Flash-Headline :L&T INFOTECH TO OPEN OFFICE IN DUBAI

INDUSTRY
L&T INFOTECH TO OPEN OFFICE IN DUBAI
Dubai
The Economic Times The Hindu Business LineL&T Infotech, a subsidiary of India's largest engineering and construction company Larsen and Toubro, is entering the GCC with a commercial office in Dubai.
"We have already applied for a licence to set up our regional base in Dubai and, if approved, we will set up the business in few months time," Vijay K Magapu, chief executive of L&T Infotech and member of the L&T board, said.
"The IT services businesses in the Gulf is about $600 million annually and we'd like to achieve a $100 million annual turnover in three years," he was quoted as saying by the Gulf News.


MEXICO EYES $10 BN INVESTMENT FROM INDIA IN 5 YEARS
New Delhi
Mint The Asian AgeMexico is looking at $10 billion investments from India in the next five years, the head of a business delegation from the Latin American nation said.
"The government plans to increase the Indian investment in Mexico to $10 billion within 5 years," Indo-Mexico Business Board, Comce, Mexico, chairman Luis Wertman said.
Currently, Indian investment in the country stands at $3 billion "without any promotion", he said at an event 'India-Mexico: Opportunities for Business' jointly organised by industry bodies CII, FICCI and Assocham.
Mexico is looking at sectors like steel, automobile education, IT, pharmaceutical, tourism and infrastructure to draw investment, he said.


INDIA INC GETS READY TO CATER TO SOCIETY
Saubhadra Chatterji, New Delhi
Business Standard Over 80% corporates are involved in corporate social responsibility and the number is growing. There has been a 17 per cent jump in the last three years in the number of companies taking up corporate social responsibility (CSR) work. This trend is spearheaded by the MNCs who are now on a par with public sector undertakings (PSUs) in delivering to society.
The survey, done during 2000-2003, found that the highest involvement was from the textile sector (93 per cent), followed by infrastructure (89 per cent) and IT/media/telecom (88 per cent).
Corporates in the hospitality sector showed 79 per cent involvement in CSR. The sectors that showed relatively less commitment to CSR over the last three years include services, engineering, IT/media/telecom and finance.


OPINION
'CAPITALISM CAN SOLVE POVERTY'
New Delhi
The Times of India Infosys Technologies chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy says capitalism is the only resort for India to solve its problem of poverty, even as he finds "serious crisis of moral dimension" in most Indian leaders.
The non-executive chairman of one of India's largest and most admired software companies also advocates some radical economic reforms such as hire and fire policy, privatisation and foreign investment in retail trade industry.
"If India has to solve its problems of poverty, we have to embrace capitalism. I believe that is the only hope we have," Murthy told Karan Thapar's 'Devil's Advocate' programme.
"Capitalism is about providing equal opportunity for everybody and to make sure that people have incentives to perform better and better. It also thrives in an environment of competition," he said.


IT PARKS/SEZ
GIANT TECH SEZS ON THEIR WAY
Arun Kumar, New Delhi
Hindustan Times (Delhi edition)The government intends to provide fiscal benefits to developers involved in building infrastructure for setting up IT investment regions (ITIRs).
In an effort to promote integrated modern townships for sunrise industries including information technology and BPO - it has also proposed that fiscal incentives be provided to special economic zones (SEZs) or export oriented zones (EOU) located within the ITIR.
After the petrochemical and manufacturing investment regions, the IT sector is the third vertical where the government intends to develop dedicated townships.
The Ministry of Finance, according to sources, has agreed to extend the benefits of tax holidays to developers and co-developers of ITIRs, under section 80(I)(A) of the Income Tax Act for the development, operation and maintenance of infrastructure. Developers will get 100 percent tax deduction for 10 years for developing the ITIR.


RCOM GETS STATE NOD FOR SEZ
Mumbai
Business Standard Reliance Communications (RCom) has received approvals from Maharashtra and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) for its proposed 45-acre special economic zone (SEZ).
The company had earlier received the Board of Approvals' (BoA) nod for the SEZ.
Coming up at the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC), the SEZ would cater to the emerging information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITeS) sectors.
The SEZ will host around 30-40 IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies at the SEZ that would be set up on 45 acres (18.6 hectares) at the DAKC.
The 135-acre campus of DAKC houses the Anil Ambani group's national headquarters.
Reliance Communications spokesperson refused to comment on the current status of the SEZ.
Earlier, the group's proposal to set up a multi-product SEZ in Uttar Pradesh was turned down by the state government, stating it was "not feasible".
The SEZ is coming up close to the elder sibling Mukesh Ambani's proposed SEZ at Kharghar, in Navi Mumbai.


