HEADLINES TODAY : PARAMOUNT TO ACQUIRE AEI CABLE

INDUSTRY
ACCEL BAGS JNU DEAL
Chennai
The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has partnered with Accel Frontline, a Chennai-based IT services provider, to develop software-based solutions and applications for its e-governance cell. JNU's e-governance cell was set up during the 10th Plan with a Rs 50 lakh grant by the University Grants Commission.




NASSCOM TO TAP YOUTH POWER
Guwahati
The TelegraphSmart and suave with a flair for English — this is how the information technology industry perceives the youth of the Northeast.

The country's biggest IT body, Nasscom, today rolled out its plans to tap the youth power of the region, which has an abundant talent pool of English-speaking boys and girls.

Over 20,000 youth from the region will sit for the National Assessment of Competency (NAC) test by Nasscom, which is considered to be the first step towards employment in the BPO and IT-enabled services sectors.

The IT industry expects nearly three lakh graduates to appear for the NAC test by 2009.

The first of the series of tests will begin in the third week of September and continue till December. The tests will be held at different centres across the region.




IT PARKS/SEZ

NEW JERSEY-BASED SMES MULL IT PARK
Hyderabad
The Hindu Business LineA consortium of 60 New Jersey-based technology companies have come calling to India with a proposal to set up an integrated technology park which will see initial investment of about Rs 1,200 crore.

The Small and Medium Enterprise Consortium (SMEC) now has about 60 companies as members with a combined turnover of $3 billion. It hinted that about 300 companies evinced interest in being part of the proposed project planned near Hyderabad.

Upendra J. Chivakula, Deputy Speaker of New Jersey General Assembly, along with other members of the consortium, said that the objective of such an initiative was to step up outsourcing work, network and connect with local people, create jobs, and take up social work.

As a part of this initiative, the consortium expects to invest about Rs 120 crore in International Institute of Information Technology, and some model schools, each with an outlay of Rs 12 crore.

The Chairman of SMEC, Mahender Musuku, said that there are scores of technology companies playing a very strategic role in enterprises in the US with employee strength ranging from a couple of hundreds and upwards. All these companies either have outsourcing capability or are in the process of looking at developing such a capability.




TCS, COGNIZANT AMONG 20 SEZS CLEARED
New Delhi
The Hindu Business Line DNA Mint The Tribune The Pioneer The Hindu Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant Solutions India Pvt Ltd, both in Andhra Pradesh, were among the 20 special economic zones for Information Technology (IT) and ITES cleared for formal approval on Thursday by the Board of Approval for SEZs.

The BoA, which met under the Chairmanship of the Commerce Secretary, Gopal K. Pillai, also gave in-principle nod to seven SEZs, including a multi-product SEZ being promoted by Gitanjali Gems Ltd in Nagpur, Maharashtra, and a 208-hectares textile SEZ in Bidar district, Karnataka, by Jade Holdings Pvt Ltd.

Pillai told reporters here that with today's 20 formal approvals, the number of SEZs with formal approvals has gone to 386 out of which 142 have been notified so far.

Among the notable formal approvals include multi-services SEZ by Gujarat Finance City Development Company Ltd in Gandhinagar, agro and food processing SEZ by Nagaland Industrial Development Corporation Ltd in Dimapur, two IT/ITES SEZs by Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd, and a polymer-based SEZ by Asia Pacific Corporation Ltd in Gujarat's Kutch district.

Among the four SEZs for conversion from in-principle to formal approval include Alok Infrastructure Pvt Ltd for a textile SEZ in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and a multi-product SEZ spread over 1,263 hectares by Sterling Erection and Infrastructure Pvt Ltd.

Welspun Anjar SEZ for Engineering products and Gitanjali Gems Ltd for gems and jewellery SEZ in Aurangabad were the two important SEZs that were given in-principle nod by the BoA on Thursday.

Proposals of AEC Marketing for gems and jewellery SEZ in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Anant Raj Industries' 10-hectare IT SEZs were not considered by the BoA as the local authorities in the respective regions withheld permissions for these proposals.




IT PARK IN KADAPA SOON
Kadapa
Deccan ChronicleDistrict collector M.T. Krishna Babu said that steps were being taken to construct an IT Park in 50 acres of land near Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims) on the outskirts of Kadapa city. Krishnababu inaugurated the regional information and public relations office that was shifted to the old Rims office here on Thursday. Speaking to newsmen, the collector said that Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy would inaugurate Rajiv Gruhakalpa housing complex constructed at a cost of Rs 12 crore here on September 5.




M&A

BT TO EXTEND XANSA DEAL
The Hindu Business LineXansa Plc, a UK provider of information-technology and business services, said BT Group Plc extended a contract valued at £128 million ($258 million) over six years. The contract "covers finance and accounting processing, accounts payable, cash, treasury, payroll, ledger and reporting services," Reading, England-based Xansa said in a statement distributed by the Regulatory News Service today.



PARAMOUNT TO ACQUIRE AEI CABLE
Kausik Datta, Mumbai
Business StandardNew Delhi-based Paramount Communications is close to acquiring Britley, UK-based AEI Cables. An announcement to this effect is expected to come shortly, if not tomorrow.

Sources close to the development said the deal size would be in the range of Rs 250-260 crore. UK-based investment banking firm Elara Capital is the adviser to Paramount. Sanjay Aggarwal, chairman and CEO, Paramount Communications, declined comments.

They added that the power cable maker Paramount would borrow for financing the deal, which would be around 80 percent of the company's sales last year. Paramount last year posted a net profit of Rs 37.5 crore over net sales of Rs 318 crore. Last year, it had raised $15 million (Rs 60 crore) through a GDR issue.

Paramount provides cabling solutions to power, telecom and IT, railways and petrochemical industries. It has a flexible manufacturing capacity to shift focus on manufacturing one type of cable to another.




SOFTWARE

SATNAV TECH SEWS UP $10-M EXPANSION PLAN
V.Rishi Kumar, Hyderabad
The Hindu Business Line Business StandardSatNav Technologies has embarked on plans to expand its domestic and international operations with an investment outlay of $10 million.

The Founder and Managing Director of SatNav, Amit Prasad, said that from a start-up a few years ago, the company has now moved on to the next phase of growth which is reflected in the performance of the company.

Prasad said that the company had consolidated its business in India and now planned to expand its presence in the Asia Pacific region and West Asia with its flagship product 'a-mantra', a facilities management suite.

"Initially, the company was in pursuit of investments from private equity players. But now the strategy has changed. We plan to meet our expansion requirements through a combination of internal accruals and debt," he explained.




TCS BAGS $140-M BSNL CONTRACT
Mumbai
The Economic Times The Hindu Business Line The Times of India Business Standard Deccan Chronicle The Financial Express The Telegraph Deccan Herald The Hindu Software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won a nine-year contract worth $140 million (Rs 574 crore) from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The deal, covering the north and west of India, includes deploying operational support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) components such as customer relationship management, billing, mediation and directory enquiry.

The first two years of the engagement will involve setting up the new systems in association with its partners and upgrading from the existing systems. The latter will involve operating and maintaining the systems. The revenue flowing in from the project in the first two years will be larger than in the rest of the years. The systems integration involves managing the overall engagement along with a large team of hardware, software and application partners. The $140 million is revenue that TCS will earn from the contract.

HCL Infosystems had won a similar deal of Rs 500 crore for the south and east regions from BSNL.

"The deal is comparable to any other global deal," said TCS head (global sales) N Chandrasekaran. He said it would also serve to showcase the company's capabilities in telecom. Some of the telecom contracts that are coming up globally are in systems integration, 3G, convergent billing and managed services. These are largely in Africa, Latin America and in the Asia Pacific. All these deals are fairly large size and range from $50 million to $200 million.

TCS gets around 9-10 percent of its revenues from the domestic market. "TCS is extremely focused on the domestic market. We will continue to bid for projects in India," Chandrasekaran said. The margins from the BSNL contract would be comparable to global margins, he added.

Earlier, TCS had won a large outsourcing contract for managing the IT infrastructure needs of Tata Teleservices. The agreement, signed in 2005, was valued at Rs 1,000 crore.




EMERSON SETS UP DESIGN ENGINEERING CENTRE IN MOHALI
Komal Amit Gera, New Delhi, Chandigarh
Business StandardEmerson Electric Company inaugurated its Design Engineering Centre at Quark city in Mohali today.

The move can be considered as the revival of the software business in Mohali after Tech Mahindra, Infosys and Tech Mahindra quit the place in the last few years.

The company has taken the premises on rent at Quark and would run under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) umbrella.

According to sources, it expects export of Rs 45 crore in the first year and about Rs 400crore-Rs 500 crore after the completion of the project.

The company officials refused to disclose the investment figures but said that the amount would be substantial. This is the second corporate centre of Emerson in India, the first one was set in Pune.

According to Pradipta Sen, president (India region of Emerson Electric Company), "The facility at Pune was set up in year 2003 that now engages 456 people and 34 divisions and we want to replicate the same success in Mohali."




HARDWARE

FAB COMPANIES NOW DRIVE PC DESIGNS
PP Thimmaya, Bangalore
The Economic TimesThe PC market in India has taken the unconventional route with major chipmakers like Intel and AMD coming out with new designs for computers that appeal to masses both in terms of price and value. The conventional PC does not seem to be the preferred bet for those looking at increasing penetration of the Indian market as chip makers and hardware manufacturers are coming out with new form factors which suit Indian conditions.

If Intel has come out with its Classmate PC, which is more of a miniature form of notebook computer, then AMD has designed new form factor PCs where the central processing unit (CPU) has been shrunk to a minimal size. AMD's designed product is being manufactured and marketed by Wipro Infotech under the brand name Protos. AMD India MD Alok Ohrie says: "We are trying to facilitate a computing environment for the masses and thereby create a new market."

These new form factor PCs are not just about design itself, they are competitively priced too. The Protos is priced at Rs 14,000 at the entry level while Intel's Classmate PC comes with a bundled cost of around Rs 17,000.

However, Ashutosh Vaidya, V-P, Wipro personal computing, Wipro Infotech, says it is not just the price which will drive these PCs, but the value and functionality it generates. In case of Protos, it can be run on a 12-volt battery and can withstand extreme weather conditions and has all the features of a normal PC.

Vaidya says the company is looking at adding more applications on Protos and would like to make it a more solution-oriented machine. In the case of Classmate PC, Intel is targeting the education sector, especially schools since the machine is more attuned to children.

According to IDC, the installed PC base in the country recorded a compounded annual growth rate of 32.3 percent from 9.5 million in 2003 to cross 22 million in 2006, thereby more than doubling in a three-year time frame.




ENERGY-EFFICIENT HARD DRIVES FROM WESTERN DIGITAL
R. Savitha, Pune
The Hindu Business Line Western Digital has announced a new line of hard drives designed with energy efficiency in mind. These hard drives are estimated to consume almost 40 percent less power than normal drives.

According to WD, each of these drives will save about 13.8 kg of carbon dioxide per year. For a large data centre, such as a bank, savings could be around 248 tonnes of carbon a year. The first of these 3.5-inch hard drives, the 1TB Caviar GP, hit the global market in July, followed by the 1TB desk-to-pc channel shipment.

Sharad Srivastava, Director - Sales (India and South Asia), talks about the products and the strategy.

What is the potential for green drives in the Indian market? What is the sales target?

Green Power Hard Drives consume almost 40 percent less power than normal drives. In India where power is an issue in terms of demand and supply chain, these drives will conserve power and provide an increased life to power-generation equipment such as inverters and generators.

What is the marketing strategy for this?

Western Digital's market strategy consists of a distributor network. We have channel partners who are responsible for the distribution of our products across India. Additionally, we have an all-inclusive education campaign and service support set-up in India. We have also implemented a three-segment channel model, based on the customer profile and appointed strategic distributors, to address the market.

In an enhancement to its channel strategy recently, WD's volume distribution segment has been further divided into the regional and up-country markets to address resellers and small SI/assemblers. This distributor network is supported by our warranty replacement program – WD Express.

Where is the drive being manufactured?

The green drives are being manufactured in WD factory located in Malaysia and Thailand. For the domestic market too, the drives will be shipped from the manufacturing units in Malaysia and Thailand. As per our Q4 results, unit shipments have grown 32 percent from 73.3 million in the last fiscal year (FY06) to 96.5 million in FY07.




INT/E-COMM

ASSOCHAM: EARLY SPECTRUM ALLOCATION FOR BROADBAND
New Delhi
The Economic Times Assocham today suggested early allocation of spectrum for broadband wireless access.

"Spectrum finalisation has already taken a great deal of time and if further delayed it is going to jeopardize the prospects of broadband and telecom services," Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot said in a statement.

In a communiqué to the Department of Telecommunication, the chamber said the Indian broadband services market is still at a nascent stage in the country, as by end of 2006-07, the subscriber base had not exceeded beyond 2.5 million, with a household penetration being around one per cent only.

According to estimates made by the chamber, the gap between target and achievement in broadband penetration in India will touch 10 million by 2010, until the availability of personal computer at cheaper price with adequate infrastructure is made available in rural and semi urban areas.

The Department of Telecommunication has set a target of nine million subscribers by the end of current year and 20 million subscribers by 2020.

In order to make broadband available all across the country, service providers will have to look into various emerging technologies, mainly wireless, as it is difficult to connect the vast Indian population through wires, the chamber said.

Another major challenge in providing rural broadband connectivity is the non-availability of relevant content for the diversified Indian population, without which the success of broadband in rural areas is very unlikely, it added.




E-GOVERNANCE

COMAT SERVICE CENTRES IN NE
Bangalore
The Hindu Business LineComat Technologies has announced plans to set up common service centres across districts, tehsils and gram panchayats in the North East. The company, in association with 3i Infotech, has already set up around 800 ICT-enabled kiosks in Karnataka. In Haryana, out of the proposed 1,159 rural kiosks, it is close to setting up 292 kiosks (e-Disha Ekal Seva Kendras) in the state's first roll-out exercise in Rohtak division. Similarly, the company will set up 706 centres across Uttarakhand the Uttaranchal state benefiting 6.3 million population in its rural areas. It will soon extend its expertise to north-eastern states, where 140 and centres are going to be set up in Tripura and 45 in centres are going to be set up in Tripura and Sikkim.




IT TRAINING

ORACLE UNIVERSITY CERTIFICATION
Coimbatore
The Hindu Business LineOracle University has awarded certificates to over 42,000 professionals in India, since its inception in 1995. The university offers training and certification programmes by providing Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Retek and Siebel education. In a bid to reach out to the Indian students, it offers these as classroom programmes in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. While such initiatives are aimed at bridging the IT skills gap, it has also designed the 'Workforce Development Programme' for working professionals through a wide education partner network. A release from the company said that over 90,000 Indian students passed the WDP last year June 2006 – May 2007.




IT ENABLED SERVICES

APOLLO HEALTH ACQUIRES ATLANTA BPO FOR $170 M
Chennai
The Economic Times Mint The Hindu Business Line DNA The Indian Express The Times of India The Tribune Business Standard Deccan Chronicle The Telegraph The Hindu Apollo Health Street (AHS), the BPO arm of Apollo Group of Hospitals, has acquired Zavata, an Atlanta-based BPO which operates in the same segment, for $170 million. This synergistic acquisition is not only expected to strengthen AHS' presence in the US market, but is also going to bring in specialised skill-sets, adding value to the company's existing portfolio.

Apollo Hospitals group executive chairman Prathap C Reddy told mediapersons in Chennai on Thursday that "this acquisition will make Apollo Health Street the largest global healthcare BPO company".

The acquisition is to be funded through a combination of debt and equity, broken into $120 million of debt and $50 million equity. Barclays Capital and Bank of India, the funding agencies for the acquisition, have offered an optional draw-out of $140 million (including $8 million refinancing portion of an earlier debt) to the company, including the debt component of this deal. The balance funding will come through internal accruals, Pratap Reddy said. Of $50 million equity, the Apollo Group will invest $25 million while private equity investors — JP Morgan's investment arm One Equity Partners and Temasek Holdings — will fund the rest.

According to AHS CEO Andrew DeVoe, the valuation of Zavata was put at 10 times its EBIDTA. Zavata, which is engaged in end-to-end back office services and emergency transport billing, is the fourth acquisition by AHS. A year ago, AHS had acquired another US-based company, Armanti Financial Services for $30 million, after which AHS' combined turnover touched $50 million.

Zavata has over 100 active customers and employs over 450 people in India and 500 plus in the US, DeVoe said. The combined entity is aiming for a revenue of Rs 400 crore by March 2008.

AHS MD Sangita Reddy said the BPO business has been growing organically at a CAGR of 70 percent. It has operations in Hyderabad and the US, and is building a new facility in Chennai. When completed, the Chennai facility will have 2,000 seats. The first phase — with 400 seats and an investment of Rs 20 crore — will be ready in a year's time, she said.

AHS serves the top three academic health systems and spans across 40 hospitals in the US. It is looking at several avenues for raising capital. On the possibilities of a future listing, Ms Reddy said, "we are working out the valuation". AHS, which started offering platform-based delivery solutions five years ago, has been ahead of the industry in its outcome-based pricing models. "We operate in the high-end business space. The value of each contract ranges from $1 million to $5 million," she said.




INDIAN TECHNOLOGY FIRMS FIND OFFSHORE MERIT IN SOUTH AFRICA
Regina Anthony, New Delhi
Mint A large labour pool with multi-lingual skills, proximity to the Middle East and Europe, and a deep cost advantage vis-à-vis the US and Europe are factors making countries such as South Africa attractive offshore destinations for Indian back office and tech service providers.

Companies that are eyeing or have presence in both countries include all the major players including HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.

HCL, which had put together a team three months ago to assess the business process outsourcing climate in Africa, has already picked Cape Town and Johannesburg to set up back-office units, details of which will be finalized soon.

Wipro and Infosys declined to comment on their Africa plans, but an industry representative said both firms are exploring the possibility of setting up operations there.

"Representatives of Infosys and Wipro have visited South Africa to invest there, but the process is still at a very nascent stage. Wipro is looking at setting up a manufacturing facility there," said Shipra Tripathi, director, Africa desk, at business lobby Confederation of Indian Industry.

Satyam Computer Services Ltd, which serves six of the largest firms in Africa, already counts more than 120 workers at customer locations in offices at Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The Hyderabad-based firm said in July that it plans to strengthen its presence in South Africa over the next two to three years to leverage untapped business opportunities and local employees.

TCS already has operations in both Johannesburg and Cape Town with 100 employees, and is in the process of setting up a global delivery centre in Morocco. Other Indian tech and back-office companies are also speaking to government officials in African countries to understand the market there.

"Indian tech companies, such as Satyam and TCS, have approached us about possible investments... Other big outsourcing companies, such as Genpact and Convergys, have also been provided with information," said Ray Ngcobo, chief director of the industry development division at South Africa's department of trade and industry, in an email.




ERP

SAP: INDIA KEY TO GLOBAL GOAL OF 100,000 CLIENTS
Bangalore
The Economic Times The Times of India German software giant SAP said on Thursday that its Indian unit will be key to reaching its goal of more than doubling the number of global customers by 2010.

India is the third-biggest operation by headcount for SAP, which plans to invest one billion dollars by 2011 in the country, also its fastest growing market; chief executive officer Henning Kagermann said.

The local unit will play a critical role both as a source of "products and innovations" and as an expanding market as SAP seeks to increase its customer base worldwide from 41,000 to 100,000 by 2010, Kagermann said.

India, where the number of customers has doubled to 2,000 in one year, will be a "very big" market for SAP, reaching the scale of Britain and France, in five to 10 years, he said.

The entire 60-member executive board of Walldorf, Germany-based SAP have travelled to India with the CEO to meet customers and gauge the market as well as interact with local employees.

Kagermann opened a new 350,000-square-feet facility on the campus of SAP Labs in Bangalore that can house 2,000 employees, and announced tie-ups with two Indian technology institutions Thursday to nurture engineering talent.

The company has designated India as a strategic hub and plans to reinforce its global services and support centres in this southern Indian city and Gurgaon, a New Delhi suburb.

The Indian operation is SAP's largest research and development hub and support centre outside Germany.

HEADLINES TODAY : US-BASED SMEC TO INVEST RS 2,500 CRORE IN ANDHRA PRADESH

INDUSTRY
US-BASED SMEC TO INVEST RS 2,500 CRORE IN ANDHRA PRADESH
Hyderabad
The Economic TimesSmall & Medium Enterprise Consortium (SMEC), formed by a group of entrepreneurs from across the globe, will invest Rs 2,500 crore in Andhra Pradesh for providing thrust to SMEs, particularly IT, in the state.

The investment by SMEC, which promotes sustainable development of small and medium enterprises, would generate 25,000 jobs directly and over 80,000 indirectly in the state.

"There are several entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh operating start ups to consulting units to global outfits in USA, currently, and most of them have offices in Hyderabad," New Jersey-based entrepreneur and SMEC Chairman Mahendar Reddy Musuku said.

"Each office has five to 200 employees and thriving with an aggressive growth plan. We have hence decided to set up a consortium so that these small and medium entrepreneurs will come together, develop and avail common facilities for a better and faster growth," he added.

As for the reason for selecting Andhra Pradesh, Musuku said Hyderabad and information technology have become synonymous.

"The infotech revolution has brought Hyderabad on the centre-stage and the brightest pool of talent is coming from here," he said.

On Tuesday, an SMEC delegation met the state Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who appreciated their efforts and assured support and from the government, Musuku said, adding that, "we are confident our initiative will result in creating a major support tool for the IT industry in AP."

India's IT industry is said to be the world's 10th largest and is increasing rapidly.

According to consultancy group McKinsey estimates, by 2008 India's software, services and IT outsourcing industry would be worth $70 billion annually, employing four million people and contributing 7 percent to the Gross National Product.




M&M GETS AMITY HR AWARD
New Delhi
The Hindu Business LineHomegrown farm equipment-to-IT major Mahindra & Mahindra has won the HR Excellence Award presented by Amity Group, recognising it as one of the most admired companies across the globe. The company was presented the award at the recently held fourth Amity Global HR Summit 2007 in the Amity International Business School, Noida. "As a diversified global conglomerate, Mahindra's human capital is its principal asset. The organisation's innovative HR practices in today's dynamic environment help it attract and retain the best available talent," the M&M President (HR & Corporate Services), Rajeev Dubey, said in a statement.




IT PARKS/SEZ

TODAY'S BOA MEET TO DISCUSS 31 SEZ PROPOSALS
New Delhi
The Hindu Business Line The HinduThe board of approvals (BoA) will take up 31 SEZ proposals, including those by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Cognizant Technology, for clearance at its meeting on Thursday. IT and ITeS special economic zones (SEZ) dominate the list of proposals to be taken up by the BoA. Most of the new proposals for SEZs in IT and ITeS are from Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. Interestingly, the SEZ promoters are taking IT and ITeS beyond the hubs of Gurgaon and Hyderabad. TCS proposes to set up a 30.35-hectare IT zone in Ranga Reddy District (Andhra Pradesh) where Cognizant Technology Solutions also plans to establish a 16-hectare IT zone.




WEST BENGAL ROLLS OUT RED CARPET FOR IT SECTOR
Pradeep Gooptu, Kolkata
Business Standard The government of West Bengal has launched a multi-pronged initiative to win the confidence of technology sector companies and grow the information technology (IT) and IT enabled services (ITES) in the state by at least 50 percent in this fiscal under a plan that has obtained the state cabinet's backing.

Spearheaded by the IT department of the state and its agencies like Webel Ltd., the initiative would create a pool of attractive real estate solutions of upto 20 lakh square feet at new destinations.

The real estate would be offered to investors to enable them to kick-start their operations in the state with minimum loss of time and at cost-competitive rates, more so as the real estate was being developed by established sector players like DLF and Shapoorji Pallonji, said top sources in the state It department.

Bengal's IT minister Debesh Das, who was managing this effort, would contact select IT and ITES companies directly with offers to start up operations in the state at rates that were upto 50 percent lower than established IT centres like Hyderabad or Pune.

"The IT department can offer space today at Rs 25 a square foot at Siliguri to all comers", said state IT and biotechnology secretary Siddharth.

The IT department would be using as incentive the numerous infrastructure projects that were being commissioned in the state to enhance its attractiveness to investors over and above its power-surplus situation and cost-competitive workforce

The IT department would offer realty at multiple IT hubs being developed under public private partnership (PPP) model, and the 20 lakh square feet being offered initially was expected to go up to 80 lakh square feet of built-up space accruing to the IT department as its share in PPP-based projects.

The first was the semi-conductor centre (SCC) being developed at Sector 5 at Salt Lake at an estimated cost of Rs 37 crore under ownership of WEBEL, the nodal agency of the IT department.

It would offer rent of between Rs 35 to Rs 40 per sq ft per month and the building would be specially designed for the semiconductor companies with expensive software equipment for research and training.

A second software technology park basically for SME companies was being developed using the PPP route on a 1.25 acre WEBEL plot in Salt Lake Sector 5.

Webel would leverage the free developed area it received from the PPP partner to handhold investors and populate this Rs 48 crore project with rentals around Rs 25 per. sq ft.

A third IT hub was being proposed at Jagadishpur close to Kolkata on 332 acres and developed once again through the PPP route. WEBEL's share of land would be 160 acres and this would be dedicated to companies with attached residential area for employees and facilities facilities like food court and entertainment zone at subsidized rentals.

The fourth was the special economic zone in the Bhangar-Rajarhat Development Authority (BRADA) area covering at least 200 acres, beyond a canal that currently marked the border of the Rajarhat township.

The fifth SEZ would come up at Nonadanga, also east of Kolkata, on around 75 acres of which 50 acres would be for the IT SEZ hub under a joint venture between the state IT ministry and a single party as developer.

Durgapur, the steel city where DLF recently announced its Rs 4000 crore housing project, would house a Shapoorji Pallonji built SEZ on 25 acres owned by the West Bengal government offering around 18 lakh sq. ft., making it the largest IT SEZ hub in the state, with the other partner being the Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA).




VCF/PVT. EQUITY

BAER PLANS $250 MN HEDGE FUND
Reena Zachariah, Mumbai
Business StandardPrivate equity player Baer Capital Partners plans to launch $ 250 million India-dedicated hedge fund by the year-end. Baer Capital is the first hedge fund to announce its India plans, after the recent proposal by the Securities and Exchange Board of India allowing direct entry of hedge funds.

The fund is likely to be called Beacon India Growth Fund. Baer Capital will have to register as a foreign institutional investor (FII).

The private equity firm which entered India last year will also be launching its second $250 million open-ended Beacon India Equity fund by the middle of next year.

The Beacon India Private Equity Fund has closed $ 7 1/2 million investment into an art auction company and will be closing three more deals in a power transmission company ($20 million), software services space ($12 million) and will be co-investing with 2-4 more investors into a North India-based real estate developer ($100 million).

The private equity firm has appointed Deepak Shahdapuri on the board of the art auction company and the software services company.




M&A

3I INFOTECH BUYS STAKE IN HCCA
Mumbai
The Hindu Business LineThe city-based 3i Infotech Ltd has acquired 51 percent stake in BPO services provider HCCA Business Services Pvt Ltd. The company has been acquired for its delivery capabilities in HR operations including large-scale payroll processing for clients in the BFSI (banking, financial, services and insurance) sector, said a news release from the company. Financial details of the transaction were however, not provided. The 3i scrip was up by 1.03 percent to close at Rs 136.7 on the BSE today.




SOFTWARE

MSIDC BEHIND MANY A MICROSOFT SUCCESS
Chiranjoy Sen, Bangalore
The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)On June 27, 2007, when Microsoft released the beta 2 version of its Visual Studio 2008 software, it simply added one more feather to the cap of Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) at Hyderabad. MSIDC, the largest development centre of the software giant outside Redmond, plays a crucial and integral role in the success of the Visual Studio system.

"The centre is responsible for collaborative development of the product, which basically enables developers to rapidly create connected applications for a better user experience," says Somasegar S, corporate vice-president of the developer division of Microsoft, who also oversees the India development centre.

And not just Visual Studio, MSIDC, which completed nine years this month, has focused on creating intellectual property from India with teams having end-to-end responsibility for more than 50 Microsoft products shipped for global markets. The centre began with 20 people in 1998 and has a headcount of 1,300 today, filing around 180 patents in the last three years. "India is an important market for Microsoft with a thriving developer community. International development teams working in partnership with the Redmond based development centre provide invaluable services for internationalisation of products, as well as extending our skill-set both locally and internationally. Microsoft works closely with over 6,50,000 developers in India, " says Somasegar.

He adds that Microsoft has a dedicated team which drives certain aspects of the Visual Studio product while the entire tooling work for Microsoft's software for mobile devices (read: Office Communicator Mobile, SQL Mobile, Office Mobile and Visual Studio for Devices) is carried out of Hyderabad. To boot, MSIDC also holds complete ownership for developing the Virtual PC 2007, which was released in March 2007.




KLG SYSTEL GETS ORDERS WORTH RS 67 CRORE
Mumbai
The Hindu Business Line Business Standard Engineering software services firm KLG Systel Ltd said on Wednesday that it received orders worth Rs 67 crore from Haryana and Rajasthan state governments for revenue management of power utilities. The projects will be completed by March 2008, it said in a statement.




IMPETUS TECH PLANS THIRD FACILITY IN NOIDA
L.N. Revathy, Coimbatore
The Hindu Business Line Impetus Technologies, an outsourced product engineering services provider, plans to establish its third facility in Noida by next year.

Based out of the US, the company has three development centres in Indore, two in Noida and one in Hyderabad.

It now plans to expand its Noida presence with an investment of close to $4 million.

Without quantifying the total investment made so far in India, Praveen Kankariya, CEO, said that the company would look at organic growth in Noida. He did not rule out inorganic growth, but that would happen "in other geographies."

The company offers outsourced software R&D, testing, quality assurance and support services, exclusively to software and technology-enabled companies across verticals such as telecommunications, financial services and insurance, healthcare, digital media and CRM.

Stating that the company helps customers design and build software products, Kankariya said that in the traditional model, one worked with an existing software company that had started to outsource a portion of their product.




SOFTWARE FOR RS TRANSLATORS
New Delhi
The TribuneRajya Sabha Chairman M H Ansari today inaugurated a software 'Mantra - Rajya Sabha' for translators of the Upper House.

According to an official spokesman, the software has been developed by a team consisting of officials of Rajya Sabha and C-DAC, Pune.

He said that papers laid on the table of House, list of business and Parliament bulletin Part I have been translated through 'Mantra' in the last few sessions and the results have been encouraging.




IBM ENTERS VIZAG
Visakhapatnam
The Times of India Business Standard IBM India today announced its operations in Vizag, as part of its expansion plans to enter 14 new cities in the country, in line with its strategy to make India a truly global hub.

This would enable IBM to strengthen its pan India foothold and cater specially to the unique requirements of the various clients across the city of Vizag and its neighboring markets.

IBM is slated to spread its wings in six additional cities including Nashik, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Jamshedpur, Jaipur and Madurai; with Chandigarh, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Goa, Lucknow and Bhopal already being operational. IBM envisions setting new standards of excellency through the newly opened centres which are state of the art.

Lingraju Sawkar, VP GSMB, IBM India/South Asia, said, "Our entry into Vizag is a reflection of IBM's continued commitment to working closely with the newer segments throughout India to empower them with world class technology; thus paving their way to success."

"Small and medium businesses play an integral role in sustaining India's growth story. Vizag, a fast-growing city will be an important market for IBM, and this initiative will further reinforce our commitment to deliver things faster and better to our customers," Lingraju added.




HARDWARE

LG, SAMSUNG & PHILIPS EYE IT PERIPHERALS BIZ
Sreeradha D Basu & Sushmita Mohapatra, Kolkata/Bangalore
The Economic TimesGlobal consumer electronics heavyweights like LG, Samsung and Philips are gung-ho about the IT accessories and computer peripherals business, which they expect to be a sizeable revenue-earner in the years to come.

South Korea's LG and Samsung are focusing on the growing monitor market in India while Philips' foray is primarily with products like DVD writers, mice & keyboards, multimedia speakers, webcams and external hard disk drives.

According to IDC, the IT accessories and computer peripherals market in India, which stood at Rs 6134 crore in 2005-06 grew 22 percent to Rs 7564 crore in 2006-07. Industry sources claim the market will continue to see 25-30 percent growth in the coming years.

Incidentally, Philips Electronics India, which made the most recent foray into this business, expects IT accessories and computer peripherals to bring in about Rs 100 crore in the next two years. The electronics major has entered into an exclusive tie-up with SES Technologies for a pan-India distribution of its products.

"In three years, we expect 5-7 percent of our revenues to come in from IT accessories. We have entered this segment as we see there is a huge market that can be tapped," said Gunjan Srivastava, director (entertainment solutions, consumer electronics), Philips Electronics India.

Broadly, the IT peripherals market can be divided into two categories - peripherals like monitors that are seen as building blocks and peripherals like mice and speakers that are seen as accessories.

LG Electronics India that has a significant presence in the monitor-upgrade market crossed sales of 1 million monitors in 2006. According to R Manikandan, LG's GM (sales and marketing, information technology products), "the monitor upgrade market has usually been around 10-15 percent of the PC market, but this has been consistently rising". Players like LG cater directly to customers in the monitor upgrade market.

"Our LCD monitors are seeing a growth of 110 percent in the open market. We plan to increase our range to suit users looking for fashionable monitors or bigger screens for gaming," added Manikandan.

Samsung too, is focusing in a big way on the LCD monitor and printer businesses. "We are targeting a 100 percent jump in our LCD monitor sales (by volume) and 50 percent jump in our printer sales this year. Monitors and printers are our key growth drivers in this year," said R. Zutshi, Samsung India Electronics' deputy managing director.




INT/E-COMM

RELIANCE TO AWARD FLAG CONTRACT THIS WEEK
Mumbai
MintReliance Communications will announce the winning bidder by the end of this week for building its $1.5 billion submarine cable network, a leading financial daily reported on 29 August.

The Indian telecom firm had short-listed three Japanese firms Fuzitsu Submarine Networks, NEC and KDD Submarine Cable Systems Inc for the project. A Reliance Communications spokesman declined comment.

The company had launched the Flag Next Generation Network in December last year, which would comprise 50,000-route km of submarine cables and would connect 60 countries.




DELHI POLICE UPGRADING CYBER CELL
New Delhi
The Times of IndiaWith incidents of Internet- related crime on the rise, Delhi Police is upgrading its Cyber Cell to tackle the "crimes of the future"

The Capital's police has decided to hold regular interactions with IT majors to upgrade its personnel's technical know-how in a bid to keep apace with the rapid technological advancement and the fast changing cyber crime scene.

"The fast changing technical environment throws up new challenges. Technical innovation leads to new modes of crime and we have to keep pace with technology to tackle it," city Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal said in an interview.

He said the force will hold interactions with IT companies to help increase the efficiency of the police personnel dealing with cases of cyber crime.




PASSENGERS CAN NOW TAKE CYBER EXPRESS TO TOUR THE VIRTUAL WORLD
Sameer Kumar Sharmam, Ludhiana
The Indian Express The Ludhiana railway station finally gets its much awaited cyber cafe, RailTel Cyber Express, launched by RailTel, the telecom arm of Indian Railways, in collaboration with Tata Indicom. Equipped with 10 computer stations with the Internet speed of 2 Mbps, the services have already been made available for the public, though a formal launch for the same has not been done yet.




NORTON GETS STRONGER VERSION
K.Venugopal
The Asian AgeSymantec has released a new version of its Norton anti-virus programme to deal with fresh threats lurking in the Web.

It contains an application named Identify Safe, which will prevent identity theft while online.

It also takes its own troubleshooting decisions during virus and malware attacks instead of interrupting users by asking unnecessary questions such as whether the Trojan should be quarantined or killed.




E-GOVERNANCE

RLA INTRODUCES HIGH SECURITY SMART CARDS
Chandigarh
Hindustan Times (Chandigarh edition)The Registering and Licensing Authority today introduced a redesigned and high security features-enabled smart card for issuance of driving licences and registration certificates in the city.

The light and dark green background combination has been replaced by a combination of lighter colours (beige, maroon, light brown), which is aesthetically pleasing and allows better legibility of textual data printed in black, along with providing a better contrast background for the photograph. In addition, the data on the smart card chip would now be available only in encrypted form, which will rule out the possibility of any kind of tampering.

Detailing the various initiatives taken by the RLA office recently, Deputy Commissioner R.K. Rao said the office had recently launched a 'Sarathi' software for learners' licences and a token system to cut down he queues at the office. Keeping in view the numerous frauds coming to light by misuse of technology, it was necessary to introduce high-security features in the card.




IT TRAINING

SAARC COUNCIL LAUNCHES TRAINING INITIATIVE FOR WOMEN
Hyderabad
The Hindu Business Line Women from the under privileged sections from rural Andhra Pradesh will get skill development training in specific areas of computers, health, nutrition and soft skills.

The initiative is being launched by the Southern Chapter of the SAARC Chamber Women Entrepreneurs Council (SCWEC).

The initiative is aimed at empowering rural women with skill sets that would help them take up suitable jobs in the various corporates and BPOs , in addition to building confidence and communications skills, she said.

Satyam Foundation, Apollo Hospitals, Hamstech Institute of Fashion Technology and the Employment Generation and Marketing Mission (EGMM) of the Andhra Pradesh Government would be actively involved in the training programmes.




IT ENABLED SERVICES

FIRSTSOURCE SOLUTIONS BUYS MEDASSIST FOR $330 MILLION
Mumbai
The Economic Times The Hindu Business Line Mint The Indian Express The Times of India Business Standard The Telegraph Deccan Herald The Hindu The Financial ExpressIn the second-largest takeover of an overseas business process outsourcing (BPO) firm by an Indian company, Firstsource Solutions has announced the acquisition of US-based MedAssist for $330 million. This is the third acquisition for Firstsource in the US, and its seventh in all.

The news drove up Firstsource shares nearly 10 percent to Rs 79.40 on BSE on Wednesday.

With revenues of $99 million in 2006, Louisville, Kentucky-based MedAssist is among the largest firms providing revenue cycle management services to the healthcare sector in the US. The buyout will give Firstsource a footprint in the hospital side of the healthcare business.

The deal values MedAssist at 12.5 times its 2007 operating profit, Firstsource CFO Rajesh Subramaniam said. MedAssist's revenues have been growing at 7-10 percent annually, and its core earning margins are higher than most US firms at 22-24 percent. "We see significant opportunity to grow our business in the segment by cross-selling our services to MedAssist's customers," Firstsource managing director and CEO Ananda Mukerji said.

Firstsource already offers insurance claims processing for the healthcare sector, and acquired US-based BPM earlier this year. In 2004, it had bought Accounts Solutions Group, a third-party credit card collection firm. Its acquisitions outside the US include CustomerAsset, FirstRing, Pipal Research and RevIT. However, all these acquisitions were for less than $50 million each.




INDIAN MPOS WELL PLACED TO SERVE US LENDERS
Chennai
The Economic Times The Hindu Business LineThe US' sub-prime mortgage crisis, lending to borrowers with poor credit rating and the resultant defaults, is expected to increase offshoring of loan processing activities by American lending institutions, feel mortgage process outsourcing (MPO) industry officials.

Hit by the crisis, the US lending institutions will henceforth look at qualitative credit appraisal methods at a lower cost.

"This would result in increased offshoring of the backend work, loan processing, property title verification and other work. India is well placed to take advantage of the opportunity," Prashant Kothari, CEO and founder of String Real Estate Information Services, said.

The American home mortgage industry, the largest in the world, is worth $8 trillion and $5 trillion for commercial properties. That in turn involves back office and transaction processing work worth $100 billion annually.

Out of this, $10 billion worth of business could be outsourced whereas the actual business outsourced is just $200 million, Kothari said.

Despite the recent crisis projections for mortgage loan