugurated its first Tech center in the country today at Bangalore.

Source (http://machinist.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1160&Itemid=2)

Networked Readiness 2008 rankings


http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2008/Rankings.pdf

Microsoft, HCL launch world's cheapest laptop (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Hardware/Microsoft_HCL_launch_worlds_cheapest_laptop/articleshow/2945495.cms)

MUMBAI: Microsoft Corporation and HCL Infosystems on Friday announced a series of joint initiatives, including launch of world's cheapest ultra portable laptop and setting up of centre of excellence, which will employ over 500 professionals.

Priced at Rs 16,990, MiLeap brand of HCL laptops with Microsoft Windows XP Home operating system is the lowest priced among the MS operating system powered laptops, the company officials said.

UK firm solves recruitment problem by hiring Indian engineers (http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/11115138/UK-firm-solves-recruitment-pro.html)

Concurrent Technologies will invest 1.1 mn pounds for setting up a new facility in Bangalore which will recruit highly skilled specialist electronic design engineers

Novell, a provider of interoperable Linux platform, today inaugurated its 200,000 sq. ft India Development Center (IDC), its largest facility outside the US, here in Bagmane Tech Park.


Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Novell-plans-to-invest-$100-mn-in-India/16408105308/0/)

Dell to make laptops at India plant

Dell Inc, the world's second-largest personal computer maker, said on Tuesday it would start making laptops from its factory in south India.

"India is the fastest growing market for Dell worldwide and laptops have emerged as the fastest growing (segment)," Paul-Henri Ferrand, president of Dell APACS, said in a statement.

Dell currently makes desktops at the plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and an official said last month it would raise capacity from the current 400,000 units a year.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/Dell_to_make_laptops_at_India_plant/articleshow/2972831.cms)

Massive investment in Bengal from Infy/Wipro

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/04/25/stories/2008042551382300.htm

Infosys, Wipro to jointly invest Rs 1,000 cr in Kolkata
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/04/25/images/2008042551382301.jpg
(From right) Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr Binod H.R., senior Vice-President and Head of India Business Unit, and Mr T.V. Mohandas Pai, Member of the board, at the Writers’ Buildings after meeting the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, in Kolkata on Thursday. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Kolkata, April 24 There is good news on the investment front for West Bengal. IT majors Infosys and Wipro will together invest Rs 1,000 crore in setting up various facilities in Kolkata.

Infosys will set up a “multi-technology, multi-service” development centre near the Rajarhat-Vedic area at an investment of Rs 500 crore in the first phase. The development centre will be spread over 90 acres of land and engage 5,000 people.

It will be a Special Economic Zone, Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Ltd, told newspersons at Writers’ Buildings here on Thursday after he, along with senior company officials, met the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee, and others here.

Mr Gopalakrishnan said the development centre here would be engaged in activities “from consultancy to BPO”. He said work on the project would begin as soon as the State Government hands over the land to the company. Operations would begin within one year thereafter.

According to him, Infosys has firmed up plans to hire 25,000 skilled people in the current fiscal.



http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEB20080424153451&Page=B&Title=Business&Topic=0

Infosys Technologies to set up centre in Kolkata

KOLKATA: Infosys Technologies Limited will invest Rs 500 crore for setting up a new development centre in Kolkata.

Infosys Chief Executive Officer S Gopalakrishnan, along with Mohandas Pai, member of the board, met West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Information Technology Minister Debesh Das. The centre will create more than 5,000 jobs over a period of time.

The company had signed a memorandum of understanding with the State IT Department in the first week of April for setting up the development centre. Gopalkrihshnan said the board has approved the proposal.

"We are very glad that finally we are here. The centre will be able to provide service to many of our clients. It will be multi-technology and multi-service development centre and would be the 11th centre," he said.

He said that the construction process will start after the company receives necessary clearance from the government. Debesh Das said that Infosys will purchase 90 acres of land from the state government for setting up the centre in the new IT City in Rajarhat area.

Senior officials of Wipro also met the Chief Minister and apprised him of their expansion projects. The company will set up another centre on 90 acres of land in the IT City. Wipro will also invest Rs 500 crore in the coming three to four years to develop the new centre, Tamal Dasgupta, Senior Vice -President told newspersons after the meeting.


TOI (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India_Business/Infy_to_recruit_20K_in_Kolkata/articleshow/2980698.cms)

Infy to recruit 20K in Kolkata

KOLKATA: Infosys' headcount target of 5,000 at Kolkata is just for starters. The IT major intends to have more than 20,000 employees in the city over a period of time.

"Our Bangalore campus, which at 80 acres occupies slightly less area than the proposed Kolkata facility, presently has 22,000-23,000 employees. There's no reason why we can't get to that figure in Kolkata also," Infosys CEO & MD S Gopalakrishnan told TOI on Thursday. "In Kolkata's case, achieving the 20,000-employee mark may actually take us much less time than what it took us to get to this number in Bangalore."

Infosys bridged the 20,000-mark in Bangalore 13 years after setting up its campus. Its proposed Kolkata campus, which would come up on 90 acres, would house both its software development and BPO operations.

The company also promised to invest Rs 500 crore to set up its maiden facility in West Bengal, which would initially employ 5,000 people.

"Finally, we are here," Infosys CEO & MD S Gopalakrishnan said after a meeting with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state IT Debesh Das on Thursday. "At last, it has been done," a beaming Das added.

The proposed Infosys campus - whose first phase would be operational by end-2009 - would come up on 90 acres at Rajarhat.

Tata out to prove its EKA supercomputer really means business

Six months after the Computational Research Laboratories, or CRL, in Pune unveiled its supercomputer EKA, which was ranked the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world and was hailed as much for its number-crunching speed as for its creator’s business model, the machine has begun testing applications for its customers.
The company expects revenue to start trickling in over the next three months.
“It won’t immediately be close to what we’ve invested ($30 million) in CRL, but we will justify the investment,” says N. Seetha Rama Krishna, head of operations at CRL, a fully owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd.
EKA and CRL mark a radical change in the world of high performance computing (HPC) which is largely known for its lack of economic traction and private investment. EKA is the only completely corporate-funded machine among the Top 10 supercomputers in the annual supercomputing (SC07) list announced in November in Nevada, US.
“We’ve been driven by the idea that supercomputing is also the differentiator for the nation’s economy and that it (supercomputing) can be a viable business,” says Krishna. So, following the tough HPC norms, where technologies become obsolete faster than applications get ported on them or businesses start kicking in, CRL is in talks with several customers who can validate their concepts on EKA.
“We want to prove to the world that it is not just a benchmark machine: It’s not only a racing car, if you wish you can convert (it) into a passenger vehicle,” says Krishna.

source livemint.com (http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/24002327/Tata-out-to-prove-its-EKA-supe.html)

IT & ITes Market crosses 60 billion USD in 2007, to touch 132 billion USD by 2012
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/India_ITITeS_market_to_cross_Rs_200000_crore_in_2012_/articleshow/3005641.cms
BANGALORE: The India domestic IT and ITeS market is expected to cross the Rs 2,00,000 crore (USD 50 billion) mark in 2012 compared to Rs 90,014 crore recorded in 2007, according to IDC India.
This translates into a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4 per cent in the five-year period. Together with IT and ITeS exports revenue of Rs 3,20,278 crore, the total IT and ITeS industry size will grow to Rs 5,29,976 crore (USD 132 billion) by 2012, representing a CAGR of 16.5 per cent.
The Indian IT and ITeS industry grew to Rs 2,46,609 crore in calendar year 2007, up from Rs 2,01,413 crore in 2006, representing a growth of 22.4 per cent. Of the total industry size of Rs 2,46,609 crore, the domestic IT and ITeS market contributed Rs 90,014 crore, while the remaining Rs 1,56,594 crore was contributed by the IT and ITeS exports segment. In 2007, IT services (excluding ITeS) exports continued to be the biggest segment at Rs 97,492 crore.
In 2008, IDC expects the IT and ITeS industry to grow at 20 per cent, with the domestic market growing at 22.4 per cent compared to IT and ITeS export market growth of 18.9 per cent.
The overall industry is projected to be Rs 5,29,976 crore by end 2012, with the share of domestic IT and ITeS revenues adding to 40 per cent of the total, compared to the current 37 per cent.
The IT and ITeS exports market is likely to more than double to Rs 3,20,278 crore in 2012 from Rs 1,56,594 crore in 2007. In 2008, it (IT and ITeS exports segment) is expected to clock a growth of 20.4 per cent to touch Rs 1,86,142 crore, it was stated.
----------------------

cross posting with the Merger & Acquisition thread


MindTree to buy 52% in Aztecsoft for Rs 190 crore

IT and R&D services company MindTree on Friday said it was buying a majority stake in software services firm Aztecsoft for Rs 190 crore in one of the largest transactions involving listed IT companies in India.
MindTree will initially buy 32.57% of Aztecsoft at Rs 80 per share and follow it up with an open offer for an additional 20%. It will be paying Rs 190 crore in the all-cash deal, which values Aztecsoft at $90 million (Rs 360 crore). The acquisition will be funded by internal accruals.
ET had first reported about the development in its January 9 edition. “This transaction will be beneficial to both the companies,” MindTree CMD Ashok Soota said.
Aztecsoft undertakes outsourced product development (OPD) and provides independent testing services. It ended FY08 with a revenue of Rs 253.10 crore and a net profit of Rs 17.3 crore. MindTree’s FY08 topline was Rs 767.78 crore.It expects to close the open offer by end of August and sees the merger process being completed 14-15 months after that. The MindTree scrip closed at Rs 484.40 on the NSE on Friday, gaining 3.69%. Aztecsoft ended at Rs 78.40, up 2.95%. MindTree CFO Rostow Ravanan said the company had not decided on the mode of acquiring the remaining stake in Aztecsoft. It could consider either the cash or the equity option once the legal formalities of the merger are completed. The acquisition would help address a larger market with the expanded service offerings, MindTree officials said. The OPD market is estimated at about $8.5 billion and growing at 30% while the testing market is worth $6.1 billion growing at 40%.
The combined entity will have a revenue of $250 million (Rs 1,000 crore) and over 7,800 employees in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bhubaneswar. Though MindTree will be accounting for the revenues of Aztecsoft following the open offer, it has not changed the revenue projection of $228-$238 million for the current fiscal.Synergies between the two compaines would ensure that operating margins expand despite Aztecsoft’s lower margins, MindTree officials said.

source economictimes epaper

http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=lmnu2&subLeft=1&autono=322027&tab=r


This is up from 20700 crores than last year.

Southern states lag northern counterparts in IT adoption

SOUTH Indian states, which have the reputation of being pioneer in IT are lagging behind their Northern and Eastern counterparts in terms of adopting IT in the manufacturing units, a study said.
Out of the 15 states namely — Kerala, Karnataka, Maharastra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are less computerised, a study by IT major Microsoft, India Development Foundation and LexisNexis Butterworths has said.
The study further said that greater computerisation of factories is not linked to IT production in a specific geography.
“Within these 15 states which accounts for more than 90% of all factories in India, contrary to all expectations, Andhra Pradesh (ranked 14) and Tamil Nadu (ranked 11 ) are among the lesser computerised states,” Dr Subhashis Gangopadhyay, economists and one of the authors of the book based on the study said.
Tamil Nadu has the highest number of manufacturing industries in the country, but less than 40% of its units are computerised, compared to more than 60% in Maharastra, Gujarat and Delhi, he said.
The study also pointed out that the current consumption of technology by Indian industry is alarmingly low. Only 20% of the software produced in the country is meant for internal consumption. “Despite India’s IT export prowess, there is an alarmingly low internal consumption of technology. About 80% of software produced in this country is towards export,” he added. Despite documented evidence proving the benefits of technology investment in manufacturing, Indian businesses still have low adoption rates.

source economictimes epaper

YouTube launched in India

Google on Wednesday launched its popular video-sharing site YouTube in India.

YouTube debuts in India with a number of partners, including Zoom channel from the Bennet Coleman & Co, UTV and Rajshri Group, among other production houses. All uploaded content on YouTube is protected by its digital hash technology for copyright protection.

This technology makes it very difficult for someone to copy and reload the same content, thus curbing piracy, said YouTube International Manager Sakina Arsiwala. The company also announced what she called as company's `zero tolerance' policy towards security of its users online against objectionable content, including porn.

The Internet giant is expecting a huge spurt in usage from India with the Indian-specific YouTube.co.in along with a country-specific video search for the content popular and relevant in India.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/YouTube_launched_in_India/articleshow/3017907.cms)

Hindu (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200805081521.htm)

The IT and ITeS sector is all set to get a fillip in the red citadel West Bengal with the Centre deciding to set up a marine cable landing station in the state.

Millennium Telecom, a joint venture company of two telecom PSUs MTNL and BSNL has floated a Rs 1,600-crore tender to lay a submarine cable between India and South East Asia, the landing station for which would be located in West Bengal.

"The cable landing station for this cable would be set up at Digha in West Bengal," the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has informed the state government.

This is likely to give a boost to the local IT-ITeS industry in the state.

"...It was a long felt need for Eastern India, considering the vast potential of this region in IT and ITeS sector. The cable landing station will be of immense help in harnessing the hitherto untapped potential," state Minister-in-Charge for Information Technology Debesh Das said in a communication to the DoT.

A cable landing station (CLS) is the location where a submarine or other underwater cable makes landfall. Globally, it is observed that CLS provides a strategic advantage to local IT firms as proximity to landing stations help in faster and cheaper transfer of voice and non-voice data.

With IT-BPO majors setting up shops in the state, the landing station would further boost the sector.

Recently, IT bellwether Infosys Technologies had also announced an investment of Rs 500 crore in West Bengal.

Also, the state capital Kolkata featured among the seven leaders in the country's IT-BPO growth story, clocking an annual growth rate of 15 per cent.

Source (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/xenitis-forecasts-rs13-bn-turnover-for-2008-09_10047129.html)

Kolkata-based Xenitis Group, which rocked the market in 2005 with its desktop computers Aamchi PC and Apna PC, has projected a turnover of Rs.13 billion for 2008-09. It now plans to enter the mobile handset market also. The company, which recorded a turnover of Rs.10 billion in 2007-08, is concentrating more on computer component manufacturing and will soon start producing mobile handsets too, said Santanu Ghosh, chairman and managing director of Xenitis Group.

Xenitits Infotech Ltd is the flagship company of the Xenitis Group. The original equipment manufacturing (OEM) business run under the banner of Xenitis Infotech Ltd.

The firm sells components to all major PC companies in India which earlier imported parts from China.

“The Indian PC market is divided into three segments - 65 percent of the market is occupied by the unorganised sector, 20 percent by Indian brands and 15 percent by MNCs. We are targeting the first two sectors. We are successful in capturing 48 percent. The rest is still thriving with Chinese imports,” Ghosh told IANS.

Ghosh, 37, who started the company in 2002, said his firm’s products were targeted at the youth.

The company has invested Rs.2.5 billion to build the manufacturing hub at Hooghly, situated over 45 km north of Kolkata. At present, it manufactures five computer parts - cabinet, keyboard, power supply, mouse and speakers.

Xenitis, which plans to manufacture 6 million components in 2008-09 with an additional investment of Rs.1.5 billion, will soon start manufacturing other parts like thin film transistor (TFT), motherboard and memory.

In October 2007, the company launched its sub-Rs.20,000 laptops ‘Xuva’ targeting the growing tech savvy youth.

Next in the pipeline is Ghosh’s dream project of manufacturing handsets under the telecom unit of Xenitis Group, Xenitis Telecommunications Pvt Ltd. The company has already bagged an order of 160,000 handsets per month and will export 50,000 handsets to Dubai every month.

It has signed memorandums of understanding (MoU) which will fetch over Rs.21 billion in three years for the PC business.

Reliance Retail to set up 60 iStores in 2008

Reliance Retail (RRL) is planning to set up 60 i Store — an Apple premium reseller store — across the country by 2011.

After inaugurating iStore in Jaipur — the first in North India and fourth in India after Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai — Reliance Industries (CDIT Business) CEO Ajay Baijal said that iStore would house entire range of Apple products for professional and consumer segments, such as iMac consumer desktop computers, MacBook consumer notebooks, Mac pro and iPods along with over 500 accessories and peripherals complementing Apple products.

The company also plans to set up 150 outlets of 'Reliance Digital', its consumer electronic concept mega store, across the country in two years. It already has 5 stores in this format.


source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/Retailing/Reliance_Retail_to_set_up_60_iStores_in_2008/articleshow/3026154.cms)

Source: The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)

COGNIZANT TO STEP UP PRESENCE IN ASIA-PACIFIC

After making major inroads into the European markets, Cognizant is stepping up its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, largely in Japan, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong to shore up revenues. In the first quarter of calendar 2008, Asian markets contributed just over 1% of Cognizant’s revenues. Siddhartha Mukherjee, vice-president of Cognizant Technology Solutions India said: “We’ve expanded into Europe substantially. Our European markets focus will continue as usual. We are also looking at newer locations in the Asia Pacific region. This region is slated to emerge as a growth driver for the company.”
Revenues for the first quarter increased to $643.1 million (Rs 2,572 crore) up 40% from $460.3 million (Rs 1841.2 crore) in the first quarter of 2007. GAAP net income was at $101.9 million (Rs 407.6 crore) or $0.34 per diluted share, compared to $75.4 million (Rs 301.6 crore), or $0.25 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2007. Almost 80% of revenue came from clients of North America and 19% from Europe. The remaining 1% came from Asia Pacific markets.

Cognizant’s headcount during the first quarter of calendar 2008 increased to 58,000, with net addition of roughly 2,600 employees around the world. The annualised employee attrition during the first quarter remained flat compared to Q4 of 2007 at 12.4%.

Asked what will be the manpower requirement for Cognizant in 2008, Mukherjee said: “We are in the process of preparing a manpower requirement roadmap right now. Therefore, we cannot spell our exact requirement. More or less, the trend in earlier years will be followed.”

Cognizant now employs nearly 5,000 professionals at its Kolkata centre. The company’s upcoming centre at Bantala will create an additional five-lakh sq ft of additional space. The first phase of the project is slated to become operational by the year-end and will engage 4,000 people. In the second phase, another 4,000 people will be added, while in the third phase the headcount will increase by another 6,000.

Mukherjee said: “The Bantala facility will become fully operational 2010-2011. The facility will have a capacity to engage a total of 16,000 professionals by then.” The new unit will largely deal with Cognizant’s existing areas of functions, which includes banking, financial services, insurance, retail, hospitality, logistics and manufacturing.

India's Tech Mahindra wins $700 mln IT infrastructure contract from BT (http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/05/16/afx5017436.html)

MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - Indian information technology company, Tech Mahindra Ltd., has won a contract worth $700 million from BT Group to transform and improve BT's information technology infrastructure, the Economic Times reported quoting unnamed sources.

CP Gurnani, Tech Mahindra's president for international operations said in the report, the news is 'speculative'. 'At any given time, we are chasing big deals and long-term contracts but this is purely speculative,' he said.

Recently, Tech Mahindra won a $350 million contract and a $1 billion IT outsourcing deal from BT.

BT accounts for about 60 percent of Tech Mahindra's business.

Software piracy dips to 69% in India (http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=323165&leftnm=3&subLeft=0&chkFlg=)

Piracy on personal computers (PC) in India fell to 69 per cent for 2007 from 71 per cent in 2006. However, industry losses due to it rose to $2 billion (around Rs 8,500 crore) in 2007 from $1.28 billion in 2006. Globally, the loss increased by a whopping 500 per cent from $8 billion to $48 billion.

These are among the findings of the fifth annual global PC software piracy study released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association representing the global software industry.

Of the 108 countries included in the report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67, and rose in only eight. However, because the global PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the rate of PC software piracy worldwide increased by three percentage points to 38 per cent in 2007.

"The report shows we are making progress in the battle against software piracy, albeit slowly as compared to other nations like Russia, whose piracy rate dropped by 7 points in 2007. India, as an IT leader, needs a concrete anti-piracy education, engagement and enforcement plan to effectively reduce software piracy year-on-year," said Keshav S Dhakad, chair of the BSA India Committee.

Piracy rates in India have been declining gradually for the last three years. The Central government, industry bodies and software companies have been taking initiatives and making efforts to curb the menace of piracy, while challenges at various fronts still remain.

Software piracy affects much more than just the industry revenues. A study by industry researcher IDC released in January found that by reducing PC software piracy in India by 10 per cent over a period of four years could generate an additional 44,000 new jobs, $3.1 billion in economic growth, and $200 million in tax revenues.

India's Tech Mahindra wins $700 mln IT infrastructure contract from BT (http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/05/16/afx5017436.html)

Hmm.. Quite Interesting to know which companies bid for the contract. Guessing TCS lost that.

The Govt. of Kerala has officially announced the commencement of development of Kerala's largest IT project - Technocity, Trivandrum - with an advertisement appearing the regional and national editions of the Economic Times, Business Standard and the Business Line.

Technocity is planned as a 500 acre IT-based integrated development which will have 15-20 million sq.ft of business space alone. Estimated to cost upwards of Rs 8000 Crores ($ 2 Billion), it is estimated to be complete by 2015.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9726/ksitiladmay21rspe6.jpg[/

Infosys set to join TCS in 1,00,000-employee club in the next couple of weeks (http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=4d3c0521-d2ef-4c33-b25b-acad61115ed6&&Headline=Infosys+set+to+join+TCS+in+1%2c00%2c000-employee+club)

Located in Hinjewadi Information Technology Park, the center is spread over 180,000 square feet and will house 2,000 employees approximately, once fully staffed. This IBM Global Business Services (GBS) will expand the scope of business and technology expertise already available to clients through its globally integrated network of delivery centers.

IBM India Global Delivery Vice President and General Manager Rajesh Nambiar said, ''As a globally integrated company, IBM's strategy of doing the right tasks, with right skills, in the right place, leads high-value creation and services delivery. Our new facility in the city will further augment our delivery network worldwide, providing clients in key sectors with differentiated solutions to help them innovate and transform their businesses. Pune has a rich pool of engineering talent and provides a very conducive environment for technology development. This makes a compelling case for locating our new center in Pune.'' Along with the inauguration of the GDC, IBM announced a new global delivery center in Cairo, Egypt. The Cairo GDC will provide clients with consulting and application services, with a focus on embedded systems development, he informed adding that Pune and Cairo sites will be an integrated part of IBM's vast network of business consulting and application services centers, located in eight countries around the world.

These 'centers of excellence' utilise world-class tools and automation technologies from IBM Research and are staffed with skilled professionals who are uniquely equipped to serve client's needs by industry. This globally integrated approach provides the fundamental underpinning for IBM GBS, enabling the company to define the professional services industry with its clients.

Due to the vast presence of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and automotive industry expertise in Pune, the new center serves as a strategic location for IBM's global and local automotive clients.


At the Pune center, IBM offers clients a wide range of services that cover key areas such as product life-cycle management, manufacturing productivity, business consulting, human capital management, financial services, technology services, and solutions for small and mid-size automotive manufacturers, Nambiar added.


http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14681665

Tata’s supercomputer ‘Eka’ begins pilot work for commercial applications


Mumbai, May 22 Barely six months after announcing that its supercomputer ‘Eka’ ranked fourth in the global Top 500 Supercomputer Sites List, Computational Research Laboratories (CRL)—a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons in Pune, has begun pilot projects of several applications that would lead to commercialization.

According to sources close to the development, the main application areas are in aerospace and aerodynamics, automotive design and engineering, academics, animation, weather forecasting and so on, and CRL has teams are working on a library of software tools which will work with the application package to take it to the commercial stage. “CRL is working on several pilot projects. It is the question of the right application software being ported, tested and working on that hardware,” sources said. Although the company would use some of these application in house, be it for Tata Motors or Tata Elxsi, much of the revenues would flow in from outside the Tata Group, mostly from abroad.

Read on (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Tata-s-supercomputer--Eka--begins-pilot-work-for-commercial-applications/313223/)

C-DAC to come up with first ever software tool in Santhal script (http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/CDAC-to-come-up-with-first-ever-software-tool-in-Santhal-script/314938/)


Pune, May 26 With multi-font keyboard in Ol-Chiki alphabets, it aims at making the dialect compatible to computers
In their efforts to make various Indian languages compatible to computers to increase usage of technology in native tongues, the C-DAC is readying a keyboard with the Santhali dialect. Santhali is mainly spoken by tribals in the region of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal.

The alphabets of the language are called Ol-Chiki and were recently recognised by Unicode 5.10. This script now stands on par with other registered languages in the world as liable for computer operations. A team of experts at C-DAC, Pune has been working in close association with language experts for the past two years for this project supported by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

“The main aim of this innovation is to facilitate national integration as well as to establish uniformity among Santhali and other sister languages of the group. The distribution of the Santhali in various linguistic areas has resulted in no less than five different scripts in use for the Santhali. We hope to standardise the usage to some extent with this software,” said Ganesh Murmu, one of the language expert working with C-DAC.

Murmu, is an associate professor in the Tribal Languages Department, Ranchi University and is working with CDAC’s Graphics and Intelligence based Script Technology (GIST), the department that work for various linguistic related activities for all the scheduled Indian languages. Assisting him is Louni Kandulna from Ranchi who is also involved in the Santhali Dictionary project.

“Keyboard and software tools for Santhali is unusual. Till now people have taken the Devanagri script and converted it to Santhali, but with the Ol-Chiki keyboard they can use the dialect directly for computer functions. The software package will contain a multi-font keyboard design, which is one of the highlights of the project,” said Neha Gupta, project engineer at CDAC. She added that the project was ready for implementation.

“Santhali is the mother tongue of Santhals, which tops the list among the tribal languages and dialect with 43,32,511 speakers to their credit as per 1981 census. Santhali is recognised as an optional subject for matriculation in Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Standardisation problems and political complications have so far prevented text books in Santali being put into general use though. The use of Santhali language in mass communication — like in newspapers, radio and television — is also quite restricted,” said Murmu adding that its biggest exposure to the language and it people came by way of Mrinal Sen who made full length movies Mrigaya and Aranyer din ratri on Santhal life. Santhal people though have produced several video films and recorded audio cassettes in their own language. There are also clubs that have sprung up to perform plays in the dialect.

TCS bags $100-m contract from NXP Semiconductors of Europe (http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=lmnu9&subLeft=2&autono=324186&tab=r)


Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the IT services, business solutions and outsourcing company of the Tata Group, has announced a $100 million (Rs 400 crore) , five-year contract to deliver end-to-end global IT application services to NXP Semiconductors, a semiconductor company founded by Philips more than 50 years ago.

SREI arm to invest Rs 10 bn on rural IT infrastructure (http://www.myiris.com/newsCentre/newsPopup.php?fileR=20080528135112130&dir=2008/05/28&secID=livenews)

SREI Sahaj e-Village, a subsidiary of SREI Infrastructure Finance, has evinced Rs 10 billion investment in rural IT infrastructure.

The project entails setting up 25,000 common service centers (CSCs) across six states which include West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

These centers would link the rural areas with the entire world and provide all necessary services needed by them.

Hemant Kanoria, chairman & managing director, SREI, said, "the implementation has already begun in West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu and within the end of next year all these 25,000 centers would be operational."

Under a unique model created by the company people would be empowered at the operating level. About 25,000 entrepreneurs would run these centers and they in turn would create direct employment of another 75,000 persons in the rural areas. The VLE or the village level entrepreneur will operate the CSCs, offering a variety of services, which would include program, and facilities that the government would provide in the rural areas like birth certificates, land records among others. SREI Sahaj would add the e-commerce and e-learning products to makes it remunerative for the village level entrepreneur.

"Our plan is to expand to other states and cover a large part of the country through our rural partnership approach. It is a mammoth task, but in our one year of trial, we are convinced that we can achieve our target," said Sabahat Azim, CEO, SREI Sahaj e-Village

IBM research unit looks for Bengal base (http://in.biz.yahoo.com/080531/50/6ua01.html)

The IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center, the headquarters for IBM Research, has expressed its desire to create an R&D centre in West Bengal, according to Dr Debesh Das, the information technology minister.

The professor turned minister had recently visited the Watson Research Centre in the US during a tour of that country.

"The top executives who run the centre have shown interest to start a collaborative research activity. They have already sent a letter to the Government of West Bengal and we will soon give a reply," said Das.

Das was at a seminar on Indo-US IT sector valuation & acquisition finance organised by the Indo American Chamber of Commerce.

"We would like Watson Research Centre to participate in solar energy and silicon research, the centre's major areas of research," he said.

The Centre's research focuses on IT hardware in areas like semiconductors and systems technology besides interest in systems level programming.

The plan of the state government is to engage the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur in the research collaboration. "We believe this will be an attractive proposition for Watson Research Center," said Das.

Around 15 US-based technology companies will visit Kolkata in the next few months. Companies like Signet Solar and Uni Solar work in solar energy and Mobitough in application development of Mcommerce.

"We hope all these companies will have some kind of presence in the state," Das said.

good read --> How IT changed the lives of rural youth (http://ia.rediff.com/money/2008/may/31spec.htm)

Infosys awarded 2 patents by USPTO

Infosys Technologies has announced that it has been granted two patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). These patents are in the area of holography and mobile communications.

Subu Goparaju, head of Software Engineering & Technology Labs (SETLabs), the research arm of Infosys said, "the patent titled 'displaying holographic three dimensional (3-D) images' describes the realization of actual 3-D communication using computer-generated holography to send/receive information and the associated optical elements required to make a lightweight handset.

Existing technologies use high resolution LCD to give the illusion of 3-D while actually displaying a 2-D image. Actual 3 dimensional imaging which includes a representation of depth information along with amplitude information is not being used in these cases. This patent addresses the issue of 3-D in mobile communication.

The patent titled "method and system for providing reliable and fast communications with mobile entities" proposes a mobile Internet Protocol-based solution to support generic mobility over heterogeneous networks.

There are a number of problems to be overcome to support generic mobility over heterogeneous networks today. This solution leverages a split-TCP type approach where the TCP connection between the communication entities is split at a suitable gateway.

The solution does not require any extension at the mobile host and provides improved performance even for mobility across heterogeneous networks due to an inherent ability to adapt to changing network characteristics. It supports communication between two mobile hosts or between a fixed and a mobile host, where mobile host(s) can roam over heterogeneous networks and also supports a layer 3 handoff.

source business-standard.com (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c_online.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=38992)

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM today announced the expansion of the IBM Innovation Center in Bangalore for start-up companies, software developers, independent software vendors (ISVs), IT professionals, and academics.

Source (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/IBM-expands-Innovation-Center-in-Bangalore/5608106769/0/)

Bangalore, July 4 (PTI): Huawei Technologies will scale up the overseas R&D centre located here its largest outside China at an investment of $100 million. The company will ramp up the number of software engineers from 1,200 to 2,000 within three years.

Half of the kitty will be spent towards building a one-million square feet software campus at Whitefield here, where Huawei has bought a 20-acre plot, said George Huang, chief operating officer of Huawei Technologies India Pvt Ltd, Huawei’s R&D wing.

Source (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060705/asp/business/story_6436966.asp)

The Thiruvananthapuram centre, opened in 2001 with 30 engineers, now has 700 seats in its 52,000 sq feet facility. Another 1500 engineering seats will be added in a year or two at a 2-lakh sq ft facility, ramping up the manpower to over 3500 seats, Natarajan said.
Source (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Tata-Elxsi-to-triple-manpower-on-overseas-design-orders/313385/)

IT growth path: Bangalore, Gurgaon to grow 2.5 times (http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/10/stories/2008061053290400.htm)

India is proposing to set up separate investment regions complete with integrated townships for the "planned growth of the knowledge industry" because the booming IT sector in major cities is straining current infrastructure and adding to inflationary pressure.

"A blueprint has been prepared to build IT investment regions for planned growth of the knowledge industry. The central government will partner with states to provide infrastructure and attract investments in allied sectors to build integrated townships with facilities to work and reside," Jainder Singh, the union IT secretary, told IANS in an interview here.

Haphazard growth of the IT industry in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata and NCR (national capital region) comprising Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad has put enormous pressure on infrastructure, civic amenities, transportation and public utilities.

With demand for land, power, water, roads and utilities to meet the needs of the industry increasing, the seven cities are struggling to provide support infrastructure and other amenities.

"Though efforts are being made by state governments to decongest cities by asking the industry to explore tier-two and tier-three cities for homogeneous growth, the competitive nature of the industry in a global market and scope for attracting huge investments require long-term and integrated solutions," Singh said on the sidelines of a technology summit, organised by the industry body Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies).

There will be full-fledged facilities to set up IT offices, residential quarters for employees, schools, malls, post offices, multiplexes, hospitals, parks and recreational facilities. All this is aimed at cutting commuting time and increasing productivity.

"We hope to kick-start the process in the next six months. We have worked on the nitty-gritty of the plans in consultation with the user industry for implementation on public-private partnership (PPP) mode," Singh said.

"It is for states to come forward to provide land, water, power and utilities. The central government will provide connectivity, be it roads, highways, railways, bandwidth and allied infrastructure within its purview to build knowledge townships," he said.

There will be no tax benefits for IT firms in the proposed regions. It will be up to states to offer incentives or concessions to woo investors or existing firms to relocate or expand their operations in the regions.

.....

Mirrus Systems Inc., a CBay Group company, today inaugurated its first Indian R&D center in Bangalore.

Initially, the company plans to invest $1.5 million on the center, according to Nanda Krish, president and CEO, Mirrus Systems.

Source (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Mirrus-launches-first-RD-center-in-India/11608106945/0/)

Indian IT market to grow by 18% in 2008

The Indian IT market is expected to grow by 18 per cent in the year 2008 to reach USD 38 billion, clocking second highest growth rate after China's which is likely to attain a 20 per cent growth and touch USD 138 billion in size, as per the latest research data released by Forrester.

The report by the reseach firm calls this double-digit growth as a welcome news for technology vendors - who see slackness in the US and European markets, and advises them to now recognise India as a consumer of IT than just a supplier.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/Indian_IT_market_to_grow_by_18_in_08/articleshow/3126766.cms)

State clears land for 45 SEZs (TOI epaper/Blore/14 June/Page 1)

Bangalore: The state government formally approved more than 2,400 hectres of land for setting up 45 special economic zones (SEZs) in Karnataka expected to bring in total investment of over Rs 24,000 crore.
The approved SEZs include 33 IT/ITeS companies with investment worth over Rs 18,000 crore. On Friday, major and medium industries minister Murgesh R Nirani said the approved SEZs could generate 10 lakh jobs in the next few years.
Nirani, who owns two cement units and a sugar factory in Bagalkot district, said: “As an industrialist, I am aware of investors’ problems. This government wants to create an investor-friendly climate in the state.’’

Thats 4.5 BILLION dollars!!!:cheers:

Chinese surveillance equipment major ties up with B'lore-based SSSPL (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Chinese-surveillance-equipment-major-ties-up-with-Blorebased-SSSPL/323393/)

China Security & Surveillance Technology (CSST) Inc, a leading provider of digital surveillance technology in China has announced the launch of their operations in India through an alliance with Bangalore-based Smile Security & Surveillance Pvt Ltd (SSSPL).

CSST, a NYSE listed company, manufactures, distributes, installs and maintains security and surveillance systems. The company has many manufacturing facilities throughout China and their R&D facility leverages an exclusive collaboration with Beijing University.

SSSPL is a leading provider of state-of-the-art security and advance technology security and surveillance solution in India. In addition to being OEM suppliers for many security and surveillance related products, the company has several channel partners throughout India.

cross posted from the real estate thread


India to build 43 new IT cities in 10 yrs

The IT industry's footprint looks set to expand beyond its existing homes.

Faced with a challenge from upstarts threatening to erode India's low-cost appeal, the government is planning to build 43 new information technology cities across the country to retain its top dog status in the business and to be in a position to tap the huge surge in demand for IT-enabled services over the next 10 years.

The move comes at a time when the rising infrastructure and employee costs in big cities is threatening to blunt India's crucial cost advantage.

While India has held on to its pre-eminent position, its IT and BPO companies are losing their global cost advantage with the emergence of countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, which offer similar services at cheaper rates and are threatening India's status as the world's back office.

As the allure of BPO jobs goes down and attrition rates go up, companies are increasingly finding it difficult to recruit quality employees in the big cities. Also of concern is infrastructure constraints in Bangalore, Gurgaon and elsewhere.

The plan to build brand new towns is designed to address some of these issues. It is felt that these new towns will provide a steady supply of workers besides being specifically geared towards the needs of the IT and BPO sectors.

The proposal, suggested by a high-level group on service sector, has been cleared by the Planning Commission. "The modalities for the ambitious plan will be finalized very soon," a source said.

According to the plan, each IT city will be set up in an area of more than 500 hectare. The cities will altogether generate employment for around 3.5 million people by 2018.

The proposal is to create self-contained satellite townships with commercial space for renting and a commensurate increase in residential accommodation, education, healthcare, retail and recreational facilities.

"Improvement in infrastructure is very important to ensure the continued competitiveness of IT and BPO industries," an official said while explaining the rationale behind the move.

At present, the major volume of IT-enabled services is concentrated in seven cities — Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Gurgaon and Noida. Government estimates point out that 95% of the IT and BPO service industry is in these cities, with around 36% of services concentrated in Bangalore alone.

According to officials, the IT and BPO business in the country is likely to grow by 2.5 times in the next 10 years. The growth cannot be absorbed in major cities.

As infrastructure in major cities is already under tremendous strain, the IT sector has started migrating to smaller cities. However, the volume of business in the IT sector likely to come to India is huge which even tier II & III towns are unlikely to handle, considering poor infrastructure.

Under the ambitious proposal, the government plans to shift 40% of the business to the upcoming 43 cities by 2018.

The new towns will be properly planned and laid out and endowed with modern infrastructure and good connectivity to the big cities and airports.

These townships will have residential and work areas with all essential services - water supply, power, civic amenities, health, education, transport and entertainment - to meet the civic and commercial needs of the workforce.

The Centre has sought the support of state governments in facilitating creation of these new towns. The proposal suggests that the towns will be developed by private players and state governments will ensure trunk services like electricity, water supply, sewage and drainage.

source timesofindia.com (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/India_to_build_43_new_IT_cities_/articleshow/3131837.cms)

Citrix plans $ 200 mn investment in Bangalore R&D centre (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200806181522.htm)

Bangalore (PTI): Citrix Systems, Inc., a global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced it plans to invest around USD 200 million in the second R & D facility opened here on Wednesday, over the next five years.

The NASDAQ-listed, USD 1.2 billion company expects to add 500 engineers in the new facility in the next five years, and will house teams performing core development across the Citrix Delivery Centre product line.

Based on the full cycle of development work, the new 110,000 square feet facility handles all aspects of research including design, coding, functional testing, documentation, engineering, management and escalation, officials said.

Govt plans to subsidise internet for rural India

Worried over missing the broadband addition target, the government is now planning to give sub sidy for new broadband connection in the rural parts of the country. The subsidy would be up to 50% of the total cost of setting the system by service providers. Also, running cost of internet in rural ar eas would be about half of those in the cities. These steps are being taken in a move to strengthen the e governance network as the government has miser ably failed on this front.

“We are in the process of finalising the subsidy mechanism for rural broadband connections in consultation with the finance ministry,” an official in the department of telecommunications (DoT said.

The scheme would be implemented in phased manner across the country and would also cover remote ares including the north-eastern states, the official said adding the final scheme would be worked out taking in consideration views of all stakeholders. The new scheme would cover common service centres (CSCs) being set up by the department of information technology (DIT) schools, primary health centres and gram panchay ats in a phased manner.

E-governance is one of the key areas of concern for the UPA government. The government has not been able to achieve the desired level of efficiency in the project due to many reasons, including low penetration of internet in rural areas. In fact, the DIT could not utilise the money allocated in the last year’s budget and returned Rs 102 crore due to under utilisation. According to data available with the finance ministry DIT could use only Rs 617 crore against the allocated Rs 719 crore on e-governance projects.

The national e-governance plan (NeGP) covers 27 mission mode projects and 8 support component to be implemented at the central, state and local government levels. The project includes setting up of one lakh CSCs in six lakh villages across the country. On the front of broadband connections, total connections as on 30 April 2008 stood at 4.01 million. This is against the government’s target of nine million connections by 2007 and 20 million connections by 2010.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Govt_plans_to_subsidise_internet_for_rural_India/articleshow/3143987.cms)

BANGALORE: A new address may be added to Bangalore’s already-crowded IT landscape. Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, is mulling a captive IT/ITeS unit in India’s tech capital, with the potential to create several hundred jobs, sources said.

Source- ET (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Wal-Mart_plans_IT_back_office_in_Bangalore/articleshow/3147067.cms)

Dailymotion set to roll out India ops

Dailymotion, the French counterpart of USA’s YouTube, is set to roll out India operations, enabling people to upload their videos on the site which will have localised as well as international content, reports Rashmi Pratap from Mumbai. While YouTube also allows users to upload videos, Dailymotion actively promotes creative users by providing them tools, visibility and network under its MotionMaker programme. “We identify talent and help users make a career out of their passion,” DailyMotion co-founder Didier Rappaport told ET. Free videos with a maximum of 20 minutes length can be uploaded, but for MotionMaker use, the file size is unlimited and there is no time limit as well. “When content generates a substantial number of hits, we monetise creators. If a MotionMaker user uploads multiple number of videos, they are screened and then selected,” said Dailymotion India MD Raajh Singh. Dailymotion has also implemented an acoustic fingerprinting system that can detect copyrighted videos and not publish them. It has the same interface all over the world, but the content on home page differs.

source economictimes epaper

The Thiruvananthapuram Technopark-based IBS Software has launched itself into prominence among the corporates in India by effecting five takeovers in just six years.

VK Mathews, chairman and chief executive of the company, which has already carved a place in the global IT scene as solutions provider for global companies in the Travel, Transportation and Logistics (TTL) industry, said the acquisitions form part of its long term strategy of catapulting itself into leadership position among the TTL companies.

Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/Mergers-and-acquisition/News-Reports/Acquisitions-make-IBS-stronger-in-TTL-space/20608107307/0/)

Yahoo! to double India headcount in 2008 (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Yahoo-to-double-India-headcount-in-2008/326433/)

Singapore, June 23: The long drawn takeover battle and exodus of top executive ranks notwithstanding, internet major Yahoo! expects to more than double its employee strength in India to close to 2,700 by the end of 2008.

In the first six months of this year itself, Yahoo! has added more than 1,000 employees for its India operations and further 500 people could be added to its headcount through the year, Yahoo! India spokesperson said.

At the start of this year, the company had about 1,200 people on its rolls in India, which has now grown to close to 2,200 employees.

"On an average, we are recruiting about 60-80 new employees every month since the start of this year and expect to continue the trend till the end of 2008," the official said.

Going by this average, the total strength could be between 2,500-2,700 employees by the end of 2008.

"We are upbeat on Yahoo!'s India operations," the official said, adding, as the company is "pretty aggressive" when it comes to recruitment in India and the operations are being diversified to reach more number of internet users.

However, globally the picture seems to be gloomy for the search major with many top ranking executives reported to have exited the company.

Tech Mahindra signs deal with New Zealand telco

Tech Mahindra has signed a deal with Telecom New Zealand, valued at 20-30 million dollars, to provide solutions to the company's retail business and the products it offers.

"The deal is worth between $20 million - $30 million, and will see Tech Mahindra taking responsibility for program management and end-to-end systems integration on the Next Generation Telecom program. The NGT program is expected to run for a number of years, with customers starting to see new products and services within two years," a Tech Mahindra release said here.

According to Paul Reynolds, CEO, Telecom New Zealand: "This deal is a significant step forward in the transformation of Telecom (Telecom NZ)."

He added, "Tech Mahindra is the ideal partner for Telecom on the Next Generation Telecom program because it brings world class expertise and proven delivery of systems integration and business transformation in the global telecommunications industry".

CP Gurnani President, International Operations, Tech Mahindra: "Telecom New Zealand has a clear objective to transform its businesses and push itself to the forefront of the global telecommunications industry. The retail transformation of Telecom is an essential part of that."

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/Tech_Mahindra_in_deal_with_NZ_telco/articleshow/3157397.cms)

HYDERABAD, INDIA: The Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation and the state Major Industries Ministry have lost patience. In a stern action taken on Saturday, the state government decided to serve notices on SemIndia and NanoTech, the two anchor companies for the much-awaited Fab City project.

The two companies have been asked to explain the reasons for the delay in setting up the Fab City, which is coming up in Shamshabad in the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Originally intended to be a semiconductor fabricator hub, the Fab City project has now turned into solar fabs unit.


Source - CIOL (http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Fab-City-anchor-companies-get-notices/23608107350/0/)

Novelis floats IT firm in India, first centre in Pune (http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=326925&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=)


US-based aluminium major Novelis, which was acquired by Aditya Birla group flagship firm Hindalco Industries, has floated an information technology (IT) company in India. The IT firm, Novelis Infotech, will initially target in-house businesses of Novelis and Hindalco, but with an option to accept contracts from third party companies in the future.

AP asks IT cos to make space for minorities (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/06/24/stories/2008062452632100.htm)


The Andhra Pradesh Government has asked IT companies to provide enough space for candidates from scheduled castes, tribes and minorities.

Tech Mahindra bags Telecom Fiji contract (http://www.utvi.com/reports.php?article_id=4869)

Tech Mahindra today announced a multi-million dollar deal with Telecom Fiji, a fully owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH) Group of companies. Under this agreement, Tech Mahindra will implement a transformation program for Telecom Fiji in the OSS/BSS domain for a period of 15 months.

Tech Mahindra will use it's library of world-class solution frameworks and system integration expertise to set up transformation office, Business Process Rationalization on eTOM framework, implementation of OSS & BSS COTS for Order Management, Service Provisioning, Network & Service Assurance, Billing, Alarm Management & Performance Management, etc.

This deal with Telecom Fiji is part of Tech Mahindra's overall strategy to expand its business in the APAC region. The company already has existing operations in Australia & New Zealand and they contribute aproximately 50% of revenue within the APAC region.

Rediff.com invests in Vakow.com (http://www.utvi.com/reports.php?article_id=4877)

Rediff.com India Limited today announced that it has invested an undisclosed sum in Vakow.com, a fast growing SMS content sharing social community started by IIT Bombay alumni Rahul Gupta and Amit Upadhyay.

The investment is part of Rediff's strategy to encourage young and promising start up companies to innovate and build world class products that will be mutually beneficial.

Vakow.com allows users to post their SMSes on its website and share them with their friends on phone, email and on various other popular social netwroking platforms for free.

Vakow.com also allows users to start their SMS blog, follow friends (or tags) to receive SMSes from them and comment on them from their mobile phones.

Users can rate, tag and search for SMSes and also send free personal SMSes to any mobile phone in India.

TCS bags Uganda tax authority contract (http://www.utvi.com/reports.php?article_id=4794)

Software major TCS has won a contract from Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to design and install integrated tax administration system. The new system will manage all taxes including income tax, value added tax, withholding tax among other levies.

The $11.5 million project has been funded by UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and Uganda.

The system will help the URA to have better tax compliance, broaden the tax base and provide efficient services to citizens of Uganda, TCS said in a release.

Bangalore's software exports to touch $13.5 billion in the current fiscal (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Bangalores_software_exports_to_touch_135_billion/articleshow/3160347.cms)

Infosys ties up with IIIT, Hyderabad (http://www.varindia.com/searchdetails_title.aspx?id=a7666ae7e8ec4566970f00e7a1c3a402)
Infosys Technologies and International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) has signed an agreement to undertake joint research. Under this agreement, Infosys will sponsor research in unstructured data analytics, inference and diagnostics tools and the development of next-generation business intelligence tools at IIIT-H.

HCL Info sets up IT training centre in East Delhi

HCL Infosystems on Monday opened a Career Development Centre (CDC) in East Delhi to impart computer courses in infrastructure, middleware and networking.

The centre, like other HCL CDCs, aims to impart free IT education to select students from the weaker section of the society, a company release stated.

The centre would provide students with course material, practical classes, hands on training, communication skills, pre-placement, placement activities and guest lectures.

"The IT boom in India has caused a severe shortage of high-skilled ICT engineers. With HCL CDCs, we hope to play a leadership role in enlarging the talent pool available to organizations deploying IT in India," HCL Infosystems Executive Vice-Precident Rajendra Kumar said.

The selection and recommendations of the enrollment of economically weak students would be made from Arsha Dharma Parishad. The company already has more than 65 fully operational HCL CDCs across the country, the release added.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/HCL_Info_sets_up_IT_training_centre_in_East_Delhi/articleshow/3181791.cms)

Zenith Software enters Scandinavian mkts (http://www.utvi.com/reports.php?article_id=5171)

Bangalore-based Zenith Software (ZSL), an IT and ITES service provider, entered the Scandinavian market through a partnership with Norway-based Software Offshoring Consulting (SOC).

SOC is part of the Norwegian Data-Invest Group who have been providing market oriented solutions and services to clients in the Nordic region.

This partnership will expand ZSL's footprint in the European market which has been growing rapidly. The European operations of ZSL are expected to contribute about 40 per cent of the revenues in the next fiscal.

ZSL, part of the Zenith Group, provides IT/ ITES services across various domains with major focus on insurance, travel, retail and financial services with global offices in US, UK and Australia.

P Sampathkumar, CEO, ZSL said, "ZSL and SOC have been working together for the last one year on joint product development activity for the automotive industry. This product will also be maintained by ZSL for all the clients across the globe.

ZSL will also market the product in some of the countries. It has also helped ZSL get an understanding on the Nordic market expectations. This relationship has now matured into partnership wherein ZSL-SOC would jointly market and provide offshore development services to companies in the Nordic region".

"This is an exciting phase in ZSL's growth plans. With SOC's strengths we will be able grow in the Nordic region and also provide technology to the Automotive Industry," added Sampathkumar.

Fidelity announces new business initiative in India (http://in.biz.yahoo.com/080630/139/6v2pg.html)

Mumbai, June 30 (ANI/Business Wire India): Fidelity International today announced that it would launch its world-renowned, award winning, online fund platform, FundsNetworkT in India.

FundsNetworkT will be an open architecture fund platform that will offer online a range of funds from a number of fund houses.

It will help intermediaries to grow their business by allowing them to focus on customer acquisition, advice and relationship management without being concerned about back office and administration issues. India will be the fifth country in the Fidelity Group to launch FundsNetworkT, after the U.S., U.K., Germany and Taiwan. In Phase one, Fidelity today launched the Fidelity Advisers Institute, Fidelity's centre for excellence, for advisers.

Robert Higginbotham, President, Fidelity International, said, "I am delighted that we are bringing our best-in-class online fund platform to India. Backed by our experience in international markets, FundsNetworkT will be a business partner for mutual fund agents (MFAs) by providing them Business Coaching to help them grow their business aided by state-of-the-art Practice Management tools. India is a strategic market for us and the FundsNetworkT initiative demonstrates our commitment to expanding the mutual fund industry here."

FundsNetworkT is a technology powered solution that allows MFAs to devote their time entirely to their professional role of managing and advising their clients. Advisers will benefit from business tools that will support transactional and reporting requirements as well as planning and guidance needs.

cross posting from the Karnataka Projects thread


Karnataka to reboot, targets Rs 1,20,000-cr IT revenues by ’11

Top software industry leaders have presented a blueprint to the BJP government in Karnataka for the revitalisation of the information technology and biotech industries in the state to more than double revenue from the sectors to Rs 1,20,000 crore by 2011.
One of the key components of the blueprint is the creation of four new hubs of 500 acres each around Bangalore exclusively for companies in the IT, BT and health sectors, with industry and government jointly buying land from farmers at market rates.
Access to land in and around Bangalore for expansion, along with the city’s well-documented infrastructure crisis, have been long-standing concerns for IT companies. Applications for land allotment by top names such as Infosys and Wipro have been hanging fire even as they step up investments at locations outside Karnataka.
Karnataka’s leadership in the IT sector appears to be under serious threat, with software exports from the state growing by just 11% during 2007-08, compared to Andhra Pradesh’s 41%, Tamil Nadu 37% and the national average of 29%.
Bangalore’s technology sector employs some 6 lakh people, nearly a tenth of the city’s total population.
The revitalisation blueprint, a copy of which is with ET, envisages an autonomous empowered authority to give all permissions and approvals for what it calls the ‘IT-BT-Health cities.’ “A high-power committee consisting of members from the government and industry will be formed to negotiate and finalise the land procurement,” it says.
In addition a monitoring panel headed by the state’s IT minister and including representatives from government and industry has been suggested. Software companies are wary of property developers and real-estate companies developing technology parks and would prefer instead to set up campuses on their own. The IT industry wants the four new hubs to be located along the proposed peripheral ring road around Bangalore, which is being taken up at a cost of about Rs 3,000 crore.
To give a thrust to the new government’s policy of developing tier II and tier-III cities as magnets for technology companies, the IT industry is asking for a special investment of Rs 500 crore each in Mysore and the port city of Mangalore in three years. It also wants an ‘electronic city’ to be established on 1,000 acres of land in Mysore on the lines of the main technology hub on the outskirts of Bangalore.
A similar integrated IT-BT-Health city is envisaged for the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad to be set up under a public-private partnership. For the northern cities of Belgaum and Gulbarga, it wants ‘electronic cities’ which will help generate large-scale local employment for business process outsourcing companies.
Karnataka’s new IT minister, Katta Subramanya Naidu, has asked technology companies to fan out to the state’s smaller towns and cities to generate local employment and to ease the strain on Bangalore, which is groaning under poor infrastructure and problems with land acquisition.
Software companies say they are ready to invest in other parts of the state, but the government must provide adequate infrastructure and access to human resources in these areas.

source economictimes epaper

West Asia emerges big mkt for indian IT companies

IT companies, which have pitched their tents in the Middle East, are cashing in on the opportunities in the oil-rich region as spending on technology is spurred by the wealth from soaring crude prices, reports Neenu Abraham. The cash-flush region is being seen as an alternative viable market as the US slows down and Indian companies find themselves making good headway with their price advantage. A favourable time zone, a multi-lingual workforce and efforts by governments to diversify and liberalise are attracting companies into this untapped market. Among those capitalising on the Middle East opportunity is Wipro Infotech, which expects triple-digit growth from the region this year. “This will be our major revenue driver over the next 12-36 months,” says Wipro Infotech chief executive Anand Sankaran. “The market is bullish as IT requirements here are increasing,” he adds. In one of its largest deals, the company has entered into a five-year contract, worth over $100 million, with Saudi Airlines, he said. Even small players like Vitage Technologies are also benefitting. “There are a lot of tax advantages and plenty of opportunities from the banking and financial services and realty verticals,” says Vitage Technologies CEO P Rangarajan.

source economictimes epaper

cross posting from the Karnataka Projects thread


Karnataka to reboot, targets Rs 1,20,000-cr IT revenues by ’11



source economictimes epaper

GREAT NEWS!!I was expecting this from the new government:banana::banana:

India's online population up by 27% in 1 yr (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Indias-online-population-up-by-27-in-1-yr/329883/)

More number of people in India are online now than earlier with the size of cyber audiences rising to over 28 million users in 2008, a growth of 27 per cent over the previous year.

Not just India, internet audiences in Asia-Pacific at home and at work, among users of 15 years and above, grew by 14 per cent to 319 million visitors in April 2008, outpacing growth of all other worldwide regions, comScore, Inc, an internet marketing research firm said in a report.

"The strongest growth occurred in India which surged by 27 per cent to more than 28 million internet users. This was followed by China with a 14 per cent growth to more than 102 million," the report titled 'The State of Global Internet with a Focus on Asia' said.

Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand registered a growth of 12 per cent each. Meanwhile developed nations such as Japan and Singapore showed modest gains of 3 per cent and 4 per cent respectively, it said.

we still dont have proper broadband with unlimited downloads :(

please delete. repeat

we still dont have proper broadband with unlimited downloads :(
I always wanted to know why Broadband or just Internet Connections failed to grow as fast mobile. Govt somewhere did something diferrent with the policy.

we still dont have proper broadband with unlimited downloads :(

And we are paying more than the others for what we are getting. A 256 kbps unlimited plan is about Rs. 1000 + taxes here. If I have not read it wrong from a source I can't remember, for the same amount of money, you can get speed upto 1mbps or more in Singapore.

Double post.

Ideacts innovations launches `Clink' (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Ideacts-innovations-launches-Clink/330368/)

Internet media company, ideacts innovations, on Tuesday announced the launch of 'Clink', an internet media platform targeted at the shared internet access space.

Clink is targeted towards white labeled cyber-cafes which is the access point for 36 per cent of India's Internet users, ideacts innovations' Co-Founder and CEO, Rudrajeet Desai, told reporters.

The company has received its first round of funding of USD 5-million from Sequoia Capital. The company has Sequoia Capital India's Senior Advisor, R Ramaraj, and Sequoia Capital India's Operating Partner, Mohit Bhatnagar, on its Board of Members.