VCF/PVT. EQUITY
NVP NAMES NIREN SHAH MD INDIA
New Delhi
The Economic TimesTechnology venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) on Monday announced appointment of Niren Shah as the Managing Director for its Indian operations. Based in Mumbai, he will focus on local investments in consumer Internet, digital media, next-generation services and mobile sectors.
Shah will bring 14 years of operational, finance, investment banking and entrepreneurial experience from companies like eBay, Baazee and KPMG, the company said in a statement.
"The Indian market continues to show great potential and in next several months, NVP India will aggressively hire senior investment professionals and invest in new high calibre to capitalise on this growth," NVP Managing Partner Pramod Haque said.
He said the company has already made direct investments in Adventy, Mobile2Win, Persistent Systems and Yatra. It has more than 20 'hybrid' or 'cross-border' portfolio companies.


'MOBILE INTERNET WILL BE BIGGER THAN BROADBAND'
Snigdha Sengupta and Namitha Jagadeesh
Mint Global venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners managing partner Promod Haquebet on India's technology companies in 2001, at a time when the country was vastly unknown to the majority of the US Silicon Valley's venture capital community.
Haque, along with members of his team, started visiting India two or three times a year to test the Palo Alto-based firm's initial investment thesis for this market—Indo-US cross border technology start-ups. The US market, at the time, was just going into a recession, and building start-ups in the Valley had become an expensive proposition. Haque saw the potential to leverage India's low-cost and skilled technology pool as back-end support for Silicon Valley start-ups. Since then, Norwest has invested $300 million (Rs 1,218 crore) in 22 cross-border technology companies and five pure Indian companies—Sulekha.com, Yatra.com, Mobile2win, Adventity and Persistent Systems.
About 10 percent of NVP's current portfolio of 60 companies are now in India and this will grow significantly, promises Haque, who spoke about how he wants to play round 2 in India.
Edited excerpts:
How much of NVP X has been deployed? How much will be invested here?
About $100 million has been deployed globally. The US is obviously very large. If you look at dollars, India is No. 2, Israel is pretty close. Between India and China, China is less so.
What sectors are you looking at?
We see three or four different kinds of opportunities in India. One is the consumer Internet space in general and includes mobile Internet. We have two or three bets in that space such as Yatra.com and Sulekha. The reason why it continues to be an interesting sector is the mobile aspect to it. Mobile Internet will be bigger here than broadband, PC-based Internet.
The second area of interest is what we call second-generation services companies, not basic IT-enabled services because we believe that space is taken. But companies that are more in the area of product development, such as Persistent Systems, and KPOs (knowledge process outsourcing). BPOs (business process outsourcing), we believe, are now commoditized and we're not interested. The revenue per employee is very low.
KPOs bring in fairly sophisticated talent to address basic outsourcing issues. The third area of interest, which we believe is fairly new, is the product area. We believe that product innovation is taking place and will accelerate over a period of time, but is still in its infancy. Those opportunities will predominantly be in the software and mobile space.
Less so, probably, in the core hardware space because India still lacks manufacturing capabilities.
Semiconductor deals naturally gravitate towards China. But, I think we'll see a lot of opportunities in wireless infrastructure and software. The fourth area, where we haven't done anything yet, is related to infrastructure. This is away from our core sectors, but interesting because of the growth of the economy here.


EPLANET SET FOR $12-M PLAY IN TRIVITRON
Boby Kurian & Savitha V, Bangalore
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)US-based venture capital fund ePlanet is in advanced talks to invest $12 million in Chennai-based medical technology company Trivitron, sources said. ePlanet will pick up a strategic minority stake in the Rs 150 crore company that straddles the entire technology spectrum of medical devices.
Sources said the deal could go through by this month end or early October. This could be ePlanet's first investment in India from the $500 million new global fund. ePlanet, which recently set up offices in Bangalore and New Delhi, is bullish on investments in India and China.
Sources said the decade-old Trivitron was raising capital for its aggressive expansion drive, which include a Rs 250 crore technology park planned on the lines of an SEZ. When contacted, Trivitron MD, GSK Velu, said no decision of funding has been taken as yet. He declined to comment further.
Trivitron operates in the field of medical equipment, medical devices, clinical diagnostic equipment, medical consumables and disposables, medical software and consultancy services. The company's product portfolio includes medical device solutions for imaging, cardiology, critical care, orthopaedics and radiology among others.


M&A
REDINGTON TO BE SUN'S DISTRIBUTOR IN INDIA
Bangalore
The Economic Times The Hindu Business LineSun Microsystems India on Monday announced it has appointed Redington (India) Ltd, a Chennai- based provider of IT products and support services, as a value-added distributor for India.
Having established and consolidated its presence in the growing Indian IT industry, Sun Microsystems, through this partnership, is now gearing up for the next phase in its market growth and expansion plans in the country, it said in a statement.
"Sun and Redington will now offer the opportunity to sell Sun products and solutions to partners across 450 cities in India targeting major growth industries in addition to a large base of small and medium business," it said.


INFOKALL ACQUIRES POINTSOFT
Hyderabad
The Hindu Business LineInfokall Enterprises Ltd, the Indian arm of Infokall Inc based in Santa Ana, California, has announced the acquisition of Pointsoft, an IT consulting company based in Hyderabad. "By joining with Infokall, we can grow our organisation, benefit our stakeholders and provide customers with new capabilities," Brij Mohan, CEO of PointSoft, said in a statement. However, details of the deal have not been disclosed.


NEST GROUP LOOKS AT ACQUISITIONS IN OPTOELECTRONIC SPACE
Utpal Bhaskar, Stockholm
Mint Global technology products and services conglomerate NeST Group plans to acquire companies in India in the optoelectronic sector through its subsidiary SFO Technologies Northlight Division. Optoelectronics uses light signals to operate electronic devices and has applications in optical fibre networks, solar (photovoltaic) cells and photoresistors.
"We are looking at a number of companies in the optoelectronic area with a revenue between $10 million (Rs40.6 crore) and $20 million (Rs81.2 crore)," David Darby, general manager, Northlight AB said.
He declined to elaborate on the plans, citing commercial reasons.
SFO Technologies is already present in India through its software development centres, research and development (R&D) and manufacturing facilities located in cities such as Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Bangalore.
The US is the company's main market and its customers include Lucent Technologies, ABB, Alstom, Motorola and Areva, among others.
SFO Technologies also plans to develop new products in India. It currently manufactures and markets optical transmitters, receivers and fibre amplifiers operating up to 10GB for high-speed LAN, metro and long-haul applications.


SOFTWARE
UKRAINIAN BANK IMPLEMENTS INFOSYS PRODUCT
Mumbai
The Economic Times The Hindu Business Line DNA The HinduIT major Infosys Technologies on Monday said Ukraine-based Nadra Bank has selected its flagship product 'Finacle Universal Banking Solution' to power its transformation initiative.
Finacle encompasses core banking, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), treasury, e-banking and would replace the bank's current in-house decentralised system, Infosys said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
"This win is of strategic importance to us. With an already established and fast growing client base for Finacle in Russia and CIS, the region is strategic to our growth plans," Infosys Technologies VP and Head (Worldwide Sales- Finacle) Sanat Rao said.


'WIPRO TO OPEN MORE CENTERS IN CHINA'
Bangalore
The Economic Times The Hindu Business Line Mint The Times of India Wipro is looking to open additional development centres in China as it ramps up operations there to cater to the growing customers' requirements, a senior official said.
"We are looking at setting up more centres in China. In the next one year or so, we definitely will have more centres in China", Chief Financial Officer of the Bangalore-based IT major, Suresh Senapaty, told PTI.
The New York Stock Exchange-listed company already has three centres in China. He said Wipro has not seen any impact on its outsourcing business from the US subprime mortgage crisis.
"Our exposure to clients which have lot of exposure to subprime is much much lower", Senapaty said. "We do not expect any adverse impact of that in our business."
Asked if Wipro has increased billing rates for customers following rising wages and appreciation of the rupee, he said, "it has always been Wipro's desire and intention to be wanting to take the billing rates up. In that direction, we have taken many steps. We have been getting a fairly encouraging response."