"We will invest the amount for technology development and retail operations," Desai said.

Clink is an active desktop application that provides entertainment, information and utility for users. It features system shortcuts for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Web Search, Yahoo Messanger, GTalk, Windows Live Messenger Shortcut and interactive advertisements.

"We provide the application software free of cost to the cyber-cafe owners and pay them a fixed amount every month for using Clink," Desai said.

Presently, the company has tied up with around 45 advertisers and is working with 625 cyber cafes, Desai said.

"We would have around 3,000 cybercafes in our list by December and around 200 advertisers in our list," he said.

"This year the company would focus mainly on the top 8 cities of Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh and later on expand to other parts of the country," he added.

IBM designs data security solution for call centres (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/IBM-designs-data-security-solution-for-call-centres/330912/)

The Indian lab of IBM has brought out a next generation solution to protect against theft of sensitive data from call centres, a major concern of the growing Indian outsourcing market.

"We have developed a solution that offers advanced data masking technology, which is a speech analytics tool that detects and masks private and sensitive information, both audio and onscreen without disrupting customer services or business operations," IBM India Research Laboratory Director Guruduth Banavar said.

The technology solution has been internally code named AudioZapper.

Banavar claimed the solution, developed after 18 months of intensive research in India, was the only solution in the global marketplace that addressed complete security concerns of a call centre.

"There has been some attempts on data masking of conversation but it did not prove to be worthwhile. The IBM solution offers the industry the required protection of confidential data such as credit card numbers, personal identification numbers (PIN), social security numbers, from getting into wrong hands," he said.

Asked about the cost of the technology for call centres and business projections, Banavar said after development the product would be transferred to the marketing arm of the company.

And we are paying more than the others for what we are getting. A 256 kbps unlimited plan is about Rs. 1000 + taxes here. If I have not read it wrong from a source I can't remember, for the same amount of money, you can get speed upto 1mbps or more in Singapore.

if they actually gave you 256 k it wouldnt be too bad. the only unlimited plan i know of is the dial-up plan or ones offered by mobile services, that are as good as dial-ups

if they actually gave you 256 k it wouldnt be too bad. the only unlimited plan i know of is the dial-up plan or ones offered by mobile services, that are as good as dial-ups

I dont know what you mean...Im using the 512kbps unlimited from Airtel and i pay 2 grand a month...i certainly get all of 512 k.

If youre going by download speeds, remember that 256 kbps(kilobits/s) and 256KBps(Kilobytes/s) are different...1 byte=8 bits

So if youre getting speeds of 28 KBps on a 256 kbps connection, youre getting all of 256 kbps.

PC sales cross 7.3 mn units, up by 16% (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/PC-sales-cross-7.3-mn-units-up-by-16/332889/)

Driven by growing notebook consumption in the country, personal computer sales crossed 7.3 million units in 2007-08, registering a growth of 16 per cent over the previous year, a study said.

Information Technology (IT) consumption in 2007-08 was led by a significant growth in notebook sales, which grew by 114 per cent, industry performance review by Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT), the apex body representing India's IT hardware sector said.

"Notebook consumption has driven the PC market in India in 2007-08. With sales crossing a million units in the second half of the last fiscal, total sales of notebook in 2007-08 have surpassed 1.8 million units, growing by 114 per cent over the last fiscal," MAIT, Executive Director, Vinni Mehta said.

PC sales in the country are expected to touch up to 8.5 million units in 2008-09, Mehta added.

Western and Southern India recorded a maximum growth in PC consumption at 39 per cent each.

The recorded sales include both notebooks and desktop personal computers as of March 2008.

Zylog to launch e-waste management software (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Zylog-to-launch-ewaste-management-software/332411/)

IT solutions provider Zylog Systems will launch a new software to manage electronic waste in the next three-four months.

Zylog Systems Vice-president (Business Development) John Mehrmann said the software is primarily aimed at creating a database of products to be recycled and information on partners involved in the process.

The Chennai-based company expects to launch the software, 'Recycle Accelerator', in the country during October-November.

The new product would help in connecting all the partners, including manufacturers, recyclers, collectors and buyers of the materials for reuse, he added.

The company has already spent about one million dollars for development of Recycle Accelerator and would be investing another one million dollars.

Recycle Accelerator would enable manufacturers, recyclers, collectors and buyers to share information and strengthen communication on tracking, among others.

Further, Zylog Systems would be partnering with makers of electronic products and other service providers to create a network of stakeholders involved in the process of recycling e-waste, and is already in talks with some of them.

Zylog Systems Senior Vice-president (Enterprise solutions) Ananth Chaganty said, "Most of the big makers have shown interest in partnering with us. However, they themselves will announce the partnership soon." He, however, did not divulge the name of the companies Zylog is in talks with.

Pointing out that there is not enough awareness about the hazards of e-waste in the country, John Mehrmann said unlike America, India does not have stringent laws to address the issue.

"India is a big luxury dumping ground. People are not aware of the hazards these electronic waste can cause."

The aim is to create awareness and also help them in earning money from proper management of e-waste, he added.

Zylog Systems is also holding discussions with trade associations and the Central government on ways to enhance awareness levels about the benefits of e-waste management.

Software, services exports rise 29% in FY'08 (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Software-services-exports-rise-29-in-FY08/333411/)

India's software and services exports grew 29 per cent in 2007-08 to register revenues of 40.4 billion dollar, up from 31.4 billion dollar in the previous year, Industry body NASSCOM said on Wednesday.

The overall IT-BPO industry, including the domestic market, recorded 28 per cent growth to touch 52 billion dollar revenue in FY'07-08.

The software and services revenue is expected to grow between 21-24 per cent in the current fiscal, with the export segment foretasted to reach 50 billion dollar.

Tata Consultancy Service remained the top software and services exporter followed by Infosys and Wipro. The BPO exports clocked 30 per cent increase to reach revenues of 10.9 billion dollar.

"We are well on our target to achieve 60 billion dollar revenues in export in 2009-10," NASSCOM President Som Mittal said.

Allied Digi acquires 80% in EnPointe unit (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Allied-Digi-acquires-80-in-EnPointe-unit/333842/)

Indian IT services firm Allied Digital Services Ltd has acquired 80.5 per cent stake in the infrastructure management business of US-based EnPointe Technologies Inc for $30 million, a top official said.

Allied expects to earn about $40 million in revenue in this financial year as a result of this acquisition, Chairman and Managing Director Nitin Shah told Reuters on Thursday.

"This is our first acquisition in the US and with this about a third of our revenues will be from there," Shah said.

"The acquisition gives us a ready base to expand our presence in the US We will also be looking at cross-selling opportunities in our various segments," he added.

Allied will pay about 40 per cent of acquisition cost in cash and the remaining through an equity swap, resulting in a 4 per cent dilution in Allied Digital's equity, Shah said.

Allied Digital, which has about 10 per cent market share in the domestic infrastructure management services segment, derives 94 per cent of its revenues from India.

EnPointe Global Services Llc is a carved-out subsidiary of EnPointe Technologies, which has annual revenue of $350 million, according to a statement from the Indian company.

There will be an upfront cash payment of $10 million and an issue of 745,000 issue of equity shares of Allied Digital to EnPointe with an additional cash infusion of $4 million in EnPointe Global, Allied Digital said in its statement.

Industry body National Association of Software and Service Companies sees the global market for infrastructure management services at $70 billion.

TCS confident of growth in US (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/TCS-confident-of-growth-in-US/336845/)

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India's top software exporter, is confident of growth in the United States, its largest market, a senior company official said on Thursday.

"BFSI (Banking, financial services and insurance) has picked up and will grow from here on and U.S. has done very well. This has given us confidence," N. Chandrasekaran, executive director and chief operating officer, told a news conference.

The U.S. market grew the most among other markets in its fiscal first quarter ended June, he said.

TCS gets almost half its revenue from the United States.

The company had narrowly missed forecasts with a 5 per cent rise in quarterly profit on Wednesday and sounded cautious about outsourcing business prospects amid turmoil in the global financial sector.

The company is also planning to make inroads into smaller cities
After Infosys, it is Mphasis, the business process outsourcing company owned by EDS that has decided to make Pune its largest delivery centre in India. Total staff would go up to 9,000 plus, spread across their facilities at Magarpatta City, Eon near Kharadi and their BPO at Kalyaninagar.

Mphasis has over 6,400 employees working across the three facilities right now. "Our development centre at Magarpatta has about 2,500 employees and an equal number would be added to our new facility," said the chief technology officer (CTO) of Mphasis, Sai Kumar, who was in the city recently.
Globally, Mphasis has a headcount of 27,000. Pune would, however, have to share this slot with Chennai where 3,000 resources would be added over a period of time. The existing workforce is engaged in working in verticals such as application services, BPO as well as infrastructure management services.
The reason why Pune is being looked at as a favoured option is the ready availability of talent coupled with other factors such as government support and an improving infrastructure, said Kumar.

"Pune has a rich history of academic institutions which produce some of the best and brightest talent. Additionally, there exists a good skill mix and resources who have expertise on various types of technologies and platforms, said company officials.
They said the STPI, NASSCOM and other government and semi-government bodies have helped during the set up and smooth functioning of the offices in Pune. "The IT industry in Pune is well organised and together we have been able to address local challenges well," they said.

Socio-economic factors such as a better working environment, proximity to larger centres like Mumbai and improving infrastructure are also some others reasons for selecting Pune. "The government is now encouraging private-public partnership and we look positively towards better infrastructure in the city," the officials added.
"Both Pune and Chennai would be our strategic committed delivery centres in India with most of the outsourcing and off-shoring business now being directed to these two locations," Kumar said, adding, with a large presence in Mumbai and other metros, the company is also planning to make inroads into smaller cities.
"Bangalore has become overcrowded and hence we are focusing on other cities in terms of IT development. Pune with its large talent pool is a good choice. We have also recently moved to cities like Indore and Ahmedabad," Kumar said, adding that in terms of cost, having a base in Pune could prove beneficial on some counts. However, costs of real estate, talent and other variables are on the increase and one must look at Pune from a value addition perspective rather than a pure cost perspective, he said.
Though the CTO did not specify the timeframe by which both cities would develop into the largest delivery centres, he said the process has already begun. "All new accounts and delivery would now be diverted to Pune and the two cities would develop as strategic centre for Mphasis solution," said Kumar.
With a stronghold in the field of IT, banking and airlines industry the company is also planning to make inroads into the growing retail and health care sector in India...............

IBM launches Project Big Green 2.0 in India (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/IBM-launches-Project-Big-Green-2.0-in-India/337336/)

IBM on Friday announced the launch of the second phase of Project Big Green (PBG 2.0) in India, and also introduced new modular data centres it said can reduce energy consumption by as much as 50 per cent.

As part of PBG 2.0, senior company officials told a news conference in Bangalore, IBM is introducing new products and services in the country to help enterprises build ‘greener’ technology infrastructures that can meet growing business requirements.

Friday's announcement comes one year after IBM launched Project Big Green and committed USD one billion globally to "deliver technologies that help clients dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in their data centres".

The officials said with Project Big Green, IBM introduced offerings such as scalable modular data centre (SDMC) in the Indian market last year. With PBG 2.0, IBM said it is looking to further building up on the success that it has created with SMDCs and help clients make their IT greener.

They said the modular, energy efficient data centres for the Indian market launched today, are designed to power businesses ranging from large enterprises to small organisations.

"With the launch of the second phase of Project Big Green, clients in India will have access to some of the most advanced green technologies and services for their data centres", Steve Sams, Vice-President, Global Site & Facilities Services, IBM Corporation, said.

The company said it has signed more than a dozen Indian clients for its scalable modular data centres since it was introduced in 2007.

Rediffmail Integrates News Feeds from Orkut and Facebook Into the Mailbox (http://in.biz.yahoo.com/080716/138/6vkva.html)

Continuing to evolve its offering to meet the changing needs of the users, Rediff.com, India's leading online portal added yet another first to its flagship product Rediffmail by introducing feeds functionality from popular social media sites likes Orkut and Facebook into the users Rediffmail inbox.

With the addition of this feature consumers will now be able to register and receive news feeds from popular social networking sites with out actually having to visit them, helping them to keep up-to-date on the activities of their friends and family on the sites.

The objective of introducing feeds into Rediffmail is to help users discover content on social networking platforms which is relevant and useful in an effective and non-intrusive manner. News feeds within the mailbox will help users to find interesting content like photos, videos and music that their friends and family are sharing on the social networking platforms in their mailbox itself.

Commenting on the launch of this new feature Venki Nishtala, Chief technology officer of Rediff.com said, "With email transforming into becoming a dashboard of users activities on the internet, introduction of feeds from social networks into Rediffmail is an evolutionary step in the direction to make Rediffmail a more social email application. The new feature will help users to conveniently, and efficiently keep abreast of the activities of their friends and family on various social networking platforms."

In its launch phase Rediffmail will allow users to receive news feeds from Facebook and Orkut and will soon extend it to cover more social networking sites like Linkedin amongst others.

User can sign up to receive news feed by simply providing their username and password details and Rediffmail will automatically import news feeds from their chosen social networking sites, helping them to engage with their friends more conveniently. Users can choose to use the service just as a way to see what their friends are up to, or for browsing and reading the stuff their friends share and actively engage them through email by sending comments and messages.

Dell seeing strong demand in India, grows 99 pc in units in Q1

World's second largest computer maker Dell is bullish on India market and seeing rising demand from consumer, small and medium business, government, financial services and education sectors.

"We are witnessing rapid pick-up of business in new categories of consumer and SME and segments of government, banking, financial services and insurance and education," Dell India Director, Corporate Communications, Rajiv Ahuja said.

The Texas-based company, which has a plant in Tamil Nadu, said Dell is the fastest growing major player in India. Dell India achieved a revenue of Rs 3,000 crore building on strong volume growth in 2007. "We grew 99 per cent year-on-year by units in Q1 calendar 2008. This is 10 times the industry growth rate," Ahuja said.

"We are overall now at third position in the market with a 7.6 per cent market share and we continue to be number one in large corporates segments," he said. Dell has launched low-cost personal computers customised for the Indian market. At present, HCL Infosystems offers the cheapest laptop available in India at Rs 13,990.

Analysts said there was a market for cheap laptops in India and Dell might look at entering into sales pacts with educational institutions and government departments. According to IDC reports, there are about 7.6 million SMEs in India that spend $ 3.25 billion on IT hardware.

Dell has already announced the adoption of channel sales model to enhance its presence in the Indian market. The vendor plans to leverage the growing opportunities in the SMB segment.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Dell_seeing_strong_demand_in_India_grows_99_pc_in_units_in_Q1/articleshow/3255117.cms)

IBM opens service management center of excellence in Pune (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/IBM-opens-service-management-center-of-excellence-in-Pune/338906/)

IT major IBM on Tuesday announced the opening of the IBM Service Management Center of Excellence in India that will act as the regional hub for IBM Tivoli service management software and strategy.

The center has been designed to develop specialised focus and skills in high value areas such as telecom, security, automation and asset management.

"This first of its kind center has been established in Pune," an IBM statement said today.

The center would be staffed by IBM service management experts from around the world and would provide infrastructure and resources for education; client engagement support to sales team and business partners; and facilities for proof of concept, demos and workshops.

It also would offer certification and joint education programmes with local universities, access to industry models, best practices and proven methodologies based on IBM's worldwide service management experience, it said.

Wipro going the green way

Wipro has taken various initiatives to infuse a green element into its business, by offering solutions that would help the company and its customers optimise energy efficiency and deal with waste, according to Anurag Behar, Chief Eexcutive, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering and Corporate VP for Social Initiatives.

Currently an estimated 70 per cent of the Leed certified buildings were lit by energy efficient Wipro products, he said during the launch of 'eco chapters' at the Wipro Campus on Tuesday.

Wipro was also helping customers to deal with e-waste like safe disposal of hardware, he said.

The company aims at becoming a carbon neutral, water positive organisation, achieve a defined level of biodiversity foot print, set new standards in recycling waste and facilitate employees achieve a hgiher ecological footprint in their personal lives, he said.

It also aims at achieving transparency in sustainability reporting and incorporating the expected effects of climate change and other areas of environmental degradation into Wipro's risk strategy, he added.

As part of the green intiative there were efforts to design products and solutions that reduced hazardous waste and focussed on enhancing environmental sustainability, said B Krishna Murthy, Delivery and Location Head, Hyderabad said.

Eco chapters has been launched under the umbrella eco-eye, a programme driven to ensure environmental sustainability, aimed at engaging all Wipro stakeholders, including employees, partners, suppliers, customers and immediate communities, in its agenda to step up measures to protect the environment.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Wipro_going_the_green_way/articleshow/3265839.cms)

Tech Mahindra to invest $150 mn in 3 yrs (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ITeS/Tech_Mahindra_to_invest_150_mn_in_3_yrs/articleshow/3265906.cms)

MUMBAI:IT services and telecom solutions provider Tech Mahindra will invest USD 150 mn over the next three years to set up 4 development centres across India.

"The company will spend USD 150 mn over the next three years (to develop four centres)," Mahindra & Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra told shareholders at the 21st Annuam General Meeting of Tech Mahindra here on Tuesday.

Tech Mahindra Vice-Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Vineet Nayyar later said that the investment would be made to set up centres in Pune, Kolkata, Chandigarh and Nodia.

Nayyar said apart from the 9,000-seat Pune facility, the first phase of which is in the final stages of completion at Hinjewadi SEZ, others will come up this year or in early 2009.

The Noida centre would be a 4,000-seater facility, while the ones at Kolkata and Chandigarh would house 3,000 people each, he said.

At present, the company has three 'establishments' in Noida, two in Kolkata and one in Chandigarh.

The development centres would be used for accommodating the existing facilities or for expansions of the company's operations in the respective cities, a company official said.

Nayyar said the company is looking at acquisitions in the BPO/KPO space, but yet to identify a target.

"We are interested in the telecom space. However, it has to be a strategic fit to our existing operations," the official said, adding the BPO/KPO vertical of the company employs 3,445 people.

Satyam to set up IT development centers in south America

IT major, Satyam Computer Services Ltd, plans to set up IT and BPO development centers in Mexico and Chile or Uruguay shortly, a top company official said.

After opening IT and BPO development centres in Egypt, Brazil and a second center in Australia, we are now looking at setting up the same in Mexico and either in Chile or Uruguay, Satyam Computer's President, Ram Mynampati, told reporters on the sidelines of a press meet here today.

Satyam sees a major growth in the next few quarters coming from outside the United States, mainly the Asia Pacific, Middle-East and Europe, Mynampati said.

Today, the US contributes 60 per cent business volumes, while Europe contributes 19.5 per cent and the remaining 20.5 per cent comes from the rest of the world.

Australia, Singapore, Canada and some Latin American countries are growing. Satyam's Middle-East operations increased 102 per cent in revenue for the first-quarter.

We are hopeful that 40 per cent volume currently coming from the Asia-Pacific will increase to 50 per cent shortly, Mynampati said. He pointed out that India has been the focus area for the company, where the company was growing at 100 per cent.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Software/Satyam_to_set_up_IT_development_centers_in_south_America/articleshow/3260763.cms)

PC makers line up compact laptops for Indian youth (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/PC-makers-line-up-compact-laptops-for-Indian-youth/339221/)

After witnessing a not-so-happening market for the ultra small laptops in India over the last few years, hardware manufacturers are all set to experiment with a new segment of small and compact laptops. Unlike ultra thin laptops, that were as small as 7 inch in size and were largely used to meet the internet surfing requirements, these are about 8.9 inch and are fully loaded to meet the needs of corporate work.

Hewlett-Packard launched its 8.9 inch Mini Notebook in India last month. ASUS's 8.9 inch and 10 inch laptops are expected to hit the market by the next month. According to sources, Dell and Acer are expected to follow suit.

Anurag Arora, country manager-business notebooks, personal systems group, Hewlett-Packard India, said, "These are light weight laptops and fully loaded. At the same time, earlier, one had to pay about 30% more for these small form factor machines as against the traditional machines."

He added that these laptops are largely targeted at the youth in India. According to the companies, these laptops could range from Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 and would function as a second portability device.

Stanley Wu, product manager, notebooks and EeePC, ASUS India, said, "We have seen a huge demand for our 8.9 inch and 10 inch notebooks in the global market and we expect to launch them in India by next month. For both these products, we expect a sale of 15,000 units per month." He added that ASUS will target educational institutions for the products.

Although the manufacturers are largely targeting the youth, analysts feel that students might not pick this segment of laptops and it will take time for the companies to capture the mass market. Sumanta Mukherjee, analyst, PC research, IDC India, says, "The ultra thin laptops were not that popular with the Indian buyers since they were not really looking at the mobility factor and preferred a full key board laptop." He added that though this segment of laptops is fully loaded, it will take time to pick up with the students and mass consumers. "However, the laptops might be popular among corporate users who travel frequently," he added.

Take solutions charters new territory (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Take-solutions-charters-new-territory/339911/)

Take Solutions announced on Thursday that its worldwide business in regulatory document management and electronic submissions software arena is making quick inroads in the Indian market. The addition of these new clients to Take Solutions’ globally renowned PharmaReady suite, makes this product very well entrenched in the Indian market. Amongst others, key customers in India are Ajanta Pharma, Alembic Ltd., Alkem, Dabur, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Marksans Pharma and Serum Institute.

With e-submissions becoming mandatory in many of the countries in the West, more and more Pharma companies in India are realizing the need to update their processes and procedures to the e-Submissions platform.

With a 100% implementation and submissions success rate, PharmaReady is being put to constant use by customers in 12 countries across 4 continents with an install base of several thousand satisfied users.

The PharmaReady suite of software distinguishes itself from the marketplace by being relevant to a wide range of global life sciences customers and prospects. This includes branded and generic bio-pharmaceutical companies in various stages of their research and application process as they seek approval from global regulatory agencies.

Take Solutions has near shore support centers located in Chennai for the Asia Pacific customer base that makes it very convenient for users located in this part of the world. TAKE’s offices in North America serve as the support centers for the North American and European customer base.

Talking about the company’s growth Mr. L. Ramesh (Vice President – Sales) said, “We continuously strive to add value and bring the significance and relevance of global regulatory standards to the life sciences customer base, acting as a key liaison and a thought leader in this space”.

Wavion Partners with Three Indian Distributors and Opens a Local Office in India (http://in.biz.yahoo.com/080722/138/6vs3e.html)

Wavion(TM), a company transforming the Metro and Rural Wi-Fi market with a new category of Wi-Fi Base Station, announced today the opening of a local office in India. Wavion has recently signed partnership agreements with 3 distinguished and experienced Indian distributors to cover the entire India and support the growing need for broadband wireless connectivity in the country.

Wavion's powerful WBS-2400 spatially adaptive beamforming base stations provide extended range and higher throughput connectivity to standards-based Wi-Fi clients, such as those embedded in laptops and other notebook computers. Wavion's outdoor Wi-Fi solution requires one third fewer units than other competing Access Points (APs) to cover the same area, with superior indoor penetration and fewer dead spots.

"Wavion sees great potential in the wireless Internet connectivity market in India. We have established a local office in order to be close to our customer base and be able to provide them with the best possible service and support," said Eran Kaplan, Wavion's Executive VP Sales and Marketing. "Our outdoor Wi-Fi solution is highly cost effective and offers superior performance in terms of coverage and indoor penetration. This creates a powerful value proposition with very low customer acquisition cost in the densely populated cities in India."

Wavion's National distribution partners in India include V LINK SYSTEMS Pvt. Ltd., Chennai; eROADS Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., Delhi; and Brij Infotech Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai.

Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, July 24, 2008

India remains the "undisputed leader" in a list of the top 30 countries for offshore services prepared by IT market research major Gartner Inc.

The research firm based in Connecticut, US, applied a list of 10 criteria to find its top 30, but many of the conclusions are already well known - India is the "undisputed leader" in offshore services, with China, Russia and Brazil providing credible alternatives, while Ireland, Israel, Northern Ireland and South Africa are strong in language skills.
http://businesstoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&issueid=34&id=6380&Itemid=1&sectionid=4

cross post from gurgaon thread....


The total exports from Gurgaon in the information technology & IT- enabled services industry has touched a figure of Rs 18,000 crore at the end of last financial year 2007-08.

Stating this here on Wednesday, an official spokesman said in the year 2006-07, software export from Gurgaon was Rs 15,000 crore where as it was Rs 10,700 crore in 2005-06.



:banana: In Gurgaon, the Industry is growing at the rate of about 40% , which is much above the national average of about 28%. :banana:

In order to give boost to the IT industry, a regional IT industry promotion office has been set up in Gurgaon. He said, “Gurgaon is fast emerging as an IT hub and there are about 400 IT and IT Enabled services (ITeS) companies operating in the district. It has emerged as a preferred destination for IT industry after the announcement of IT policy by government of Haryana.” He said that you name any renowned IT company of the world and you will find it's office in Gurgaon.

Recently, an American company Thompson, which is known for graphics and animation in the world, had also set up its office in Gurgaon. He said that due to the liberal policies of Hooda government, a phenomenal growth was registered here.


http://www.financialexpress.com/news...8-k-cr/339508/

‘Indian IT sector set to be 2nd largest’

"Indian IT industry may be passing through a rough patch because of a slowdown in the US economy and high inflation rates, but this stage will pass. India will continue to drive the global IT market for the next few years. In fact, it will emerge as the second most important IT industry in the world after the US in terms of revenue and employment," says a study. "India will create the second largest IT services labour pool after the US within the next seven to eight years. That's not all, domestic IT industry's contribution to our GDP is likely to rise from 0.8% in 2006-07 to 2.65% by 2015-16."

This has been forecasted by a yet to be released white paper ‘India's Role in the Globalization of the IT Industry' by Evalueserve, a KPO. It says, "by 2015-2016, the number of professionals working in the IT industry will grow ten-fold (from 2001-2002) and the total revenue will grow 22 times." This means, the IT industry is likely to employ 3,750,000 professionals and record $193.1 billion in revenue by 2015-16.

"Since India's GDP is growing at 8.5% per annum in real terms and 14% in nominal terms, by 2015-16 our GDP is likely to be $2,400 billion. Given this, the IT industry is likely to constitute 8.05% of India's GDP."

While in the last decade, IT services exports (including engineering services, R&D, and those related to creating and maintaining software products) have been growing at 32% annually. Evalueserve estimates this growth rate will taper off and become around 20% in the next seven to eight years. The reason: rising wages, lack of high quality talent, and IT jobs relocating to other low-cost destinations in Eastern Europe and Latin America.

The paper thus concludes: First, by 2016 India will have the second highest number of IT professionals in the world after the US. In fact, US will employ between 1.25 to 1.33 times more professionals than India.

Second, even in 2016, the US IT industry will generate approximately $810 billion in annual revenue, which would be almost five times the revenue of the Indian IT industry. And third, since the IT industries in both the US and India have become inextricably linked with one another, both countries will import and export more IT services and products for the next seven to eight years.

Source: TOI

Novatium ties up with MTNL for $100 PC.

They grabbed international headlines when they launched their $100 (around Rs 4200) Net PC in January this year. It was touted to be one of the cheapest Net PCs anywhere in the world. So much so that Novatium Solutions, the Chennai-based company that was incubated at IIT Chennai went on to be featured by Newsweek as their cover story some months ago.

Six months later, after tasting success with their pilot project in collaboration with MTNL in Delhi, the company is now drawing up expansion plans. This month Novatium is signing a commercial deal with MTNL to provide the PC and computing services with all MTNL boradband plans. ‘‘In the pilot project, MTNL included it in their Rs 399 broadband plan. Under the revenue sharing agreement, MTNL kept Rs 100 for the net connectivity while Novatium got Rs 299 for computing services per user,'' says Jaideep Kohli, COO, Novatium Solutions.

Under the new deal, MTNL will provide Net PCs with all their broadband plans. Of course, the customer can chose if they want to take the PC. As for revenue sharing, it will continue like before. Kohli says, "they have a target of selling 1 lakh Net PCs by the year end in India. Meanwhile, they are also in talks with other service providers across the country to launch the PC in other cities." ‘‘Mumbai will be launched next month. Within this financial year, we will spread out to top 10 Indian metros,'' Kohli adds.

As for maintaining the $100 tag, they plan to continue subsidising it at their end to keep the price stable. The company has just signed a deal with Mauritius Telecom (MT), the leading broadband providers of Mauritius, to provide the PC. Under the deal, Novatium will charge MT $2 per user per month. Kohli feels the $100 price tag will help Novatium increase PC penetration to 1,00,000 households by 2012. The company is also in talks with telecom providers in Thailand and Dubai to take the NetPC there.

So what exactly is the NetPC? Novatium has tried to redesign the computer, by slashing costs while keeping the form and functions similar to a top-end PC. Based on cheap cell-phone chips, it comes without a hard disk, pre-packaged software and extensive memory. Once it's set up, it doesn't look very different from a conventional PC. What's more, the device works with any network server without requiring major modifications.

It uses proprietary software from Microsoft or Sun, or free open source software from Linux. In fact, Microsoft is participating in the Chennai pilot programme because Novatium's subscription-based payment system could generate profit in markets where most users run pirated versions of Microsoft products. Network server giant Sun Microsystems too has inked a deal to market the NetPC to enterprises and schools in India beginning this year.

Source: TOI

Wipro to partner TN engineering colleges for ‘Mission10X’ plan (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Wipro-to-partner-TN-engineering-colleges-for-Mission10X-plan/340678/)

With Indian outsourcing industry expanding its horizons in the present times, the only worry that plagues the industry is the availability of quality employable manpower and coming as it does the ‘Mission 10 X’ - not for profit initiative of WIPRO launched recently is set to address the yawning skill gaps in 14 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu in its first phase.

Speaking to the Financial Times, senior vice-president, WIPRO, Selvan D said that the demand curve for the quality skilled knowledge workers is on the rise with the booming economy and the mission is to bring talented engineering graduates into IT and other vibrant sectors of economy. “Initially, our plan is to cover 1000 faculties and later scale it up to 3,000 and 6,000 to apparently reach 10,000-odd faculties by 2010,” he said.

To a question on how effective WIPRO initiative can address the impending challenges in the skill enhancement of engineering graduates, he referred to a study comprising three key parameters upon the WIPRO’s 6-month skill development programme is designed upon.

“According to the study on the engineering colleges, it was found that 60% suffers from lower faculty capability, 36% on poor methodology and technology and only a 4% on infrastructure. Our focus is on raising the standards of teaching methodology by imparting best teaching practice modules collectively called eclectic pedagogical framework. The highlight of the programme is the cascading phenomena where a trained professor passes on the acquired euridition to his colleague and students of his class or college,” he added.

When asked to list out the essential skills WIPRO wish to impart to graduate engineering students, he said quintessential skills including developing oral communication, stimulate critical thinking, using a team approach to problem solving, interpersonal and intra-personal communication skills form the repertoire.

Software exports to cross $40 bn in ‘07-08: Govt (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Software-exports-to-cross-40-bn-in-0708-Govt/341083/)

Department of Information Technology has projected over 28 per cent rise (in dollar terms) in the total value of software and services exports in 2007-08.

In 2007-08, the software and services industry continues to show a robust growth and the total value of software and services exports are estimated at Rs 163,000 crore (USD 40.3 billion) compared to Rs 141,000 crore (USD 31.4 billion) in 2006-07, an increase of 15.6 per cent in rupee terms and 28.3 per cent in dollar terms, DIT said in its estimate.

The electronics and IT exports are estimated to be Rs 1,75,700 crore compared to Rs 1,53,500 crore in 2006-07, showing a growth of a 14.5 per cent, it said.

Industry body NASSCOM had announced earlier that the country's software and services exports grew 29 per cent in 2007-08 to cloak a revenue of 40.4 billion dollar, up from 31.4 billion dollar in the previous year.

The overall IT-BPO industry, including the domestic market, recorded a 28 per cent growth to touch 52 billion dollar revenue in 2007-08, NASSCOM had said.

The IT industry body had said the software and services revenue is expected to grow between 21 and 24 per cent in the current fiscal, with the export segment forecast to reach 50 billion dollar.

Giving an indication of strong performance this fiscal country's top four software exporters—Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam --have posted good quarterly results although fears of delay in decision making by the top clients of these companies loomed large due the slowdown in the US economy.

Infosys plans to cut US dependence to 40 pct (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Infosys-plans-to-cut-US-dependence-to-40-pct/341379/)

Infosys Technologies plans to cut dependence on the United States to about 40 per cent from more than 60 per cent now, its chief executive said, as a slowdown in the world's largest economy hits outsourcing deals. Infosys, which got 63 per cent of its revenue from the United States in the June quarter, planned to boost contribution from Europe to 40 per cent from 27 per cent, while other markets would account for the remaining 20 per cent, CEO S. Gopalakrishnan said.

"We will continuously evolve and change," Gopalakrishnan said. "It's also driven by realization that emerging markets are contributing more to the global GDP growth, that's where the growth is faster." He declined to set a time-frame for this, saying: "It's not that you need to do it tomorrow, that you have hit a wall."

Earlier this month, Infosys, India's second-largest software services exporter, beat forecasts with a 21 per cent rise in quarterly profit but warned of challenging times ahead as its major Western clients battle weakening economies.

Indian outsourcing firms such as Infosys and its bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services are rapidly expanding to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to cut their dependence on the United States.

Gopalakrishnan said Nasdaq-listed Infosys was also focusing on markets such as Japan, India, Australia, China, the Middle East, Canada and Latin America due to growing technology spending in these markets. "These are new growth engines for us. We are investing in those markets and adding sales capacities," he said. "Some momentum is being built and if it's sustained over time I think this will have a positive impact on the company."

Despite mounting turmoil in the global financial industry, Infosys is not seeing downward pressure on prices that it charges its clients, but Gopalakrishnan said it doesn't expect an increase in billing rates either.

Infosys, which develops applications, designs supply chains and offers back-office services, counts ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs and Philips Electronics among its more than 560 clients.

Gopalakrishnan, one of the seven founders of Infosys which was set up in 1981, expects the consulting business unit to break even in the current financial year to March 2009, as it taps more customers for this high margin service. In the last financial year which ended in March, the consulting unit reported a loss of $13 million.

"It is a conscious choice for us to continue to invest in it," he said. "It is good business... It is a piece that is required if you want to be a full services company."

Internap likely to enter India via Reliance Globalcom (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Internap-likely-to-enter-India-via-Reliance-Globalcom/341256/)

US-based Internap Network Services Corporation, an internet solutions provider, is expected to start its operations in India through an alliance with Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s Reliance Globalcom. Internap intends to target the Indian enterprises with its Content and Application Delivery Network (CDN) services. According to Tier1 Research report, the estimated spend on these services in Asia Pacific is projected to grow to Rs 1,163 crore ($270 million) by 2010.

According to sources, the duo are believed to be targeting a revenue of Rs 200 crore to Rs 250 crore a year.

“Reliance Globalcom has about 850 corporate clients for enterprise solutions and with this alliance, the duo will target these existing clients in India ,” the source adds.

The alliance will allow the duo to provide managed services and content delivery network services to add graphics, audio, streaming video and live events to internet applications.

Internap has its global delivery infrastructure across Australia, China, Singapore, Japan, the US, the UK and the Netherlands . It is also likely that Internap would extend its alliance with Reliance Globalcom to widen the services to other countries.

Internap is expected to bring in its patented MIRO (managed internet routing optimiser) and ADN(application delivery network) technologies.

MIRO monitors the performance of Internet backbones and automatically selects the best path to global destinations, thus providing faster content delivery.

IT industry to constitute 8% of economy in 8 yrs (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/IT-industry-to-constitute-8-of-economy-in-8-yrs/341477/)

Continuing its growth momentum, the Indian IT industry is projected to constitute over eight per cent of the economy and employ the second largest number of professionals after the United States in the next eight years, says a study.

According to research and analytics firm Evalueserve, the booming IT industry is expected to account for 8.05 per cent of the country's GDP by 2015-16, compared to 2.86 per cent in 2007-08.

During the same period, the employee strength would be surging to 37.5 lakh, making India the place with the second largest number of IT professionals after the United States.

In 2007-08, the number of such people was at 13.16 lakh.

"The industry is likely to employ 37,50,000 professionals and record USD 193.1 billion in revenue by 2015-16. Since India's GDP is growing annually at 8.5 per cent in real terms and 14 per cent in nominal terms, this GDP is likely to be USD 2,400 billion by 2015-16, and hence the IT industry is likely to constitute 8.05 per cent of the total GDP," the study noted.

In the next eight years, the US is projected to employ about 1.25 to 1.33 times more IT professionals than those in India.

Further, in terms of revenues, the IT industry in the US is expected to generate USD 810 billion which would be about five times more than projected for the sector in India, the study added.

Infosys plans to cut US dependence to 40 pct (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Infosys-plans-to-cut-US-dependence-to-40-pct/341379/)

That's an absurd target to set. So do they plan to stop bidding for deals in the US and bid more aggressively in other regions to achieve that target? Whatever the case is, they'll still be bidding aggressively across all regions like they do right now.

That's an absurd target to set. So do they plan to stop bidding for deals in the US and bid more aggressively in other regions to achieve that target? Whatever the case is, they'll still be bidding aggressively across all regions like they do right now.

Dependence on one region is not a good idea. But the US is too important a market no matter how obvious its economy seem to be slowing down. If at all they are planning to increase revenue from other regions, it shouldn't be because of a deliberate attempt at neglecting the US market.

^^weak dollar syndrome.:dunno:
its still absurd to think they wont be as aggressive in the US as they are right now.

Sify technologies select Redline's products for multi-city WiMAX network in India (http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20080729/832/tbs-sify-technologies-select-redline-s-p.html)

Redline Communications Group Inc. ("Redline") (TSX and AIM: RDL), a leading provider of WiMAX and broadband wireless infrastructure products, and Sify Technologies Limited (NASDAQ National Market: SIFY), a leader in consumer, Internet and Enterprise Services in India with global delivery capabilities, today announced that Sify has selected Redline's WiMAX Forum CertifiedT RedMAX products for its multi-city WiMAX network in India.

Sify has deployed Redline's RedMAX products in Delhi and Mumbai with the capacity to deliver business-class Internet services to enterprise users. Sify has also begun its WiMAX network expansion to Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. The initial WiMAX network deployment in these regions is scheduled for completion in 2008.

"The launch of our WiMAX services in these five cities will further our mission of being an enabler and catalyst of the Internet for positive change in India," said Arvind Mathur, Chief Architect, Sify Technologies Limited.

"Redline's proven WiMAX technologies and reliable high-speed connections with the ability to support hundreds of users per base station will ensure we deliver reliable, standards-driven, managed last mile solutions to enterprise customers that support business critical applications over Sify's IP-MPLS network. Redline's solutions meet the stringent requirements of our customers who include major banks, retailers, manufacturers and other enterprises that require the highest levels of performance, reliability and security for their communications networks," he added.

Sify selected Redline's 3.3 - 3.4 GHz RedMAX products after a rigorous three-month evaluation process that included a number of broadband wireless solutions. The criteria for WiMAX equipment selection included WiMAX Forum CertificationT, high subscriber capacity, support for Service Level Agreements, security, ease of installation and cost-effectiveness.

"Sify is recognized as a pioneer in wireless and corporate networking in India, with an innovative and successful model for offering communications services," said Kevin Suitor, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Redline Communications Inc.

"With its professional approach to its network and business models, Sify is well positioned to meet its expansion targets with RedMAX," he added.

'Tamil Nadu to create 3 mn jobs in IT sector' (http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20080729/864/ttc-tamil-nadu-to-create-3-mn-jobs-in-it.html)

Tamil Nadu's Information Communication Technology (ICT) policy 2008-9, aiming to provide employment to three million people in the next three years was unveiled Tuesday by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.

Releasing the ICT policy, Karunanidhi said: 'Tamil Nadu will be Asia's ICT hub by creating a knowledge-driven economy, leveraging entrepreneurship and promoting socially inclusive growth.'

The state will invest Rs.2.5 billion for expansion of existing IT-ITES facilities in Chennai, Thiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, he said.

Units employing over 100 workers would be eligible for capital subsidy of Rs.3 million and electricity tax exemption for two years. This exemption would increase up to five years if new IT-ITES firms invested Rs.2 billion and employed over 400 direct workers, the policy said.

The government will provide tax incentives for investors investing between Rs.50 million and Rs.500 million in the IT sector, the policy said.

Tamil Nadu contributes $5.7 billion worth of IT and ITES products and services to India's IT basket.

Tremendous response for Fab policy

The semiconductor policy announced by the government has received an overwhelming response with 12 prospective players, including Reliance Industries, lining up a total investment proposal of Rs 93,000 crore.

The Reliance Industries has approached the Centre with a Rs 18,500-crore plan to set up a semiconductor wafer fab in India.

The Mukesh Ambani-led firm has also sent a Rs 11,631 crore proposal to build a Solar photo voltaic (PV) polysilicon plant, IT Minister A Raja said today.

He said these proposals have come as a follow up of the semiconductor policy which doles out special sop packages.

The proposals also include a Rs 8,000-crore plan from Videocon Industries to make TFT LCD Flat Panel, and a Rs 6,000 crore plan of PV Technologies India for solar PV.

Titan Energy System's solar PV, polysilicon plan includes Rs 5880.58 crore and KSK Surya Photovoltaic Ventures' Solar PV proposal projects investments of Rs 3,211 crore, he said.

Signet Solar Inc wants to build a solar PV plant with an investment of 9,672 crore and other proposals include Phoenix Solar India 's Solar PV plant for Rs 1,200 crore and Tata BP Solar India Ltd solar PV unit for 1,692.80 crore.

Other big proposals include Solar Semiconductor's Solar PV plant at Rs 11,821 and TF Solar Power's Solar PV plant investment is at 2,348 crore. Lanco Solar has sent a proposal for Solar PV, Polysilicon plant at a cost of 12,938 crore.

Department of Information Technology, the nodal ministry, has set up a panel of technical experts to evaluate the plans.

"The promoters will come up to the Appraisal Committee for sanction of subsidy under the scheme once they have reached the threshold limit of investment, as indicated in the guidelines of the Special Incentive Package Scheme", he said.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Tremendous_response_for_Fab_policy/articleshow/3316160.cms)

IBM to focus on small, medium size biz (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/IBM-to-focus-on-small-medium-size-biz/344932/)

IT giant IBM on Tuesday said it is renewing focus on the small and medium size business segment in India, which is growing at a faster pace and is also planning to come up with new initiatives for the segment.

The SMB segment grow twice as fast as the large business in their IT spend. In India, the market for SMB is growing faster than the large enterprise business, IBM Systems and Technology Group (Business Systems Division) General Manager Erich Clementi said.

"In the SMB segment, we have only 13 per cent market share. If I could only take IBM share from 13-30 per cent alone would be 8 million dollar," he said.

IBM is restructuring its focus from a product-centric one to a client-centric business model. This transformation is expected to help IBM STG grow faster by giving its customers a single face of IBM to deal with.

The Big Blue under went restructuring earlier this year into four divisions Enterprise Systems, Business Systems, Industry Systems and Volume Systems.

"The reorganisation will bring us closer to our customers and set the agenda for providing innovative solutions in next generation data centres for the mid-market," he said.

The Business Systems Divisions mission is to accelerate growth and capture a larger piece of the storage and server market which IBM's estimates to be more than a 49 billion dollar opportunity.

This year IBM responded to industry changes and shifted the STG business from a product-centric approach to a customer-centric approach.

cross posting from the M&A thread


Aegis buys Philippine BPO for $250 million

IN its largest acquisition till date, the Essar Groupowned Aegis Communications has bought Philippinesbased BPO PeopleSupport for $250 million. This is the BPO firm’s eleventh acquisition in the last three years. Aegis has signed a definitive agreement to buy the Nasdaqlisted firm, Aegis CEO and MD Aparup Sengupta said. Following the acquisition, PeopleSupport will delist and the Essar group will own 100% of the entity.
Aegis will pay PeopleSupport stockholders $12.25 per share in cash through Essar Services (Mauritius). This is a premium of around 29% over PeopleSupport’s closing share price on August 1, 2008, the last trading day prior to the announcement. Credit Suisse was the financial advisor to PeopleSupport in the transaction.
“We believe that this combination will deliver superior value to PeopleSupport’s stockholders and customers as well as provide our employees with the opportunity to be part of a larger enterprise and to explore career opportunities in new geographies,” PeopleSupport CEO and chairman Lance Rosenzweig was quoted as saying in a statement. PeopleSupport has annual revenues of around $141 million and Aegis, which is unlisted, has revenues of $320 million. “The revenues from the combined entity will reach about $500 million by March 2010,” Mr Sengupta said. The transaction is being funded from internal accruals of the Essar group, he added.
The acquisition gives Aegis a sizeable presence in Philippines, which is a key region for BPO players servicing the US market, as well as presence in Costa Rica. Nearshore benefits from Costa Rica unit
The Costa Rica facility gives it a nearshore presence to US (a presence close to the customer market) as well as the ability to service Spanish-speaking regions in the US in Spanish. PeopleSupport has three centres in Philippines and one in Costa Rica.
In all, Aegis gets about 8,500 employees from the acquisition. This will change how its services are delivered across locations, Mr Sengupta said. Currently, about 37% of its services are from the US and the rest from India. Post-acquisition, about 33% of services will be delivered from Philippines, 40% from India and 27% from US.
The transaction is expected to be completed in the next 120 days and there will be ‘emotional and economic incentives’ for key personnel to continue with the new management, he said. Aegis will also gain customers in travel, an industry in which it does not have any clients. About 23% of PeopleSupport’s revenues come from customers in the travel industry, 33% from financial services and the rest from technical support and related areas. Aegis will now cater to five industry segments, including telecom, healthcare, retail and utilities.

source economictimes epaper

Maha Govt to allot land for Videocon's Rs 8,000 cr LCD unit (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Maha_Govt_to_allot_land_for_Videocons_Rs_8000_cr_LCD_unit/articleshow/3330366.cms)

MUMBAI: Maharashtra government on Tuesday decided to allot land for India's first LCD panel manufacturing facility to be set up by Videocon group.

The LCD panels are used for making flat computer monitors, TVs, portable DVD players, among other things.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet here. Videocon would be given land belonging to Cidco for setting up the project, which is expected to cost Rs 8,000 crore and provide jobs for 10,000 people.

The semiconductor policy announced by the Central government has received an overwhelming response, with investment proposals of Rs 93,000 crore, including Videocon's proposal, an official said.

Electronics industry in India

The government has identified electronics and IT hardware manufacturing as one of the thrust areas for development

The industry constitutes less than 1% of the global market. However, demand for these products is growing rapidly and investments are flowing in to augment manufacturing capacity.
a) India remains a major importer of electronic materials, components and finished equipment amounting to around $20 billion (Rs84,000 crore now) in 2007. The country imports electronic goods mainly from China
b) In the last four years, production of computers has grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31%, the highest among the various electronic products in India. This has been followed by communication and broadcast equipment (25%), strategic electronics (20%) and industrial electronics (17%).
c) The consumer electronics segment, which has grown at a CAGR of 10% in the last five years, includes a wide range of products such as DVD, VCD/MP3 players, television sets and microwave ovens.
d) The growth in demand for telecom products has been high, with India adding two million mobile phone users every month, which is one of the main reasons for the growth in production of electronic goods. This growth is expected to continue over the next decade, too.
e) The government has identified electronics and IT hardware manufacturing as one of the thrust areas for development. A special incentive package scheme (SIPS) was announced in March 2007 to attract investments for semiconductor fabrication and other micro and nanotechnology manufacturing industries in India.
f) In the case of exports, the largest share was taken by electronic components, with 47% of total electronic exports. Exports of electronic components have grown at a CAGR of 25% in the last five years.
g) India’s main destination for electronic goods is the US

Livemint

Microsoft announces business availability of SQL server 2008 (http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20080807/832/tbs-microsoft-announces-business-availab.html)

Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited today announced the Release to Manufacture (RTM) of SQL Server 2008 - the latest version of its acclaimed database management offering. With this, SQL Server 2008 will be available to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and computer manufacturers for the product's final physical replication and distribution.

SQL Server 2008 is the foundation of Microsoft's Business Intelligence solutions and provides customers with powerful new capabilities in areas like data governance, support for spatial data, policy-based management and advanced reporting and analysis services. Along with the RTM, Microsoft also announced that SQL Server 2008 is available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. SQL Server 2008 licenses have already been available for ordering from August 1. The Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of SQL Server 2008 was released in March 2008, and the new offering will be priced at the same value as the previous versions. More than 450,000 customers and partners have downloaded SQL Server 2008 since the global CTP launch and nearly 1,000 ISVs, including SAP and UGS, have successfully developed over 75 large scale applications on the platform, with an additional 1350 applications currently underway.

"We have seen great success for SQL Server during our last financial year, with SQL Server revenue growing at an amazing 54 per cent - much faster than the market itself. This is testament to the fact that SQL Server is a mission critical, enterprise ready database solution that is seeing wide scale deployment across India and with the availability of SQL Server 2008, we expect to continue building on this great momentum," said Pallavi Kathuria, Director - Server Business Group, Microsoft India. She further added, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence - all out-of-the-box. By offering a complete solution, we save customers time and money and allow them to focus on deriving the most value from their data assets."

In India, over 30 ISVs including Sonata Software, Skelta, Polaris, Infrasoft, Natural Technologies, Nelito, DVS, Financial Technologies and Ramco have successfully built applications on SQL Server 2008. Additionally, early adopters of the platform like Kotak Mahindra Bank, Larsen and Toubro, TVS and Sahara India are already benefiting from the fresh feature enhancements in the platform.

"Working with SQL Server 2008 is a great experience for developers. The new version of the platform provides many tools and advanced features that help developers deliver faster, reliable and robust applications. Also, with the enhanced performance tuning features, customer can expect their queries to give better response time, greatly aiding speed of decision making in the organisation," said Raja Chanda, Senior Business Manager - Microsoft Services, Sonata Software.

SQL Server 2008 is available in six editions - SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 Standard, SQL Server 2008 Workgroup, SQL Server 2008 Web, SQL Server 2008 Express and SQL Server Compact.

The new version will allow users to store data from structured, semi-structured and unstructured documents (such as images and music) directly within the database. SQL Server 2008 also delivers a rich set of integrated services that enable users to do more with their data such as query, search, synchronize, report, and analyze. With the new version, data can be stored and accessed in large servers within the data centre including desktops and mobile devices, enabling users to have control over their data irrespective of its storage location. SQL Server is the first and only database showing results on TPC-E, the TPC's modern OLTP benchmark that realistically models real-world applications. SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 show record scalability and performance with ISV benchmarks covering a spectrum of customer scenarios.

Most recently, Unisys and Microsoft engineers successfully loaded one terabyte of data using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services in a record time of less than 30 minutes.

States vie for Videocon’s chip project Project

CHIEF ministers of a number of states have rolled out the red carpet for consumer durables giant Videocon’s Rs 10,000-crore semi-conductor project which is caught in a dispute between Maharashtra’s chief minister and revenue minister.
“Ever since the controversy broke out, I have received feelers from a number of states to relocate the project. But I am keen that Maharashtra should get this project as I started my journey from here,” Videocon chairman Venugopal N Dhoot told ET.
The project, which is expected to create jobs for 10,000 locals, has attracted interest from West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. All the states have offered land at a much steeper concessional rate than what Videocon received from Cidco, a Maharashtra state government body.
“We have given a corporate guarantee that we will buy back the 26% stake of Cidco in the semi-conductor project for Rs 950 crore after five years,” Mr Dhoot said. “We will follow the end-use norms very strictly for the land and it will not be used for any purpose other than this industrial project,” he said.
The semi-conductor project planned at Navi Mumbai would receive central government subsidies worth Rs 2,000 crore, apart from land from the Maharashtra government. But the project hit the headlines after Maharashtra’s revenue minister Narayan Rane threatened to resign saying that the land has been offered to Videocon at a ‘throwaway’ prices. Videocon will get 250 acres for Rs 300 crore after the Cabinet cleared the project on Tuesday.
A top Videocon official later told ET that the West Bengal government has offered land to the company at Rs 50 lakh per acre, while land at Gurgaon is available at a similar rate. At this rate, 250 acres will cost Videocon Rs 125 crore. “The difference in land prices between an industrial and residential project is as high as 1:10. For example, land in Pune industrial park is available for Rs 1 crore an acre, while a residential project nearby is fetching Rs 10 crore an acre. Hence, it would be wrong to equate residential land prices with industrial projects,” the official said.
The project has also received feelers from overseas with the Italian government inviting the Mumbai company to set up the project there, the official said.Videocon has recently been granted a subsidy of Rs 3,000 crore in Italy for a similar project. Similarly, China is also keen that Videocon locate the project there. Videocon had submitted the proposal to the Centre in response to a special incentive package scheme for semi-conductor fabrication and nano technology-based industries announced by the government in 2007. Under the scheme, the project would receive subsidies of 20-25% on the total project cost.

source economictimes epaper

India all set to rule software testing market

INDIA is all set to become a leader in the software testing market with an increasing number of software development companies outsourcing their software testing work here. Industry analyst firm Gartner has pegged the worldwide software testing market at $13 billion and the global market for outsourced testing services to be around $6.1 billion, of which India is expected to corner a 70% share.
Software testing implies checking any IT system prior to implementation for multiple aspects like functionality, reliability, usability, security, compliance and performance. Market players like Hexaware and AppLabs believe that the need for outsourcing software testing has grown due to the high level of complexity and multiple intersection points in modern software.
“The winning combination of cost, communication, exposure to various domains, testing principles and test tools gives a clear edge to India in software testing,” said Hexaware Technologies global delivery head and chief software architect Ramanan RV. While software services are growing at an average of about 10-12% globally, testing is growing at over 50% every year. The market opportunity for Indian offshore testing companies is seen at around $8 billion by year-end, from $2-3 billion a year ago.
“Indian businesses have matured in terms of making IT central to all business processes. Hence, there is a very high level of business dependence on error-free software code,” said AppLabs president and CEO Makarand Teje.
A global case in point is eBay, which experienced a 22-hour outage of its website in 1999 due to software flaws. It cost eBay $5 million in revenue and an 11% drop in share price. The outage affected 1.2 million customers who were either trying to sell or buy something on the website.
Along with the growth witnessed in offshoring of software testing to India, the average deal size of such projects is also on the rise. A few years ago, the average deal size for an outsourced testing project was about $50,000-60,000, requiring a few testers. That has now grown to about $2-4 million per project.
According to Gartner, India will require around 18,000 testing professionals every year over the next three years to fulfill the demand seen in the software testing market.

source economictimes epaper

New policy to help spread IT to smaller cities

The Indian government has notified a policy for Information Technology Investment Regions (ITIR), to help the information technology (IT) industry to spread out to tier II and tier III cities.

"We have drafted a set of policies and guidelines to facilitate the expansion of information technology and information technology enabled service (IT-ITES) industry beyond the current set of locations in the country," said Jainder Singh, secretary, information technology in the central government.

"The state government will have to identify minimum of 4,000 hectares of land and assist in the provision of basic infrastructure such as power, water, state roads, etc for the smooth growth of the IT industry," he said.

For these ITIRs the central government will ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure, linkages to the ITIR including national highways, airports, telecom and rail network in a time-bound framework and the private sector will have to play a proactive role in this drive, Singh said.

He added that Chandigarh and its neighbouring towns are one such location and a destination for ITIR which would create opportunities for employment.

"Most of the big information technology companies in the world have started from small ideas, often from a garage, and the government role should be to encourage entrepreneurs and provide requisite enabling environment for implementation of their ideas," Singh said.

source economictimes epaper (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Policy/New_policy_to_help_spread_IT_to_smaller_cities_/articleshow/3345606.cms)

Infosys to set up its largest campus in Hyderabad (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/08/10/stories/2008081051100500.htm)

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/08/10/images/2008081051100501.jpg

Hyderabad, Aug 9 Infosys Technologies plans to invest Rs 1,250 crore to create its single largest campus on a 447-acre campus at Pocharam near Hyderabad with a capacity to host 25,000 engineers.

The phase I of the project, comprising three stages, will be ready within three years, and is expected to see an investment of about Rs 600 crore.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, the Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys, Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy, said: “We typically plan with a ten-year timeframe in mind and this campus notified as a special economic zone could be possibly the biggest single location campus anywhere in the world.”

The Director of Infosys, Mr Mohandas Pai, said “As a part of its drive to become carbon neutral, Infosys is designing this campus on best-in-class sustainability principles to achieve energy efficiency, water sustainability, preservation and promotion of biodiversity and effective waste management.”

It will also have a 25 MW power plant as a back-up.

In Hyderabad, the company now employs over 11,000 people and the centre contributes about Rs 2,279 crore in exports.
TRAINING SPEND

Mr Pai said that Infosys invested about Rs 750 crore last fiscal in training and development, which is a larger budget than most universities in the country. In fact over 50,000 ex-Infosys employees are part of the IT ecosystem, contributing to the sector.

The company is in the process of developing several SEZs in the country and has said that it is investing about Rs 1,200 crore in infrastructure during the year.
State help

The Infosys management was appreciative of the support provided by the State in initiating this project.

Earlier, the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, after laying the foundation stone for the SEZ at Pocharam, said that the State initiated many steps to improve infrastructure and bring all-round development.

India's domestic IT growth now beats exports: Survey (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Indias_domestic_IT_growth_now_beats_exports_Survey/articleshow/3348070.cms)

NEW DELHI: India's booming IT market has seen the domestic demand growth outstrip exports for the first time in over a decade, thanks to the maturing outsourcing market, says a new survey.

The domestic IT demand grew 34 per cent in 2007-08, compared with 27 per cent for exports, which is the opposite of what happened the last fiscal, says the annual IT industry survey of Dataquest - the flagship publication of CyberMedia Group.

"Finally, the day of reckoning has come," says the soon-to-be-released survey. "And what a convincing difference it has been - 34:27," say the findings of its 25th annual edition.

In value terms, exports, at Rs.1,897.92 billion ($47.45 billion), still account for two-thirds of total revenues while the domestic sales were estimated at Rs.990.18 billion ($24.75 billion).

The jury is still out on the actual reasons behind the remarkable reversal, and the sceptical IT industry honchos offer several - like small base for the domestic market and the appreciation of the rupee that has slowed down export growth.

^^very healthy!


Ontrack Systems agrees to buy US IT company

IT solutions provider Ontrack Systems Ltd has agreed to acquire US-based IT firm IQ Technologies LLC along with its wholly-owned subsidiary FAST India (Pvt) Ltd.

"By combining the two companies, we will strengthen our global management team with near shore and off shore service delivery capabilities with an existing customer base in North America, Australia, Europe and India," Ontrack CEO B Hari said in a statement.

"This initiative opens up tremendous opportunities for acquiring new customers, and offers an enhanced range of services to our existing customers in these locations," Hari added.

About 75 percent of Ontrack's current service revenues come from Europe with the balance coming from India, Middle East and Australia.

IQ Technologies offers information and communication technology (ICT) services to companies in North America.

source economictimes.com (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ITeS/Ontrack_Systems_agrees_to_buy_US_IT_company/articleshow/3348832.cms)

India's domestic IT growth now beats exports: Survey (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Indias_domestic_IT_growth_now_beats_exports_Survey/articleshow/3348070.cms)

Excellent news. We should bring other industries to the forefront in a similar manner to IT.

IT firms’ sales may touch $11 b by ’15

THE Indian IT industry, dominated by software services and BPO segments, is rapidly seeing the emergence of product companies and a latest study projects that India could account for roughly 2%, or $11 billion, of global product business by 2015. In the first-ever survey of India’s software products segment conducted by Nasscom along with Zinnov Consulting, the study lists 371 companies in this sector with two-thirds of them being less than three-years old.
These companies together had a combined revenue of $1.4 billion in FY’08 growing at 44% CAGR in the last three years. The Nasscom-Zinnov study has projected that India’s software products space may touch $11 billion by 2015. This could mean that Indian companies will be accounting for nearly 2% of the overall global products business estimated at $500 billion by then. Interestingly, at present, the top 10 companies accounted for around 85% of the existing industry revenue, with the top five including Finacle of Infosys Technologies, iflex, Subex and TCS products division, forming the bulk of it.
The Indian software products space, according to the survey, is defined thus: The company must be registered in India and have an IP. It must have a tangible brand character and it must be an end product reaching the customer/client. Nasscom-Zinnov says India’s software products story, mainly on the application side, will be vertical focused unlike its global peers that have horizontal spread. In fact, some of India’s leading companies are heavily or exclusively focused on verticals—Subex on telecom, Finacle and i-flex on banking.
Nasscom has identified about 10 key verticals where Indian companies may do well. Among them, business intelligence, BFSI and telecom have already emerged rather strongly. Key challenges for the sector include funding, especially paucity of venture capital, and attracting talent. Though it’s a long haul for many of the product companies to gain the traction at the marketplace, there is no particular linearity in this business. However, IT services companies are also getting into this segment by increasingly “productising” their offerings, which could mean higher revenue without actually adding the necessary headcount.

source economictimes epaper

Lawson Software launches India office (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Lawson-Software-launches-India-office/347441/)

Lawson Software, global provider of Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) solutions and applications, on Monday announced its expansion into the South Asia market with the opening of a new office in India.

The opening of the new office in New Delhi is part of the firm's business strategy to expand its presence in the region and atract additional regional partners here, Harry Debes, President, CEO, Lawson Software said.

The St Paul, Minnesota-based company which has 4000 customers globally and serving customers in India and Sri Lanka through partenrships with Symphony Services and ETP International, plans to draw on the expertise of more local partners and provide sales and marketing support via its new office in India, he said.

The new office will bring Lawson and its industry-specific enterprise software closer to customers in Asia South, particularly mid-tier companies, including those in food and beverage, fashion and distribution industries, he said.

Lawson has more than 400 customers in Asia and is planning to expand its customer base in the growing economies of South Asia region, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Lawson plans to focus on development and go-to-market efforts in the firm's targetted markets, he said, adding that the firm was focussing on key verticals like healthcare, fashion, distribution, food and beverage, manufacturing. The company was now also developing another key vertical in the human capital management sector.

Lawson currently has 60 per cent market share in the US in the healtcare vertical vis a vis Oracle and SAP, which have four per cent share in this vertical.

The ERP market was six billion dollars and growing at six to seven per cent.

Knowledge portal to help generate Rs 50k cr biz in 5 years (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Knowledge-portal-to-help-generate-Rs-50k-cr-biz-in-5-years/347490/)

For connecting all the universities, libraries, laboratories, hospitals, agricultural institutions through broadband with gigabit capabilities, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) will launch the National Knowledge Network within next 90 days.

According to Sam Pitroda, chairman, the network would allow sharing of data and resources across the country. According to experts, the Rs 1,000 crore investment in the infrastructure is expected to generate a business of at least Rs 50,000 crore ($12 billion) for companies in IT, pharma and agro-processing within the next five years.

“We will build the high-speed broadband network with 5,000 nodes across the country over the next few years,” Pitroda said. Initially NKC would be launching 100 nodes in collaboration with state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and National Informatic Centre under the ministry of information technology. The knowledge network is one of the recommendations of the NKC to Prime Minister which according to Pitroda would ‘encourage sharing of resources and boost collaborative research’. Finance minister P Chidambaram had proposed to provide Rs 100 crore to the ministry of information technology for establishing the network.

“National Knowledge network through an electronic digital broadband network is expected to give boost to research and development activities in the country and would also catch up with the pace of research from other countries,” Pitroda said. These nodes would be super information highways of education, he said. BSNL would be providing the fibre network while NIC would be provide the hosting space. “We propose to have atleast 8-10 nodes in a district,’ he said.

On the investment pattern and ownership of these nodes, he said they are working out the details along with the office of scientific adviser to Prime Minister. NKC in its recommendation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2006 had proposed capital investment of around Rs 1,000 crore for setting up nodes under the national knowledge network programme. NKC had specifically proposed creation of special purpose vehicle (SPV) consisting of many stakeholders - government, industry and other stakeholders.

“Despite that substantial funding would be from the government, its ownership is not desirable in such venture in ICT sector,” NKC had recommended. Pitroda while advocating for knowledge in open domain said “government is not good at sharing information and it should be more open about sharing information with public.” Earlier speaking at Confederation of Indian Industry, Pitroda said Indian had the potential to become the workforce supplier to the world, “In the next few decades, India will probably have the largest set of young people in the world. Given this demographic advantage, we are optimally positioned to leapfrog in the race for social and economic development,” he said

He said the NKC was a unique effort that seeks to give the country the ‘knowledge edge’, ensuring that India becomes a leader in the creation, application and dissemination of knowledge. “Education and skills development is therefore critical if India is to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend,” he said.

Microsoft India inaugurates largest facility outside US in Hyderabad (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Microsoft_India_inaugurates_largest_facility_outside_US_in_Hyderabad/articleshow/3357520.cms)

HYDERABAD: Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) inaugurated a new facility today, its largest outside of USA, at its campus here.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy inaugurated the new building on the 10th anniversary of the company.

This building, the third in the campus at Gachibowli on the outskirts of the city, has been constructed to meet global quality standards and can house more than 2000 employees, Microsoft officials said.

It has recently won the Leeds Gold certification for energy efficiency and hi-tech safety systems, they added.

"In 2003-04, IT exports from Andhra Pradesh was eight per cent but over the last four years, it has grown to 15 per cent of the country's total exports, thanks to companies like Microsoft," Reddy said.

Satyam Computer to retain recruitment rate (http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20080812/836/tbs-satyam-computer-to-retain-recruitmen.html)

Chennai, Aug 12 (IANS): Satyam Computer Services Ltd said Tuesday that it will retain its last year's recruitment rate this year also, a significant move at a time when many global IT companies are planning layoffs.

'The (economic) slowdown is not as bad as it is made out to be. We are still talking about double digit growth. We will be hiring around 15,000 people this year against 16,600 last year,' S.V. Krishnan, global head-human resources, told reporters here.

He said around 65 percent of the new recruits will be freshers out of whom around 800 will be management graduates and the rest engineers.

'We have given offer letters to around 6,500 fresh graduates who are expected to join shortly,' he added.

The fresh graduates, who have received Satyam's offer letter, would join the company by the end of this year, Krishnan said.

He added that unlike other IT companies, Satyam did not have any layoff plans.

About the attrition rate in Satyam, he said: 'For the last nine quarters, we have declining attrition rates. Last year, it was 13 percent and this year, on annualised basis, the attrition rate is around 12 percent.'

India to account for nearly 20 percent of global WiMAX subscribers by 2012 (http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20080813/840/tbs-india-to-account-for-nearly-20-perce.html)

The WiMAX Forum(R) projects that more than 27.5 million Indians will be WiMAX users by 2012. Additional data from this recent WiMAX Forum study estimates that approximately 70 percent of the forecasted WiMAX subscribers by 2012 will utilize mobile and portable WiMAX devices to access broadband Internet services.

The WiMAX Forum Worldwide Subscriber and User Forecast examines the progress of WiMAX service providers, equipment vendors, content developers and subscribers in regions around the world.

The results reflect the accelerated growth of the WiMAX ecosystem, the acceptance of WiMAX technology and demand form mobile Internet services across the world. The forecast is based on results of an independently commissioned research study published this year.

"WiMAX devices and networks are available now for deployment worldwide delivering best in class broadband services at a cost to consumers significantly lower than any other technology. India is clearly making the commitment and taking the steps to ensure wireless broadband services are a reality that enables operators to meet the needs of India's diverse and growing population," said Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum.

"In addition, an operator's investment to afford the build out of infrastructure and deployment of the service is at the lowest capex and the best ROI models plus the economies of scale created by this demand will help drive down the cost of the wide range of diverse WiMAX devices.

All of the leading telecom equipment manufacturers are having their WiMAX Base station and other infrastructure equipment WiMAX Forum Certified(TM) and are ready to showcase their equipment in India," he added.

MTNL offers broadband for Rs 99 (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/MTNL-offers-broadband-for-Rs-99/348445/)

Public sector telecom services provider MTNL slashed broadband charges on Tuesday by up to 50 per cent to increase user base in the national capital.

The PSU announced a plan that will offer customers high speed (2 mbps) Internet access at a monthly rental of Rs 99 and 150 MB free download. Alternately, users can opt for a monthly rental scheme of Rs 149 with free download of 400 MB.

These plans will be available from August 15. It has also reduced the monthly rental of another tariff plan by 34 per cent from Rs 899 to 599 that would be available to customers from September 1.

MTNL, which has 2.6 lakhs broadband customers in Delhi, plans to attract more customers with this reduction, company's Executive Director-Delhi A K Arora said.

The state-run telecom operator, which was the first to launch IPTV in the country, also added another first to its credit by launching Mobile TV.

"The TV service on mobile handsets 'MTNL-TV' is available in Delhi and the NCR for MTNL customers both on Dolphin and Trump. It will provide 20 channels, and the charges are Rs 99 per month," Arora said in New Delhi. Fashion TV and religious channels will be not be available on the service.

Sify to set up two data centers to expand network (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Sify-to-set-up-two-data-centers-to-expand-network/348440/)

Internet service provider Sify Technologies will set up two data centers in Mumbai and Noida to double its network at a cost of Rs 250 crore.

"We are setting up a data center in Mumbai and (another) near Delhi. We will be doubling our network (point of presence) to 800. All these expansion would cost us Rs 250 crore," a top company official said.

The company has begun work on its data center in Mumbai, which would be spread over one lakh sq ft area. It would be ready in 15 months, the official said.

Sify's other data center would come up in Noida, which would be a greenfield project spread over 30,000 sq ft area.

The construction on Noida site would begin soon, the official said.

A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components such as telecommunications and storage systems.

The company has been alloted 17 acres of land in Chennai and it plans to set up a Special Economic Zone. "We are planning to offer export-oriented services through the SEZ," the official said.

About 10 per cent of the company's topline comes from exports.

At present the company has presence in 380 points in the country, which would be taken up to 800 in this financial year.

"Last year too, we had more than doubled our network from 180 to 380," the official added.

The 2,500 strong team of Sify would hire 500 more this year, the official added.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro nextGen megavendors: Gartner (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/TCS-Infosys-Wipro-nextGen-megavendors-Gartner/348603/)

India's top IT services companies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies and Wipro Technologies will emerge as the next generation of IT service megavendors, according to Gartner, Inc. These vendors are increasingly being considered for strategic service deals, and will augment or in some cases, replace today's acknowledged megavendors by revenue - IBM Global Services, Accenture and EDS - in this space by 2011.

These emerging megavendors are much smaller than the current megavendors but will increasingly compete for the same mega deals that had been the exclusive domain of the incumbent megavendors, the report adds. The emerging megavendors have leveraged four critical competencies to achieve their status. The competencies are process excellence, world-class HR practices, providing high quality services at a low cost and the achievement of significant and disproportionate 'mind share' compared to their actual size.

"The emerging megavendors have made dramatic progress in the past few years and have more than doubled their revenues in a four-year period, with the 2007 revenues being 2.6 times the 2004 revenues," said Partha Iyengar, vice president, analyst and regional research director, Gartner. "This level of growth differential has continued even as these vendors have become multibillion dollar enterprises.

To put this in context, there are just 100 service enterprises globally with more than $1 billion in revenues." The Indian providers will have to address the issue of moving away from resource-intensive revenue growth to a model that provides higher leverage and increases revenue without a linear relationship to head count, which is the situation that exists today.

They will have to achieve similar (to the current megavendors) levels of revenue per employee benchmarks to truly achieve megavendor status.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro nextGen megavendors: Gartner (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/TCS-Infosys-Wipro-nextGen-megavendors-Gartner/348603/)


India’s Big 3 all set to beat global IT giants

TATA Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies and Wipro Technologies will emerge as the nextgen IT service megavendors and threaten the reign of the current global majors—IBM, EDS and Accenture—according to research firm Gartner. “These (Indian) vendors are increasingly being considered for strategic service deals, and will augment or, in some cases, replace today’s acknowledged megavendors by revenue in this space by 2011,” Gartner said.
Top Indian IT firms have outperformed the megavendors by almost a 3:1 margin in growth rates, a Gartner report said. “The emerging megavendors have more than doubled their revenue in a four-year period, with the 2007 revenue being 2.6 times the 2004 revenue,” said Gartner VP Partha Iyengar.
The emergence of such potential megavendors has been largely due to four critical competencies — process excellence, world-class HR practices, providing high quality services at a low cost and achievement of significant and disproportionate ‘mind share’ compared to their actual size. However, these companies have to face certain challenges before they can become a megavendor.
The key challenge is moving away from a linear growth model where revenue growth is directly linked to headcount growth. Revenue per employee for the largest Indian IT services vendor TCS stands at $51,320, while it’s $45,800 for Infosys and $41,310 for the smallest of the three, Wipro. These companies have a long way to go when one looks at revenue per employee figures for Accenture ($130,200), IBM Global Services ($146,910) and EDS ($154,340).

source economictimes epaper

Dell expects India biz to touch billion-dollar mark

PC MAJOR Dell expects its India business to touch a billion dollars next year. Founder, chairman & CEO Michael Dell
who was in India to launch a new ultra-portable business laptops series, said he was “tremendously excited about growth in India”.
Mr Dell on Wednesday launched a new line of Latitude and Dell Precision laptops, including a 12.1-inch, 0.99-kg business laptop, that promises battery life of up to 19 hours and other features targeted at the always-connected business users that Dell calls ‘digital nomads’. Highlighting the importance of emerging markets for the world’s second-largest PC maker, Mr Dell pointed out that Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) would account for a majority of a billion new laptop users in the next five years.
Talking about opportunities in India, he said, “Internet usage has grown 26% in India over the last year. By 2012, India will have the largest WiMAX network in the world.”
Dell, which not only manufactures and sells hardware in India but also has a service & support arm, saw a volume growth of 99% yearon-year in the first quarter of the year. It had ended the year 2007 with a revenue run rate of $700 million.
“We have nearly tripled our business in India from $300 million three years ago to $800 million we expect to do this year. We will be a billion-dollar business next year,” said Dell APAC’s president Paul-Henri Ferrand.
Dell, which is a strong player in the large corporates segment, has also made inroads in the government segment. However, it still has catching up to do in the consumer segment, something it hopes would be helped by its presence in retail stores. The company had tied up with electronics retailer Croma earlier to retail its products.
India has seen its laptop penetration grow from 5% of total personal computers (PCs) about three years ago to 29% today.

source economictimes epaper

Create website using mobile phone (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Create-website-using-mobile-phone/348897/)

Targeting active mobile internet users, Akmin Technologies Pvt Ltd on Thursday launched www.mobisitegalore.com which will offer customers to create a website on their own using their mobile phone.

Addressing a press conference here, Akmin Technologies Pvt Ltd CEO and Managing Director S Prashanth said this would mainly target those who wish to create a website on their GPRS enabled mobile phone.

Quoting TRAI's report Prashanth said at the end of March 2008, India had 14.9 million PC-Internet subscribers, while the mobile internet subscribers stood at 66.09 million. This website will actively enable them to upload their websites free of charge.

He said the website is 100 per cent compliant with standards for the mobile web that are defined by the World Wide Consortium, enabling the website to work fine on any mobile phone.

"The website mobiSiteGalore users can swap between Mobile and PC/Laptop to edit their websites. The portal created using mobiSiteGalore though ideally suited for viewing on the small screen of a mobile phone, can also be viewed using a PC or laptop" Akmin Technologies Pvt Ltd Vice President (Marketing) Sathya said.

To a query Sathya said that they have not kept a timeframe to have a customer base. "It is for the masses.We want all the active mobile internet users to use this website" he said.

He also said that they planned to hold talks with mobile phone operators to offer this website for their customers.

Siemens PLM plans to ramp up business (http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20080816/836/tbs-siemens-plm-plans-to-ramp-up-busines.html)

Kolkata, Aug 16 (IANS) Global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services Siemens PLM Software is planning to scale up its business in India by upgrading products and adding new customers, a top company official said here Saturday.

'We have a two-fold strategy to scale up our business in India. Firstly, we will have to upgrade and add new products to cater to the needs of existing customers and secondly, we have to add new customers,' Siemens director-marketing Vivek Marwaha told reporters.

The company, at present, has a customer-base of 2,500 and is adding around 25 percent every year, Marwaha said.

Potential customers of Siemens are from industrial sectors like automotive, machinery - construction, power, textiles - defence, aerospace, automobile, pharma, apparel, retail and packaging.

Siemens PLM Software is a business unit of Siemens Industry Automation Division.

Siemens Industry acquired $3.5 billion software company UGS in 2007, which later became Siemens PLM.

Around 700 people work in its research and development centre at Pune, Marwaha said.

TCS may beat IBM to buy Citigroup BPO (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ITeS/TCS_may_beat_IBM_to_buy_Citigroup_BPO/articleshow/3378561.cms)

MUMBAI: Citigroup’s attempt to sell its captive BPO arm Citigroup Global Services (CGSL) is gathering momentum. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is close to acquiring CGSL (formerly e-Serve) racing past IBM, which was leading the race till recently. The deal size is expected to be pegged at $500-$550 million. An announcement to this effect is likely to be within three weeks.

Confirming this, a source familiar with the development said, the deal would guarantee TCS to get business for CGSL from Citigroup for five years. ET had reported on June 27 that Citigroup had put CGSL on the block as part of its restructuring of the back-end operations in India.

CGSL is mostly into transaction processing and call centre processing which suits TCS. The Tata group company pulled out of Intelenet, a third party BPO backed by Blackstone, as it wanted to exit from the voice-based BPO sector. Its MD S. Ramadorai had earlier said that Intelenet’s focus did not fit into TCS’ BPO strategy which was focussed on transaction processing, e-mail processing and call centre processing.

Both Citigroup and TCS declined to comment on the development. “At Citi, we follow the policy of not commenting on market rumours and speculation. Accordingly, we are unable to respond to your request.” said a Citi spokesperson in an e-mailed response. A TCS spokesperson said “As a policy, TCS does not comment on market speculation.”

IBM was the other contender for the captive BPO unit, said another source. IBM was also believed to be keen on acquiring Citos, the technology and infrastructure outsourcing arm of Citigroup. “ But Citi intends to sell CGSL first. And IBM found the pricing for CGSL too high”, the source said.

CGSL provides financial BPO solutions in various domains like mortgage, retail banking, capital markets, finance and accounts. It provides transaction processing and customer based call centres to clients across all these domains. The BPO has over 11,000 employees in India while the TCS BPO has close to 8000 employees, with a majority of them in India.

Citigroup has been under financial pressure due to the sub-prime crisis in the US. it has lost about $17.4 billion in the last three quarters and has had more than $58 billion write-downs since the middle of 2007.

ITC tech arm buys US firm for $25 mln (http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20080819/371/tbs-itc-tech-arm-buys-us-firm-for-25-mln.html)

ITC Ltd, India's top cigarette firm, said on Tuesday its information technology arm had acquired U.S-based technology company Pyxis Solutions for about $25 million to boost growth.

ITC Infotech provides software and back-office outsourcing services to clients in industries from banking through to entertainment and it said the Pyxis buy would boost its activities in the United States.

"It adds to our capabilities and we would be able to leverage this to get new business, acquire new customers also grow engagements with existing customers," Sanjiv Puri, managing director of ITC Infotech, told Reuters in a phone interview.

Pyxis, which has about 100 staff, provides information technology solutions to banking, financial services and insurance companies in the United States to improve quality, save costs and boost data security.

"We certainly expect it to help us accelerate growth," Puri said, without giving details. "Their impressive roster of customers will further strengthen our presence in the U.S."

Indian software services firms are increasingly looking to acquire firms in overseas markets to diversify international presence and acquire new customers and technology skills.

ITC, 31.7-percent owned by British American Tobacco Plc, has interests in technology outsourcing, retail and packaging, and is expanding a range of foods and personal care products to cut its dependence on cigarettes.

Infotech forays into Japanese market (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Infotech-forays-into-Japanese-market/351962/)

Infotech Enterprises Ltd (IEL), a global technology solutions provider, announced the launch of its Japan operations. Infotech is leading its Japanese foray with engineering services, while it is conducting market research to study the market and offer other services too.

Japan is the second largest economy in the world. According to Nasscom-Booz Allen Hamilton study, Japan is the second largest in terms of engineering design spend globally. Japan has 21% share of the global spend of around $750 billion in 2004. Japan is home to some of the best names in manufactured products and electronics products. In recent years, Japan has recognized the talent from India and has shown great openness to Indian technical talent.

With over $100 million in revenues from engineering design services, Infotech is a focused, global provider in its markets. Commenting on the start of its Japan operations, BVR Mohan Reddy, CMD, said, "Over the last six months, Infotech has done extensive market research and engaged with opinion leaders in the engineering design community in Japan. The opportunity is very exciting and the enthusiasm of the industry leaders at the possible entry of Infotech with its proven processes and track record to address the market needs was very encouraging. We have decided to make a committed entry into Japan and have hired key local talent."

As part of the team, Kazuya Fujinaga, formerly with IBM Japan and Masamichi Migita, formerly with Dassault Systems Japan has joined Infotech in senior sales and program management positions to spearhead the Japan foray. More senior managers and engineers are expected to join during the next few weeks. Infotech's operations in Japan will be anchored in Tokyo and will report into the Asia-Pacific region.

HCL Technologies opens new development center in Sydney (http://in.ibtimes.com/articles/20080822/hcl-technologies-delivery-center-sydney-australia.htm)

India's leading IT consultant and software services firm HCL Technologies has opened a new global development center in Sydney, a move that is part of HCL's global delivery strategy to offer customers support from various locations around the world.

"Our success has been built on key markets such as Australia and New Zealand, where we have been operating for over a decade. It is the area with the highest potential for growth and is already the fastest growing region in HCL's global network. We have been experiencing 80 percent growth year-on-year in the Asia Pacific and Australia and New Zealand regions and expect this to continue," said Brian Pereira, head, Australia and New Zealand, HCL Technologies.

The Sydney center can accommodate over 500 employees, HCL said in a statement.

The Sydney center is the second such office HCL has opened in Australia. In May 2007, it opened its first office in Canberra. The It firm also plans to open a R&D center in Melbourne.

HCL, which operates delivery centers in India, China, Poland, Singapore and Ireland, has also expressed its interest in opening the US delivery center in North Carolina.

India's Infosys to buy British firm Axon for 753.1 mln dollars (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jICrvWWLu5ewhQ_hUVem3gKEkB2A)

BANGALORE, India (AFP) — Leading Indian outsourcing company Infosys plans to buy British consultancy Axon Group for 753.1 million dollars as it moves to expand its business advisory footprint, a statement said Monday.

The all-cash takeover deal is expected to be completed by November 2008, Nasdaq-listed Infosys, India's second-ranked software services exporter by revenue, said in the statement.

Chief executive Kris Gopalakrishnan said he was "excited" about the deal, which would boost the company's ability to provide "business transformational services" to firms globally.

The acquisition comes as India's flagship outsourcing industry, which has seen profits come under pressure in the international economic downturn, seeks to diversify its activities and look for new business models.

The sector is also looking to reduce its dependence on its main market the United States.

Axon Group Plc, founded in 1994, provides consultancy services to multinational organisations and has about 2,000 employees in Britain, North America, Malaysia and Australia.

The purchase by Infosys, based in the southern Indian high-tech city of Bangalore, is another sign of corporate India spreading its global wings in making foreign acquisitions.

But the pace of international takeovers has slowed from last year.

Earlier this year, India's Tata Motors bought British luxury motoring icons Jaguar and Land Rover from ailing US carmaker Ford for 2.3 billion dollars as it vaulted into the premium global car market.

"Infosys believes that the acquisition will accelerate the achievement of some of Infosys' current strategic corporate objectives including the continued expansion of Infosys' consulting capabilities," said the company.

For the year ended December 31, 2007, Axon reported profit after taxation of 20.2 million pounds (37.4 million dollars).

IT needs a million storage professionals by 2012 (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/IT-needs-a-million-storage-professionals-by-2012/354059/)

EMC, known as the leading developer and provider of Information Infrastructure Technology and solutions, on Wednesday, outlined its new strategy to focus on the Indian market and leverage its storage leadership to stake claim to a billion dollar infrastructure market in India over the next three years.

Outlining the new Go-to-market strategy, Alok Ohrie, President, EMC India and SAARC, expressed hope that this five-pronged strategy will help EMC extend its leadership, in the total information infrastructure market in India, which is expected to cross $1 billion by FY 2011.

Industry estimates put EMC as the leading External Storage Vendor in India, with 25% market share of the $284 million market, in the FY 2008. (Overall external storage market as per Dataquest Top 20 estimates stood at $284 million in FY 2008)

“EMC will extend its leadership in external storage to fast growing market segments such as Information Security, Content Management, Personal Storage and Cloud Computing over the next three years. We are confident that this new strategy will enable EMC to consolidate its leadership position in the enterprise segment and foray into the high growth consumer segment”, he added.

In its endeavour to customise solutions and services to different market segments, EMC realigned its business into enterprise and commercial division from it previous geographically aligned business, as a first pillar of the GTM strategy. EMC has also announced its plans to strengthen its information infrastructure offerings for the small office/home office (SOHO) segment in India and SAARC region.

As a second pillar of the strategy, EMC has strengthened its management team by new appointments on the posts of the vice president of Enterprise Business, India and SAARC region and the vice president, Commercial Business, India and SAARC region.

EMC on Wednesday also announced the expansion of its geographical presence in India by opening its offices in Ahmedabad and Pune. With the opening of these two offices EMC now boasts of its direct presence through nine offices in India and SAARC. The company also announced the opening of the 9th logistics and support centre in Pune.

Outlining as its third and fourth pillars of the strategy for growth, EMC announced nine new information infrastructure products for the India and SAARC market. The new products announced by EMC on the occasion include, EMC CLARiiON CX4 Series of midrange storage systems and EMC Celera NX4 entry level unified storage platform.

Both the new products have been designed to incorporate the latest technologies in drives, connectivity, processing power and security. All these features make it easier for customers to cost effectively consolidate and manage information using the least amount of power usage.

In its pursuit of tapping the huge commercial market segment in India, the company as a part of the fifth strategy has launched a 20-city partner recruitment road show to double its partner base from a current number of over 100 partners to more than 200 partners by 2009, wherein EMC has identified 20 clusters comprising of 40 cities to expand its presence through its partner network.

When asked about the educational initiatives of EMC, Mr Alok Ohrie told Expressindia that EMC has a full-fledged education strategy to address the emerging storage knowledge gap in the industry.

“We have an EMC Academic Alliance Programme (EAA), which we rolled out in India, in 2006. We realised that by the year 2012, the industry would be looking for a million storage professionals. As a leader in the industry, we are going to build around that capability. We have tied up with more than a hundred academic institutes, such as NIT Warangal, NIT Surathkal to name a few to put our plan on the track,” Ohrie elaborated.

Google launches mapping tool in India (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Google-launches-mapping-tool-in-India/354075/)

Internet search engine giant Google on Wednesday launched a mapping tool called Google Map Maker in India, which was conceived and developed by its Indian engineering team.

This tool allows users to add or edit geographical features such as roads, businesses, parks, schools, apartment buildings and localities among others in the existing maps of their city, a company release said.

Users can also add detailed information about these locations and this user-created content is updated and made visible immediately to all other users, the release added.

"This launch is the reinforcement of our commitment to bring more useful information to people around the world and especially to a hyper-growth country like India where maps are changing on a daily basis given the rapid of infrastructure development," said Google Head, R&D, Prasad Ram.

Other than India, this product is available in 57 countries in Asia, the Island Nations, and the Caribbean, it added.

Wipro to expand in SEZs; plans Rs 1,500-cr spend (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/08/29/stories/2008082951700400.htm)

Chennai, Aug. 28 Wipro Technologies Ltd will spend nearly Rs 1,500 crore during this fiscal in infrastructure addition across the country, and plans to add 6-8 million sq ft of space in the next 24-36 months, according to its Chief Information Officer, Mr Laxman K. Badiga. “The expansion will be in special economic zones,”" he told newspersons.

Mr Badiga said in Chennai alone the software major will create capacity to accommodate around 50,000 employees in its two new campuses – one at Sholinganallur and another at Mahindra City SEZ.

At present, around 2,000 people are working in the new Wipro-Elcot SEZ in Sholinganallur campus.. The first phase of the 90-acre Mahindra City facility will be ready in six months to accommodate around 1000 employees, he said at the Sholinganallur facility.

According to Mr Badiga, in the long run the two new campuses in Chennai could accommodate around 50,000 employees. "I cannot put a time frame," he said.

Wipro is also planning a second centre in Coimbatore, where it has been given 10 acres of land. This city will be more for BPO operations, he said.

With the below young beauties pouring over their Facebook profile, I wish had the opportunity during my days of learning... Lucky for the generation growing up.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/008200808280999.jpg

Zenith launches Rs 14,999 laptop (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Zenith-launches-Rs-14-999-laptop/354525/)

Indian personal computer maker, Zenith Computers, on Thursday, unveiled a new laptop priced at Rs 14, 999 and the desktop PC for Rs 11, 999, in collaboration with global software giant Microsoft. The desktop model comes in three variants.

The company claims that these brands launched under the brand name ‘EcoStyle’, are free of any toxic materials and the consumption of energy is also less as both the computers on an average, consume 30% less power.

Both the products are based on Microsoft operating system and available with Windows Vista and Microsoft XP home edition through a tie up with the Microsoft. The company claims that EcoStyle laptop priced at Rs 14, 999, will be the lowest priced Windows OS enabled laptop in the market.

Talking to Expressindia, about the Microsoft’s idea for collaborating for the low priced laptop and PC, Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India, said, the company wants to make PCs more affordable to the people.

“Under the ‘Microsoft Unlimited Potential’ initiative, our effort is to bring sustained social and economic opportunity to people who currently don’t enjoy the benefits of technology,” he added.

Terming India as the market of future, Venkatesan said, “With an economy of one trillion, a billion strong population having the least penetration of PCs, in the whole world, the demand for PCs in the country could only go upwards”.

Zenith’s manufacturing facility at Goa, which produces 20,000 units a month, is planning to increase the capacity by another one thousand, the company said.

Raj Saraf, CMD, Zenith Computers, said the newly launched, low cost laptop, will cater across all the segments, including the students and educational institutions in particular. “This initiative is a part of our continuous effort to foster advanced and hassle free computing experience. With the EcoStyle PC, Zenith is bringing a true low-cost PC which underlines performance and affordability for the consumers he added,” he added.

When asked, if the economy reeling under the global slowdown, along all the industry verticals, will have enough takers for the laptops, Saraf positively asserted, “I don’t see any impact of slowdown as the penetration of PCs in the country is still very low”.

Can a billion Indians get connected? (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Can-a-billion-Indians-get-connected/354907/)

Intel India announced the launch of an industry-wide movement called the 'Connected Indians' where government, industry associations and private enterprise have come together for the common cause of connecting a billion Indians.

The movement is intended to mobilise people, resources and infrastructure to connect citizens to information, ideas, people, capital and services leading to overall development and future success.

R Sivakumar, managing director, Intel South Asia, said: "Intel recognises that the Internet is capable of transforming lives and the future of our country. Through the 'Connected Indians' movement we hope to achieve precisely that. This movement is privileged to be supported by the government, ecosystem partners as well as numerous other industry stalwarts. We expect to see the momentum for this initiative building up rapidly."

Thiru A Raja, Hon'ble Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said, "Earlier this year I outlined my digital vision for India at the World Congress of IT in Kuala Lumpur: 500 million Indians connected to the Internet and its unlimited opportunities, with more than l00 million broadband connections, and 100 million broadband enabled devices to drive this 'Connected Indian' milieu leading to the development and growth of a vibrant economy – all by 2012. Since then we have made much progress and my ministry is well on its way to executing this task."

BSNL, Google, Reliance Communications, Croma and Tata Indicom have also pledged their support to this cause.

Going forward the 'Connected Indians' movement will continue to build momentum with more and more partners joining the cause to accelerate broadband adoption, a series of public outreach activities and more affordable devices for the consumer.

Technopark, Trivandrum is on a massive expansion spree. Work on the 1.5 million sq.ft Infosys campus is progressing quickly. The next phase of expansion is about to start.

Work on Technopark Phase III, spread over 92 acres and expected to create over 4 million sq.ft of space and 40,000 jobs is being inaugurated on Sept 4, 2008.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the ceremony. :)

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/3957/tpiiiinvite1sh3.jpg

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/5660/tpiiiinvite2bn1.jpg

The invitation says that when Phase III is complete in 2012, Technopark (Phases I, II and III) will have over ten million sq.ft. of space and over 100,000 employees. This will make it one of the top technology hubs in the world and Asia's biggest.

Amazing! Especially since these figures do not take the mammoth Technocity project into account.

HCL’s annual revenue is at Rs 12, 605 cr (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/HCLs-annual-revenue-is-at-Rs-12-605-cr/356485/)

HCL Infosystems Ltd reported its annual revenue for the year ended June 30, 2008 at Rs 12,605 crores, on Tuesday, and the profit before the tax at Rs 430 crores and the consolidated profit after the tax at Rs 300.1 crores for the year.

Revenue reported from the computer systems business was at Rs 3388.9 crores and from telecommunications & office automation business at Rs 9222.8 crores for the year2007-08.

Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman & CEO, HCL Infosystems Ltd. said, “innovation has always been a key strategy for HCL and this year a number of technology solutions have been launched to meet the needs of our customers. The year saw good momentum being added to our system integration business. HCL capitalized, added service verticals and bagged orders in a number of diversified solutions and service offering areas. We see the momentum in our system integration business to continue and our new service verticals will be adding more strength to our growth strategy with a focus on our core business”.

Its board of directors declared a final dividend of 100% per fully paid up share taking the final dividend for the year 2007-08 to 400%, HCL said..

JV Ramamurthy, COO, HCL Infosystems said, “we are looking to expand in areas like system integration, IP telephony, telecom, digital lifestyle, memory products and education”.

Addressing the IT infrastructure requirements of the small and medium enterprises (SME) HCL launched ‘HCL Datacenter in a Box’.

And HCL is the first company to launch the environment friendly PCs and laptops ‘HCL ecosafe’ in the country.

On asking Mr. Ramamurth said, ““keeping in mind the roadmap of technology the IP telephony and VOIP are changing and as the technology is improving IP telephony and the VoIP are capturing fast in India and because of VoIP the quality of the voice improves”.

“HCL has done the largest number of IP installation in the world”, he added.

- Deleted -