INDIAN IT EXPORTS TO MIDDLE EAST SET TO TOUCH $1BN BY 2010
Dubai
Mint The Economic Times The Pioneer India's IT export to the Middle East is likely to touch the $1billion mark in the next two-three years from $873 million in 2006, a top official of a trade promotion body has said.
Electronic and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), part of India's Communication and Information Technology Ministry, has formed a strategy to increase IT exports through SMEs, ESC Chairman Sanjay Narayan said in an interview.
As per the strategy, SMEs would target export markets with a focus on the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. Currently, more than 65 percent of India's IT exports go to the US while 25 percent is targeted at Europe.
"Dubai can act as a hub for Indian IT exports to the whole region (the Middles East)," said Narayan, who was here to attend Gitex 2007 (Gulf Information Technology Exhibition), the largest IT show of its kind in the region.
"The SME sector has a huge cost advantage since they can develop tailor-made solutions for a particular sector," he added. India's total IT exports are growing at more than 30 percent annually and are expected to cross $50 billion in early 2008, the official said.
"IT exports from India to the Middle East, particularly to the UAE have increased substantially in recent years. We see huge potential for further growth," ESC regional director in Dubai Kamal Vachani said.


STORAGE
'OUR VISION IS TO BUILD CONTENT-AWARE STORAGE SOLUTION'
Preethi J., Bangalore
The Hindu Business Line Storage economics and what's coming up next in the storage arena: Adrian De Luca, Director, Storage Solutions, Asia Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems, shares his company's vision in an interview.
How has storage changed since the past five years?
Storage used to be predominantly adding more capacity to store more data. Then archival and the concepts of information lifecycle management entered. While consolidation is the first of the steps to a more efficient storage environment, it is not enough. Indian companies are successfully consolidating their resources. With virtualisation, smarter archiving methods and more flexible architectures, enterprises are able to function better.
What about innovation in hardware and storage architecture? Has that stopped?
Innovation has moved into software. It has been three years since virtualisation was invented. It helped the storage administrator get the maximum out of the storage hardware. Software is now becoming a critical component of any enterprise backbone. When a company undergoes a technology refresh cycle (about once in three years), the CIO approaches us to learn what innovations could help him control costs, minimise complexity and lower risk. Complexity is the increasing number of users, data and inbox sizes, space constraints etc. The company also does not want to re-architect its entire network while upgrading. That constitutes a risk. These are the factors that constantly challenge us to innovate.
What's after virtualisation?
Policy-based data management to classify documents and archive them intelligently is now being implemented. De-duplication, which ensures that only one copy of a duplicated file is stored, has also made a difference to many firms. Now application-aware storage management is being seen. HDS has decided to talk the language of application vendors. By interfacing with the application layer instead of the server layer, decisions on storage and transfer of data across a network can be made faster.
Services such as risk analysis and storage economics are also being offered. Our 60 consultants work across the APAC region, auditing the customer's current storage network, looking at server and application utilisation metrics, researching future needs and finally offering advise and best practices.
Our vision is to build a content-aware storage management solution. It will build on the application-awareness and policy-based archival. It will align to different applications, recognising email for example, to store them intelligently. This is what we will be working to realise.


HARDWARE
HP LAUNCHES PRINTER RANGE, EXTENDS REACH TO WEB SURFERS
Lijee Philip, New York
The Economic TimesHewlett-Packard (HP) has launched a range of printers and peripherals along with a $300-million marketing campaign as part of its plan to grab a bigger slice of the printing market share.
Speaking at the 'Print 2.0' strategy in New York recently, Vyomesh Joshi, EVP, imaging and printing group, said that HP wants to make printing from websites easier, which includes blogs and travel sites, and bring in new printing capabilities to online properties. "With Print 2.0, we are leveraging the power of the web as a gateway for our customers to communicate, collaborate and publish their content in ways they could not before," said Joshi.
He identified some key areas of focus for the Print 2.0 strategy; extend the company's digital content creation — for example, Snapfish and Logoworks — across customer segments spanning from consumers to enterprises; and deliver a digital printing platform that increases print speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial