Flash-Headline :WIPRO SET TO TRAIN 10K EXPERTS BY 2010

INDUSTRY
WIPRO SET TO TRAIN 10K EXPERTS BY 2010
Bangalore
The Economic Times The Hindu Business Line Mint Business Standard The Hindu The Hindu Business LineWipro Technologies has teamed up with academia to launch Mission10X, an initiative that aims to enhance employability of graduate engineers in India. The programme will promote systematic changes to current teaching-learning paradigms in engineering education.
Mission10X will use the Wipro Learning Model to help faculty make a student imbibe higher levels of understanding of a subject along with development of soft skills and analytical skills. The programme involves capability-building workshops for faculty and will be rolled out across the country in a phased manner.
Wipro Technologies vice-president - talent transformation Selvan D, said, the target of Mission10X initiative is to equip 1,000 faculty in the current fiscal, 3,000 next year and 6,000 in the year after, taking the total faculty trained to 10,000 people by 2010.
After launching the programme on Teacher's Day, Wipro chief Azim Premji said, "this year, about 5 lakh engineers including 1.5 lakh diploma holders will graduate in the country. The spending on education has grown five times in the last 50 years, engineering colleges are growing at 20% a year and quality of engineering education is also getting a boost.''


MEGA TOWNSHIPS GET THE GREEN SIGNAL
R Jayaprakash, Bangalore
The Times of India A huge Rs 25,000-crore investment in the form of 11 integrated townships for IT, BT and ITES sectors is on its way in Bangalore.
In a major boost to IT and the real estate sector, the Karnataka government has given the green signal to 11 local, national and international developers to set up mega townships in the city.
The state high-level committee, headed by the chief minister, which recently sanctioned 59 big projects worth over Rs 60,000 crore, has okayed IT-related, real estate proposals, which will be spread over 100 and 200 acres each, with every company estimated to spend somewhere between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 crore. The projects will come up at Sarjapur Road, Whitefield, Magadi and Bidadi.
"All project promoters are keen only on Bangalore, as they want to put up massive self-contained integrated townships. The high-level committee has, in principle, agreed to the projects and a list of these companies with project details will be sent to the government for cabinet approval," said industries department officials.
The size of the projects will give a major fillip to the IT sector, which is crying for more space. "The initiative will put a check on IT companies looking outside Karnataka to set up campuses," the officials added.
Some firms have formed a consortia after tying up with US and Singapore-based companies to put up integrated townships.


OPINION
'INDIA WILL EMERGE AMONG TOP 3 ECONOMIC POWERS IN 25 YRS'
New Delhi
The Hindu Business Line Global chip giant Intel today announced an alliance of 16 companies under its 'World Ahead Program' to apply technology in health, education and rural empowerment in the country, while its Chairman Dr Craig Barrett exuded confidence that India would emerge among the top three economic powers in the next 20-25 years.
Dr Barrett, who is currently on the last leg of his India visit, said while the country had been a bit slow in bringing out semiconductor policy, thereby missing the window on Intel's manufacturing facility for now, India is still rated high on its list for future capacity building.
Asking the Government not to protect legacy technologies, he said that the company was in discussion with the Government for "including WiMax in 3G spectrum capabilities".
"My past comments on the need for Government to be technology-neutral are generic, and not targeted at India, in particular. New broadband and wireless technologies can improve connectivity for countries such as India and therefore countries need to make sure that they take a technology-neutral approach and not protect legacy technologies," Dr Barrett said at a conference here.
Responding to media queries on the company's chip manufacturing plans, he pointed out that Intel worked out its manufacturing capacity planning "years in advance".
He further asserted that India would become a strong economic powerhouse in the coming years.
"If India continues to grow at over 8 percent, one can do the maths and see how long it takes for India to come in the top three economies worldwide. Countries like India and China will have faster rate of growth than the developed nations. Depending on how you do the maths it is inevitable, in 20-25 years," he said. Separately, Barrett said Intel expected to respond soon to the US Federal Trade Commission on a likely deal with STMicroelectronics N. V. (STM).
"The FTC has requested for additional minor information. We expect a very rapid response back to FTC and then a rapid response from FTC back to us," he said.
Meanwhile, the 16 Indian companies which are a part of World Ahead Alliance include Apollo, NIIT Ltd, Comat Technologies, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Educomp Solutions, eGovServices, Fortis Healthcare, Karishma Software, Manipal University, Sankara Nethralaya, SN Informatics, SREI SAHAJ e-Village, and TCS.


IT PARKS/SEZ
DDA HALTS COMING PROJECTS NEAR YAMUNA
Kavita Chowdhary, New Delhi
The Indian ExpressThe Delhi Development Authority has put on hold all future projects on the Yamuna riverbed, with the exception of the Commonwealth Games Village, in view of environmental concerns.
Dinesh Rai, the DDA vice-chaiman, said the moratorium would be in place till the high-powered committee, constituted by the Centre last week, studies all environmental aspects related to the riverbed and floodplain.
As per the DDA's decision, the Games Village, the Delhi Metro depot and station, and an Information Technology park being set up by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation are out of this freeze sphere.
The DMRC is building the IT park on 6 out of 59 hectares allotted to it. The DDA has turned down Delhi Metro's request for an additional six hectares.


FASHION CITY COMING UP IN PUDUCHERRY
D Govardan, Chennai
The Economic TimesConstruction work on the Rs 3,000-crore Fashion City in Puducherry, being promoted as a SEZ for the fashion industry, is expected to start in about 30-45 days.
With Jurong of Singapore designing the SEZ, the construction process is likely to be completed in about 12-18 months, enabling the units to start operations. Meant to cater to all segments of fashion industry from apparel to accessories to leather garments, the SEZ will have an IT Park and a large residential township.
The initial development cost for the SEZ has been pegged at around Rs 3,000 crore and will be funded through a mix of debt and equity. "While a part of the equity will come from us (promoters), the rest will come from co-developers of IT Park, residential space and logisticity," he added.


VCF/PVT. EQUITY
CANARA TO INDUCT ALLY IN VENTURE CAPITAL ARM
Abhijit Lele, Mumbai
Business Standard Bangalore-based Canara Bank is considering selling a stake in its venture capital subsidiary, Canbank Venture Funds, which manages a corpus of Rs 117 crore. It has also firmed up plans to float a Rs 250 crore fund to invest in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Canbank VC Fund manages a Rs 100 crore Bharat Nirman Fund, investing in emerging business such as IT/BPO and biotechnology. Canara Bank, Vijaya Bank and Andhra Bank are core contributors to the corpus. The fund has already invested about 75 percent of its corpus and expects to invest the remaining money by March 2008. Canbank Venture provided Rs 74.43 crore of risk capital to 84 SMEs in 2006-07.


M&A
SATYAM EYES $100M BUY IN CONSULTING
Hyderabad
The Economic Times Satyam Computers is on the prowl in the global market. The Nasdaq-listed IT services major is scouting for a third acquisition in the consulting space in the US and Europe, in line with its commitment to strengthen this vertical.
It is looking at spending anywhere between $50 million and $100 million for this buy.
Satyam had flagged off acquisitions in the consulting space in April 2005 when it took over business consulting firm Citisoft with presence in London, Boston and New York. The deal was valued at around $38.7 million. This was followed up with the company buying Singapore-based Knowledge Dynamics, a consulting solutions provider in the business intelligence space, in July 2005. That was an all-cash deal involving a consideration of $3.3 million.
"We are constantly looking at different opportunities for our inorganic growth. Companies in the enterprise business consulting space are on our radar as it will help strengthen our consulting vertical," Satyam head (global marketing & communications) Hari Thalapalli said.
Satyam, which the fourth largest software exporter from India, is currently evaluating half a dozen niche players in this segment. The proposed move ties up with its strategy to offer integrated business solutions to customers. It is specifically looking at companies that will add value in expanding its expertise in enterprise resource planning (ERP) business solutions.
According to Thalapalli, the company's inorganic growth strategy would be on similar lines as that of its earlier acquisitions.
Satyam wants to weave its brand strategy with its inorganic growth plans so as to position itself as a complete business solutions provider that can add value to a customer's requirements.
Satyam is also doing business intelligence services based on simulated models. This will help customers, particularly in the manufacturing segment, to analyse future market trends and make informed decisions. The company's consolidated reserves and surplus stood at around Rs 5,974 crore at the end of the first quarter, this fiscal.


AVOCENT PACT
The TelegraphAvocent, the US-based solution provider for management of servers, networking components and telecom assets, has tied up with Neoteric Infomatique Pvt Ltd. Avocent plans to have a pan-India presence through the latter's distribution network.


SOFTWARE
BAJAJ ALLIANZ PICKS SAS TOOL
Mumbai
The Hindu Business LineSAS Institute (India) Ltd has said that Bajaj Allianz has selected the SAS Rate Making solution for meeting the demands of insurance market. Motor insurance has been de-tariffed since January 2007. , "SAS gives us an edge and provides us a unique ability in determining the right pricing with unmatched and increased accuracy," said. Kamesh Goyal, Chief Executive Officer, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.


SATYAM TOOL FOR MEDIA COS
Chennai
The Hindu Business Line Mint Business Standard The HinduSatyam Computer Services today launched an Integrated Digital Media Framework (IDMF), a software solution to improve the way media companies reuse content. It will tap traditional publishing companies looking at a Web presence. The solution will help media companies publish their content on the Internet faster and distribute products through multiple channels. The solution was launched on the sidelines of IFRA Expo 2007 here, says a press release from the Hyderabad-based software company. Kevin English, Senior Vice-President, Media & Entertainment, Satyam, in the release said IDMF was not a product, but a combination of several intellectual properties (IP) of Satyam that are in the process of getting patented. It is a framework where several technologies from partner companies have been used underlying the IPs that Satyam has developed. The opportunities to add customer value with IDMF arise out of convergence of devices, data and media and the proliferation of the Internet and devices across both business and lifestyle, said Abhijit Dasgupta, Vice-President, Media & Entertainment, Satyam.


CMC SUCCESS
The TelegraphCMC Ltd's automotive solutions group has achieved Automotive SPICE Organisational Maturity Level 3 certification under the Pathfinder assessment scheme.


INTELLIVISION, CRADLE TECH LAUNCH TRINETRA
Bangalore
The HinduIntellivision Software, a provider of self-service technologies and security solutions, and Cradle Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor company, have announced a next generation platform, Trinetra. Developed in India, Trinetra enables intelligent video surveillance and enhanced security, Intellivision's Managing Director, S. Nair, told reporters here.


HARDWARE
INTEL TO RESPOND SHORTLY ON STMICRO DEAL
New Delhi
The Economic Times The TribuneIntel Corp, the world's largest chip maker, will quickly provide information sought by US regulators over its plans to merge its chip unit with STMicroelectronics, and expects a prompt response, its chairman said.
"As you know, the Federal Trade Commission of the US made a second request for some additional minor information before giving approval,"
Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, told reporters on Wednesday. The European Commission has already given Intel and STMicroelectronics permission for the deal, which is backed by private equity firm Francisco Partners.
"We expect a very rapid response back to FTC and then a very rapid response from them back to us," Barrett said.
Barrett is in India for a UN programme to spread the use of computers in remote areas, in which Intel is involved. Last November, he said in New Delhi that Intel was waiting for India to form its semiconductor policy before deciding on plans to begin manufacturing in the country.
"The Indian government was a bit slow in coming out with its semiconductor manufacturing proposal and missed the window of our period of time that we had to commit our next branches of manufacturing capacity. That is a fact. That is the story," Barrett said on Wednesday.
Intel said in March it would invest $2.5 billion to build a microchip plant in northeastern China, which will be its first semiconductor plant in Asia, with the production of chipsets to begin in 2010. But India remained important for the company and was a potential candidate for Intel's future investments, Barrett said.
"When we have need for capacity in future, we will get engaged in discussions with India." Semiconductor firms such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Freescale


NEW QUAD-CORE PROCESSOR TO BE LAUNCHED ON THURSDAY
Hyderabad
The Economic Times The Times of IndiaIntel Corporation will launch its latest quad-core Xeon processor on Thursday. The chip-based server platform in the 7300 series has been code-named 'Tigerton' for the processor and 'Clarkboro' for the chipset with data traffic optimisation.
Earlier, the platform was known as Caneland. "A real OEM quad-core MP (multi-processor) platform was first demonstrated in October last year, with two real-world applications at 2.66Ghz," an Intel India spokesperson said.
The Caneland-based platform will be compatible with 45 nm (nano metre) next-generation Intel core-based processors to be released in 2008. The new chip went from design to production in record time, making it the fastest multi-processor schedule in Intel's history.
"The core micro-architecture introduced a year ago brought energy-efficient performance leadership for us in volume servers. We built on that lead by introducing quad-core into the volume line in November last," the official said.


INT/E-COMM
STATE BANK OF PATIALA LAUNCHES E-TRADING FACILITY
Mumbai
The Economic Times State Bank of Patiala (SBP), in association with SBICAP Securities Ltd (SSL), today launched a 3-in-1 account e-trading facility for their account holders.
The facility envisages SBP account holders investing in secondary equity markets through the on-line trading facility provided by SBICAP Securities Ltd, State Bank Group's broking affiliate.
This facility will allow the account holders of State Bank of Patiala to trade on BSE and NSE equity and derivatives segments without the hassles of running around to a broker's office for placing orders or transfer of stocks by filling up physical delivery instruction slips for their demat accounts.
SSL will provide both the demat account as well as the trading account to the SBP account holders, it said.


BSNL SET TO OFFER NET TELEPHONY
Joji Thomas Philip & Deepshikha Monga, New Delhi
The Economic TimesSoon, BSNL broadband users will be able to make international calls to any part of the world for as low as Re 1 per minute through their fixedline phones. The PSU is all set to float a global tender for technical tie-up to offer Internet telephony services across the country.
BSNL is looking to offer Internet telephony, or Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), by the yearend, a top company official told ET on condition of anonymity. That may make BSNL the second telco after MTNL to offer VoIP, where subscribers can enjoy ultra-cheap ISD calls without even having a computer at home.
The PSU had invited expressions of interest (EoIs) from all interested companies latest by August 31, the official said. "However, the EoIs are expected to come in only by September 14-15 as BSNL received too many pre-bid enquiries seeking a lot of clarifications on the tendering process. The tenders will be released by September 15," the source said.
Last month, MTNL, which offers telecom services in Delhi and Mumbai, had launched Internet telephony in these metros by utilising its broadband network. MTNL had tied up with Aksh Optifibre to be its network and technical partner to offer VoIP services. As per the deal, Aksh will invest about Rs 110 crore towards enabling MTNL's VoIP service during the next three years.
The MTNL offer is open to those who did not have a PC at home. Such customers are required to subscribe to MTNL's broadband connection (which comes for monthly rentals starting at Rs 199) and buy an analog telephone adaptor (ATA) for Rs 1,500.
The adaptor converts the fixed line phone into an IP (Internet protocol) device so that the user does not have to use a computer and carry it over the broadband Internet line. Globally, this kind of service, which is fixed to one location, is generally offered by broadband Internet providers such as cable and telephone companies as a cheaper flat-rate equivalent to the traditional landline service.
Sources said that BSNL, which has one million broadband users, too would offer similar schemes to its subscribers. Tariffs too are expected to be on similar lines. This implies, for those who make PC-to-PC calls, the tariffs are likely to be as low as 10 paise per minute, while a call made from a PC to a landline or mobile abroad would cost a little over Re 1 per minute on account of the termination charges. At the same time, BSNL also plans to open up its Internet telephony services to its 2.5 million plus PCOs in the country.
While private operators have so far refrained from matching MTNL's move, BSNL's entry into this segment is set to change the market dynamics and force other operators to follow suit. So far, all major telcos have not ventured into Internet telephony as they fear it will eat into their revenues from traditional mobile and fixed line calls.


INDIA BACKS WIMAX TECH ON 3G NETWORKS
Sreejiraj Eluvangal
MintIndia has joined a growing list of countries supporting the inclusion of Wimax, an emerging wireless telecom technology that promises high data output, in the so-called 3G or third-generation telecom standard.
A certification by the International Telecommunications Union (or ITU, the international industry body that approves the use of various technologies in telecom, among other functions) of Wimax as a 3G technology will enable mobile telecom companies to deploy mobile Wimax networks, if supported by enabling rules in countries such as India that are yet to roll out 3G networks.
Wimax is short for worldwide inter-operability for microwave access, a standard that is capable of data speeds of 10 megabits per second (mbps), up to 2km away from a radio transmitter.
The technology, which promises citywide coverage with a few transmitters, promises enough wireless capacity to support Internet telephony or voice over Internet protocol. 3G is a data-friendly evolution of the existing cellular networks and promises data throughput of 2mbps, but is seen less efficient in use of frequencies than Wimax. Currently, the ITU definition of 3G doesn't include Wimax.
R.N. Agarwal, former wireless adviser to the government of India, said the move would have far-reaching commercial ramifications. "Wimax will also become one of the technologies that a mobile operator can deploy using the 3G spectrum... As far as the operators are concerned, it will give them greater choice," he said.
India's recommendation was made last week in Seoul at a working party meeting of the ITU. If accepted by ITU, Wimax will become the first fully IP (Internet protocol)-based wireless technology to be accepted by the body on a radio-based network.


E-GOVERNANCE
E-GRAM SAMPARK CENTRE OPENS IN KAIMBWALA
Chandigarh
Hindustan Times (Chandigarh edition)UT administrator Gen S. F. Rodrigues (retd) today inaugurated the e-Gram Sampark Centre at Village Kaimbwala on the pattern of the Jan Sampark Services being offered free of cost in the urban areas.


STATE TO OPEN E-POLICE STATION
Mateen Hafeez, Mumbai
The Times of India Maharashtra is finally getting its own full-fledged, cyber crime police station. City police sources said the rising number of cyber crimes as well as the need to protect the growing Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry has made it imperative for the state to get its own committed cyber crime-fighting unit with access to state-of-the-art technology.
The police station has been sanctioned by the home department and is expected to be functioning within three months. It will be the third such police station in the country after the ones in India's IT meccas of Bangalore and Hyderabad. The cyber police will also tackle financial terrorism, which involves money-laundering and hawala, and the online flesh trade.


IT TRAINING
NIIT TO OFFER IT TRAINING PROGRAMMES IN CHINA
Mumbai
Mint The Tribune The Times of India The Hindu The TelegraphLeading IT learning solutions company NIIT Ltd on 5 September said it has entered into an agreement with ChongQing Information Industry Bureau (CQIIB) to provide IT training programmes for universities and colleges in the city of ChongQing.
In this regard, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between NIIT CEO Vijay K. Thadani and Secretary General of the Communist Party of ChongQing Wang Yang.
CQIIB is a Chinese government department responsible for growth and development of IT industry in ChongQing.
NIIT would offer training programmes in the areas of software engineering and application, network administration and management, game design and development. The training programmes would be offered in both English and Mandarin.
NIIT would also train and certify the faculties at the institutions apart from training the workforce in IT and non-IT companies in ChongQing, the firm said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.


GOVT SCHOOLS TO GET COMPUTERS
Patna
The Times of IndiaIt may be a dark reality that schools are run in the open and without blackboards, but there is also a growing need to catch up with the modern and urgent necessity of computerisation. The government has decided to make the students of government secondary schools computer-friendly.
"Each of the 2,300 secondary schools will be provided with 10 computers. And each of the 600 schools, which have been upgraded as Plus Two, will get 20 computers," HRD principal secretary Madan Mohan Jha told TOI on Wednesday. This means, the government will procure 35,000 computers for its schools.
CM Nitish Kumar while inaugurating the Teachers' Day function at S K Memorial Hall made brief reference of this scheme. He also announced pension scheme for the newly-recruited teachers in collaboration with UTI. He said under the scheme the teachers would be required to pay nominal premium. The CM said to monitor the recommendations of Common School System (CSS) panel, a committee of secretaries under the chief secretary has been constituted.

Flash-Headline :LAND FOR IT PARK ALLOTTED TO DLF AT CHEAP RATES: CONGRESS

INDUSTRY
CHANDIGARH A PREFERRED DESTINATION FOR IT COMPANIES
Chandigarh
The Economic Times The Indian ExpressChandigarh has emerged as a preferred destination for the IT companies as per the recent report of Jones Lang Lasalle on "World Winning Cities Series-Emerging City Winners 2006".
Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Indore, Nagpur and Chandigarh were taken up for the study as Tier III cities under the subject series about "India-The Next IT offshoring locations", said an official release issued here.
The Country Head, Jones Lang Lasalle, India, Vincent Lottefier said, "This report identifies the five leading tier III cities at the present time. Of these, Chandigarh and Kolkata are best positioned to mature into major centres over the next five years."
As per the report, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh were likely to be the winners among the firms seeking lower costs.
With lower wage rates and a significant pool of skilled staff, the Tier III cities are emerging as the favoured destinations to sustain the competitive advantage in the near future, it said.
Chandigarh and Ahmedabad have also emerged as the most preferred destinations for companies requiring non-specialised labour.
The report said that Dell selected Mohali near Chandigarh due to the availability of talented work force and Chandigarh's high quality of life. Chandigarh has also been rated the best city in North India for providing all hygiene factors for living standards.
The report also mentioned that the efficient and pro-active administration of Chandigarh would be a key benefit to the IT companies that are considering expansion to the city.
Top
BANGALORE AMONG BEST PLACES TO DO BIZ IN THE WORLD
New Delhi
The Hindu Business Line Mint The Times of India India's growing presence in the global economic arena has received a boost with Bangalore emerging as one of the best places to do business in the world, joining the league of cities like London, Shanghai and Singapore, a latest study says.
Bangalore, known as the world's back office, is among the 12 cities named in the 'Best places to do business in the wired world' list recently compiled by Business 2.0, a magazines published by global media giant CNN-Time Warner group.
Other cities, which find a place on the list, are - Tokyo, Hong Kong, Barcelona (Spain), Helsinki (Finland), Seoul, Stockholm (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia) and Tel Aviv (Israel).
"The city is home to Infosys, Google's Research and Development Center, and some of the world's most talented (and inexpensive) software engineers," the report said while describing Bangalore.
Each place is described along with the availability of free Wi-Fi points, best place to get down to business, best place to celebrate closing the deal and tips on how to get around.
Interestingly, the list also offers the address of saloon to get a good haircut apart from trivia about every city.
On the 'What you might not know' section on Bangalore, the report says, "Residents call their city Bengalooru. Like Bombay (now Mumbai), the city was renamed to make it sound more Indian than British."
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INDO-US TASK FORCE ON GLOBAL INNOVATION: FICCI
New Delhi
Mint
In a bid to ward off the emergence of possible friction between India and US over rise of Indian innovation, Ficci and the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy have joined hands in establishing a Task Force of business leaders on both sides on "Shaping global innovation economy: enhancing cooperation in India-US relations".
The Task Force, drawn from various high technology sectors, will look at issues that will shape the global innovation economy and identify areas of cooperation between India and US.
Business leaders from both sides will address Policy and Political Aspects in US-Indian Innovation Economy Trade & Investments; Information and Communication Technology Sector; Bio, Life Sciences & Nano Technology Sector; ; Energy and Environmental Technology Sector; Creative Industry, Services and Design Vertical; and Aero - Space Technology Sector.

Top
ENTREPRENEUR DEVELOPMENT CENTRE TO SUPPORT IT COMPANIES
Preeti Parashar, Chandigarh
The Financial Express The much-awaited Entrepreneur Development Centre (EDC) to come up at the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP) has got underway with the construction work. The Chandigarh IT department's initiative will serve as an incubation centre facilitating start-ups by providing the infrastructural support. The contractor- Sam (India) Built Well Pvt Ltd plans to develop the center within 15 months over the sprawling 1.5 acres.
The project will entail a total investment of about Rs 15 crore and is likely to house small entrepreneurs, software developers, R&D companies, IT/ITES, KPO etc. "About 6-7 companies that are already operational at the Society for Promotion of Information Technology in Chandigarh (SPIC) centre have evinced interest to occupy space at the EDC. The rentals will be competitive enough and a minimum office space of 1,000 acres will be allotted to the interested company. The companies can operate from the EDC for four years including one year extension and then they'll have to move," a senior official said.
"The center would be developed and would operate on the lines of the SPIC centre. It would mainly focus on providing all the facilities to the smaller IT companies so that they can carry on their operations by renting a space in the RGCTP. Eventually the Regional Cyber Security Research Centre, presently functional at Punjab Engineering College, would be shifted to the EDC," added the official.
The administration is pinning high hopes from the EDC to become a big software export centre and boost the software exports from the region. The project was approved in august 2006 to facilitate the IT software export companies that are willing to come to the park, but as yet does not have a fully developed building of their own, or their built to suite plot is not yet constructed. This will also have the administrative offices of the IT dept that will be more accessible and approachable for the IT companies in the vicinity.
Top
CITY TO BE IT HUB IN 5 YEARS, SAYS REPORT
Chandigarh
Hindustan Times (Chandigarh edition)Among emerging preferred destinations for IT companies is where an international survey has put Chandigarh.
The report "World Winning Cities Series: Emerging City Winners 2006" released recently by Jones Lang Lasalle presents data from Tier-III cities Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Indore and Nagpur studied for pinpointing the Next IT offshoring hubs in India.
Jones Lang Lasalle country head Vincent Lottefier says: "The report identifies five leading Tier-III cities for IT potential. Of these, Chandigarh and Kolkata are best positioned to mature into major centres within five years."
Ahmedabad and Chandigarh were likely to be picked as winners by firms seeking lower costs.
With lower wage rates and a significant pool of skilled workers, the Tier-III cities might be the favoured destinations in future to sustain competitive advantage. Chandigarh and Ahmedabad have also emerged as the most preferred destinations for companies requiring non-specialised labour.
Dell picked Mohali near Chandigarh to set up its captive BPO after looking at the availability of talented workforce and the city's high quality of life.
Chandigarh has also been rated the best city in north India satisfying all hygiene norms.
Top
QUALITY, KEY CHALLENGE FOR IT COS
Bangalore
Deccan Herald The Hindu
Nasscom Chairman Lakshmi Narayanan says that the customers abroad were not too pleased with the quality of delivery by Indian companies.
Brand India has now emerged as a trusted name in terms of quality. Amidst all the challenges, Indian IT image has helped raise the quality image of the country internationally. But when it comes to delivery, Nasscom Chairman Lakshmi Narayanan feels that we need to improve a lot. Addressing the gathering at the Nasscom Quality Summit here on Thursday he said that the customers abroad were not too pleased with the quality of delivery by Indian companies.
Narrating his experience with the during interactions with foreign consumers about Indian IT services, Lakshmi Narayanan said " I had felt that their perspective of Indian IT sector's excellence was different than those of Indian customers.
Though we have achieved a quite a bit at the in processes or products, the quality within was something it had only started to learn ". Speaking on the relevance of quality in the global context, Nasscom President Kiran Karnik said, "Quality is more to do with structure and discipline while innovation needs creativity which is not so disciplined." The other area of concern is the availability of suitable manpower, he informed.
On the same lines Motorola Software Group India Managing Director Soumitra Sana said: "Since India now plays a major role in product development life cycle, it is all the more important to look at quality of experience; reliability, security, usability — all leads to customer delight." Engineers can look at quality matrix to improve performance. This saves a lot of cost for quality enhancing for organisations, he added.
One of the points of discussion was the role of a CEO in quality management. Here the CEO has to define quality, show how to focus, demonstrate in action and translate it to employees.
The quality in process has to be internalised for organisations and needs to become inherent to individuals.
Among all success stories the key challenges hovering around the IT industry were exchange rates concerns, which is stabilised to some extent and lack of regulatory environment especially the tax regime and STPI policy.
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INDIAN FIRMS OUTSHINE OTHERS IN FORBES ASIA 'FABULOUS 50' LIST
Dalian (China)
The Hindu Business Line Mint The Financial Express DNA Deccan Herald The Hindu Mumbai MirrorChina may be the 'world's factory,' but Indian companies, led by software giants TCS and Infosys, continue to outshine and dominate the annual ranking of big-cap, profitable companies in Asia.
A total of 12 Indian companies made it to the third annual Forbes Asia Fabulous 50 List, followed by Taiwan with 10 and China with seven, Forbes Asia said in a press release.
Four of India's IT outsourcing companies made the cut including the biggest, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) that writes software for leading American firms. Its revenues leapt 45 percent in the last year and its market capitalisation has doubled since listing three years ago to cross the $27 billion mark, the release said.
Tata earns nearly all of its revenues overseas but will move some of its work back to India, it said.
The 12 Indian companies on the Forbes Asia 'Fabulous 50' list are: Bharat Heavy Electricals, Bharti Airtel, Grasim Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys Technologies, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, Satyam Computer Services, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel and Wipro.
Most of the Indian firms on the list, however, did not have to leave home to find success, the release noted. With a relatively young population of 1.1 billion, India has its own huge market.
Companies such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel are growing fast by reaching out to the country's rural customers, not to Western markets.
Others, such as Grasim, Larsen & Toubro and Reliance, are shoring up the country's infrastructure at a furious pace.
Top
IT PARKS/SEZ
LAND FOR IT PARK ALLOTTED TO DLF AT CHEAP RATES: CONGRESS
Gandhinagar
The Economic TimesDemanding inquiry against Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Leader of Opposition Arjun Modivadia on Thursday alleged the state government of indulging in corruption while allotting land to real-estate developer DLF for construction of an IT Park SEZ here.
"The state government has given 25 acre land in Gandhinagar for constructing an Information Technology (IT) Park to DLF for just Rs 50 crore," Modhvadia said claiming the land was worth Rs 125 crore as per existing market rates.
"The state government is engaged in corruption. Prime land has been sold to DLF at throw away prices at the instance of the chief minister," he alleged.
"Even if the price of land is calculated as per existing government rules, the IT Park is worth Rs 90 crore", he claimed.
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KERALA GOVT TO FLOAT FIRM FOR IT PARK PROJECTS
Sanjeev Ramachandran, Chennai/ Thiruvananthapuram
Business Standard
The Kerala department of information technology has firmed up plans to float an IT infrastructure company soon.
According to N Radhakrishnan Nair, chief executive officer of Thiruvananthapuram Technopark and Kochi Infopark, the government will hold 51 percent in the new venture and the remaining will have private participation.
"The new company, which is yet to be named, will be an apex body that will undertake and monitor works relating to building IT parks across the state."
In each IT park project, the company will hold 26 percent and the remaining will be open to private participation.
District centres will house information technology parks, with the government already having lined up proposals for a hub-and-spoke model of IT infrastructure.
Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi would play the hubs. Special purpose vehicles (SPVs) will be formed to take up the projects in district centres. A study on this is currently being undertaken by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC).
The first such IT park has been proposed to come up in Kozhikode on 75 acres of land.
The project has been proposed to come up on 507 acres of land and is estimated to incur an investment of Rs 4,500 crore. It is being planned as a fully integrated IT city, complete with all infrastructure facilities and public amenities.
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M&A
COGNIZANT EYES BUYS IN EUROPE, US
Bangalore
The Hindu Business Line Business Standard Deccan Herald The Financial ExpressIT firm Cognizant Technology Solutions is looking for acquisitions in consulting space in Europe and the US, Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice-Chairman of the company said.
"We are looking at specific opportunities in the consulting end in certain geographies where we are not operating," Narayanan said on the sidelines of a NASSCOM-organised quality summit here.
The company is eyeing consulting firms in Europe and the US but would not say if it is evaluating a few candidates at this stage or is in active discussion with firms for potential buy-out.
Narayanan said the company aims to add 9,000 people to its roll by December-end, taking the overall headcount to 55,000.
According to him, the company is in the process of investing $300 million in creating infrastructure and workspace in tier-I and tier-II cities.
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MASTEK SETS SIGHTS ON BUYOUTS IN US, UK
Mumbai
The Economic Times Mint Business Standard
Indian software services provider Mastek, which recently got a makeover with a new management team, is pursuing acquisitions in the US and UK to help enhance its insurance software, Elixir.
The firm has begun talks with target companies and has sought shareholder approval to raise Rs 150 crore overseas.
Mastek Group chief financial officer (CFO) and finance director R S Desikan said the company had intentionally not added certain functionalities in Elixir and the acquisitions would fill those gaps. "We have a team in the US for M&A," he added.
The company had cash and invested funds of nearly Rs 120 crore as on June 30. Part of the money would be used for capital expenditure and the rest would be available for acquisitions. Fresh funds would be raised through overseas convertible bonds or external commercial borrowings.
In June, Mastek acquired Vector Insurance Services LLC, a provider of policy acquisition, administration, and processing solutions to insurance customers in the North America.
However, this was a small acquisition involving an upfront payment of $ 4.5 million and with a similar amount payable over the next two years as earnouts.
The company is also expanding its employee strength and has set aside Rs 80 crore for a new campus coming up in Chennai on 15 acres of land. "In the first phase, we will add 1,500 people and the same number every year after that," according to Desikan.
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SOFTWARE
YOU TELECOM LAUNCHES SME SOLUTIONS
Mumbai
The Economic TimesYOU Telecom Thursday announced a partnership with Elitecore Technologies Ltd to provide security solutions to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the country.
YOU Telecom said it would provide the Cyberoam facility, an identity-based unified threat management appliance, to bring a strong and unique security solution to its leased line and SME customer base across the country.
The company, which is India's second largest private broadband Internet service provider (ISP), will also act as a national system integrator partner for Cyberoam.
The Carlyle Group, the global private equity firm, funds Elitecore, a leading provider of convergent billing and unified threat management (UTM) solutions.
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HCL TO LAUNCH NEW MGMT OUTSOURCING MODEL AT GITEX IN DUBAI
New Delhi
The Economic Times The Hindu Business LineIT solution provider HCL Technologies on Thursday said it is planning a global launch of its new IT management outsourcing model at Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (Gitex), the largest IT expo in the Middle East, starting from September 8.
"With our participation in Gitex we plan to showcase our domain expertise, mature global delivery model, proven project management skills and domain expertise to customers in Middle East," HCL Technologies Country Manager Kiran Bhagwanani said in a statement.
The company, participating in the five-day event for the first time, would showcase its integrated IT services offerings along with a new IT management model for GCC.
HCL would build its stall on 'Explore and Transform' theme exhibiting a range of integrated IT solutions and services for business transformation covering the end-to-end of IT spectrum, it said.
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INTENSE TO SET UP SUBSIDIARY TO MARKET PRODUCTS
K Rajani Kanth, Chennai/ Hyderabad
Business Standard
With orders for conversion of paper documents into digital documents and the compliance requirements by the income tax department on the rise, software Products Company, Intense Technologies Limited has embarked on a product alignment strategy.
The Hyderabad-based company recently clubbed two of its products, eTaxFile and eDoc, into volume business and is in the process of establishing a separate division to market them. In volume business, the value of the licence will be low but the number of licences that the company offers to its customers will be more.
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IBM OPENS BANGALORE CENTRE
Mumbai
Business Standard The Tribune The Hindu
IBM and UK-based Innovation Group — providing outsourcing services and software solutions to insurance companies — on Thursday launched a Global Insurance Center of Excellence in Bangalore. The new centre, based at IBM's campus, provides clients with systems integration services based on Innovation Group's Innovation Policy and Innovation Claims software applications. The centre will help companies in the insurance sector innovate on next generation core systems, help them develop new business models, and tap emerging technologies to create competitive advantage and improve the customer experience.
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HARDWARE
SOLAR SEMICONDUCTOR SIGNS RS 55 CRORE SUPPLY DEAL
Hyderabad
The Economic Times US-based Solar Semiconductor on Thursday announced it has signed a deal worth 10 million Euro (Rs 55 crore) for supply of PV modules to a European customer.
The product will be manufactured in Solar Semiconductor's module manufacturing facility on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
Company chief executive officer Hari Surapaneni said the company will be investing USD 40 million in current fiscal for its independent solar PV Crystalline cells and module manufacturing unit in the Fabcity here while the master plan envisages an investment of over USD 1.1 billion.
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LOGITECH SET TO ENTER CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SPACE
Pallavi Jha, Mumbai
Business Standard
Logitech Electronics India, a subsidiary of the $2.2 billion Swiss-based Logitech, is set to enter the consumer electronics segment in the country with a new product range by the end of this month. The company will launch three new products, wireless DJ, a streaming music solution that can stream music from a PC to a music system (Squeexbox music system) and a universal remote.
The company has been catering to the PC peripheral markets till date with products such as keyboards, mouse, webcams and audio speakers.
"We are now concentrating on the consumer electronics segment in India. It is a fast-growing segment and a major focus area for us," said Moninder Jain, director, India and South East Asia, Logitech.
According to Jain, there is an increasing demand for non-IT peripherals in the home and personal entertainment space. "This new segment is like a parallel track for our company. It is a new but growing segment. 'We are well-established in the IT segment.' said Jain. Logitech is looking at leveraging its distribution network with modern retail format stores and consumer electronic stores to sell its products. "We have relationships with almost all the modern retail format stores and consumer electronic stores. Hence, we will be stocking our products there," said Jain. The company works with four distributors, Ingram, Rashi Peripherals, Neoteric and Savex.
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INT/E-COMM
IPTV RULES FOR TELCOS IRK CABLE OPERATORS
Sreejiraj Eluvangal
Mint The Economic Times The Pioneer
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Thursday spelt out its position that the delivery of TV channels on local telecom networks using Internet protocol technology (IPTV) does not come under the definition of "cable TV".
The regulator's opinion comes at a time when an inter-ministerial task force of the department of telecommunications (DoT) and the ministry of information and broadcasting is working out a policy on IPTV. Cable operators fear that the position, if accepted by the task force, may set back their ability to launch IPTV services

Flash-Headline :HCL BULLISH ON RETAIL GROWTH

INDUSTRY
PUNJAB, HARYANA CAN EMERGE AS KNOWLEDGE VALLEY: ASSOCHAM
Chandigarh, September 10, 2007
The Economic Times Hindustan Times (Chandigarh edition)Punjab and Haryana can emerge as the Knowledge Valley of India, attracting Rs 50,000 crore additional investments, which can create employment opportunities for 25 lakh skilled and unskilled people by 2012, a study by industry chamber Assocham has said
In a paper 'Punjab and Haryana- The Knowledge Valley of India', Assocham said that the promising areas in knowledge valley would include educational institutions, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and nano-technology.
Assocham President V N Dhoot said low investment in the region prompted Assocham to conduct a study in Punjab and Haryana to find out how ways attract investment in the region.
Stating that the proposed investment could come through public-private partnership (PPP) model, Dhoot advocated for foreign investments in the field of education sector. He said Assocham has already urged the Union government for allowing 100 per cent FDI in education sector.
The chamber further said both state governments should focus on building a strong infrastructure for the knowledge valley of India.
Investment in knowledge valley basically aims at uplifting the people below poverty line, improve human resources and achieve total literacy level in this region, which is less than 75 per cent, he said.


13 INDIAN FIRMS IN WEF GLOBAL GROWTH COMPANIES' LIST
Dalian (Beijing), September 10, 2007
Mint Thirteen fast-growing Indian firms have joined as founding members of the 125-strong community of Global Growth Companies, a new initiative of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Announcing the new initiative at the Inaugural Annual Meeting of the New Champions, which concluded here in the northeast Chinese port city on Saturday, Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF, Klaus Schwab, said he was elated with the creation of a new community of fast-growing companies who are destined to join the ranks of global multinationals in the next 5 to 10 years.
"These are a very special group of companies that have not really been understood," he said on list, which is dominated by 22 fast-growing Chinese companies.
The 13 Indian companies are: Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co. Ltd, Apollo International Ltd., CMS Computers Ltd., Crompton Greaves Ltd., Financial Technologies (India) Ltd., iGATE Global Solutions Ltd., Moser Baer India Ltd., Praj Industries Ltd., Rajshree Sugar and Chemicals Ltd., Rupa & Co. Ltd., UTV Software Communications Ltd., Wockhardt Ltd. and YES BANK Ltd.
Forty percent of the members of the Community of Global Growth Companies are from Asia; 26 percent hail from Europe; 20 percent are based in the Americas; and 14 percent come from Africa and the Middle East.


HP SET TO BECOME THE NEW INFOTECH CZAR
Chidanand Rajghatta, September 10, 2007
The Times of India (Delhi edition)Which is the biggest infotech company in the world? Microsoft leaps to mind immediately because of its high profile and its $266 billion market cap. But the correct answer might surprise you.
In terms of revenue, Hewlett-Packard (HP) currently occupies top spot, having pipped IBM with $91.7 billion in sales in 2006 compared to Big Blue's $91.4 billion. It is expected to become the first $100 billion I-T company in terms of revenue, with sales expected to cross that figure in 2007. Just to get a relative sense of that number, India's total exports are in the region of $125 billion.
Quite a feat for a small workshop cranked out of a garage (hence originator of the term 'garage start-up') in 1939 by two Stanford University graduates with an investment of $538.
The story goes that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to determine whether the company would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. Packard won, but still decided on HP.
Over the years HP grew to be an American behemoth best known for its printers. It was one of the first and finest products of the Silicon Valley eco-system.


SMALL-UNIT IMPETUS TO IBM GROWTH
Sohini Mookherjea, Calcutta, September 10, 2007
The Telegraph IBM India is opening offices in tier II and tier III cities to tap small and medium businesses (SMBs).
The company said India, China, Korea and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were the fastest growing markets for small and medium businesses.
"After Jamshedpur, we will go to Nashik, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Madurai and Ludhiana," said Vivek Malhotra, vice president — global small & medium business, IBM India. The company earlier opened similar centres in Visakhapatnam, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Goa, Bhopal and Lucknow.
India contributes 24 percent to IBM's growth in the SMB segment, while China contributes 35 percent.
The company's SMB division contributes nearly 20 percent to its total revenue.
"In the eastern region, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bengal and Assam have a huge potential in the segment," Malhotra said.
"The offices will help us in being close to our customers. This presence is critical since the SMBs employ almost 70 percent of the global workforce," said Malhotra.
In the Indian subcontinent, the SMBs have spent around $7.7 billion to ramp up their infotech infrastructure. Research agency ACNielsen forecasts this amount to go up substantially in 2008. There are over nine million SMBs in India and each of them spends around Rs 30 lakh on IT solutions.
IBM plans to revamp its solutions to meet SMB needs. It will scale down solution and application functionalities to suit operational-management capabilities and budgets.
"SMBs are looking for operational efficiency, lower cost of operations, security and an infrastructure that's easy to use. We are investing to strengthen education, demand generation and technical support to business partners," Malhotra said.


OPINION
POSITIVE ACTION FOR DEALING WITH CHANGE
Nandan M Nilekani, September 10, 2007
The Economic TimesAs global business leaders, we operate at a time when the need to address larger issues such as climate change and poverty is becoming more urgent. Questions are being asked about the role that large companies play in addressing these challenges. This is why the inquiry into Tomorrow's Global Company, initiated by the Tomorrow's Company think-tank, has proved so timely and relevant.
This writer co-chaired the inquiry that brought together representatives from businesses based in Asia, North America and Europe as well as people from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and not-for-profit groups. They came from ABB, Alcan, Amnesty International Business Group, BP, Dr Reddy's, Ford, The International Institute for Sustainable Development, KPMG, Leaders' Quest, McKinsey, Standard Chartered etc.
Given this diversity of backgrounds, it was interesting to find a remarkable degree of consensus in our views. We agreed that the market economy has proved a powerful force for innovation, growth, employment and development. Today, the market's power is most dramatically seen in the process of globalisation, which is driving up productivity and creating prosperity.
However, we also agreed that the world is undergoing unprecedented change, characterised not only by economic growth but by increasing pressure on the environment and continuing social, political and cultural divisions. The positive power of globalisation is not touching many lives.
Global companies — with their scale, power, capabilities and experience — are uniquely placed to deliver practical solutions to resolve these issues. They can develop new technologies, create jobs, raise skill levels, set benchmarks in working conditions and provide goods and services to improve living standards for the world's poor. In other words, companies can make a positive difference.
Going beyond our current efforts, we need to envision a world in which companies make profits and create shareholder value while tackling large global problems. There is no simple answer. But we have agreed on specific priorities — actions we believe companies should take to realise our shared vision.
Our three priorities were: redefining success, living by strong values, and deeper engagement with governments, etc., to create stronger market frameworks. We saw these as critical factors for changing businesses from wealth creators to agents of social change.
(The author is co-chairman, Infosys Technologies)


IT PARKS/SEZ
VIDEOCON TO INVEST RS 100-500 CRORE ON PUNJAB SEZ
Chandigarh, September 10, 2007
The Economic Times Hindustan TimesConsumer electronics major Videocon Industries on Sunday announced its decision to set up a multi-product special economic zone spread over an area of 1,000 hectares in Punjab with an investment of Rs 100-Rs 500 crore.
"We will be developing a 1,000 hectares SEZ in the field of agriculture as well as electronics and hardware sectors in Punjab which will involve an investment of over Rs 100 to Rs 500 crore," Videocon Industries Chairman and Managing Director, VN Dhoot told reporters here on Sunday.
Dhoot is expected to meet Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in this regard.
The company will acquire land for this purpose on its own rather than asking the state government, he said.
Videocon Group is also looking for a suitable location for to set up a semi-conductor unit in the country.
"We are scouting for the land for the setting up a semi- conductor unit but the location has not been finalised yet," he said.
The company, which proposes to invest over Rs 1,000 crore on semi-conductor unit, is also looking for some incentive from government for this unit.
"We will be setting up this unit in that state which will offer us land and power at reasonable rates. In addition to it, the government should also provide us enough water for our semi conductor unit," he said.
However, he dismissed reports that the company was setting this semi conductor unit in West Bengal.


INDORE IT PARK MIRED IN RED TAPE
Shashikant Trivedi, New Delhi/ Bhopal September 10, 2007
Business StandardBureaucratic hurdles, non-transparency in dealings and corruption has marred the privatisation process of Crystal IT Park in Indore. Even six months after awarding special economic zone status to the IT Park, the MP government is yet to decide on the privatisation of the multi-storeyed building.
No software company has come forward to take a square foot of the park, even after one year of the completion of the building. The 550,000 square foot building bears a deserted look since its completion.
Built with an investment of Rs 44 crore at prime locality of Bhanwarkuan near Indore University, even local IT companies have shown no interest in the park. Earlier, the state government had decided to rope in private players to market it.
Last year, the AKVN, nodal agency to put the IT Park onto market, had made efforts to join hands with Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), Wipro, SKIL, and Infosys. "We are looking for a private player to finish the common area of the park," Agrawal added.
An industry source that is closely monitoring the construction of the building informed that valuation of the building and a land area in the vicinity, which is nearly 23 acre, holds the key.
"It is under valued at Rs 60 crore. While the total cost of the IT park should be around Rs 150 crore. There were reports that the original design of the building of two stories at basement and eight stories above it has been altered to one (basement) plus nine thereby incurring additional expenses to the state," the source said.


CM PROMISES IT PARK, VARSITY
Karimnagar, September 10, 2007
Deccan ChronicleChief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy assured to set up an IT park and a new university in the district. Dr Reddy inaugurated various developmental works including the launch three irrigation project works being taken up at a cost of Rs 1,644 crore during his whirlwind tour of the district under tight security on Sunday.
Speaking to newsmen after laying the foundation stone for the Markfed feed mixing plant in Karimnagar, the Chief Minister said that an IT park would be set up in the Markfed land near the Dairy under the aegis of the APIIC.
"The government has already sanctioned IIT to Telangana region and set up a JNTU college in Karimnagar district to harness the vibrant employment potential of technical education. Of the total cultivable area of 15.61 lakh acres in the district, a total of 14.05 lakh acres will be irrigated after the completion of the ongoing irrigation projects," he said and added that the district outshined the East and West Godavari districts in paddy production in the last rabi season.


M&A
ACCENTURE
September 10, 2007
The TelegraphAccenture has entered into a business process outsourcing contract with BT for five-and-a-half-years. Under the deal, Accenture will provide finance and accounting services to BT.


SOFTWARE
HCL BULLISH ON RETAIL GROWTH
Shivani Shind, Mumbai September 10, 2007
Business Standard HCL Technologies, the New Delhi-based information technology company, is increasing its focus on the retail segment.
The company will be taking its total outsourcing offering to the retailers in the small and medium enterprise (SME) category, whereas for the large retailers, it will pitch the best-of-the-breed target solutions to cater to specific problems.
While the company has been working with global retail chains, it is also increasing its focus in the domestic retail market. The company is also in the process of working with its technology partners to create models such as pay-per-use or software-as-a-service for the SME segment.
Under its outsourcing platform, the company will provide application development and maintenance (ADM), business process outsourcing and infrastructure management.
Sidhartha Chowdhury, associate vice-president, HCL Technologies, said, "We see the outsourcing model really picking up among the retail players. We are in talks with almost all the top players in the Indian retail segment."


IBS PLANS TWO MORE CENTRES
Chennai/ Thiruvananthapuram September 10, 2007
Business Standard The Thiruvananthapuram-based IBS Software Services, a major in the travel, transportation and logistics (TTL) space, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, has lined up plans to open two new development centres in India soon.
IBS chairman and managing director V K Mathews said in a release that the company, which has centres in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi in Kerala, would shortly have the two new development centres outside Kerala.
Mathews stated that the group sees itself as an Rs 1,000 crore firm company by year 2010. IBS has grown to a multinational company operating from 11 global centres around the world and offers a range of as many as 15 software products and other customised solutions.


MICROSOFT OPENS KOCHI OFFICE
Chennai/ Kochi, September 10, 2007
Business Standard The HinduMicrosoft on Thursday announced the opening of its office in Kochi as part of its initiative to partner Kerala's growth into a knowledge-based, inclusive society.
With Kochi as a hub, the company plans to service the other cities of Kozhikode, Kottayam, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram.
Neelam Dhawan, managing director, Microsoft India, said, Microsoft has been working with customers in Kerala for several years and products and services have been successfully leveraged both by government organisations and the private sector. Some of Microsoft's largest customers in India are based in Kerala – such as US Technologies, NeST and RM Education.
The company also intends to consolidate its relationship with industry associations in the region to understand and address local business challenges and accordingly customise its local market education initiatives and programmes.
Besides Kochi, Microsoft opened offices in four cities - Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Indore, and Chandigarh in India this year - and will shortly open an office in Coimbatore.


BSNL AWARDS CDR PROJECT TO TCS, WIPRO, HCL
New Delhi, September 09, 2007
The Economic Times The Financial Express DNA Mumbai Mirror The StatesmanFive years after it first invited bids for its Call-Data-Record project, state-run BSNL has finally placed Rs 1,200 crore orders with TCS, HCL and Wipro for the programme that will enable it to provide a single bill to subscribers for all its services.
"We have placed the purchase order with three IT firms, TCS, HCL and Wipro, for the CDR billing project at a total value of Rs 1,200 crore. It will be completed in December 2008," BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal said.
The project will not only help the customers to get a convergent bill for the entire range of services the PSU offers, but would also come as a relief to operators who complain of unfair and incorrect pricing.
The project, for which Expressions of Interest were first invited five years ago, will help the firm's 65 million subscribers in getting a single bill for all the services.
The company's customers at present get different bills for different services. With the project, BSNL expects to face competition from private operators by providing efficient billing and customer care solutions.
It envisages building of countrywide intranet network, reduce cost of operation, increase revenue realisation, besides providing round-the-clock customer care operations.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had earlier directed all telecom operators to implement CDR-based billing system by March 31, 2004. The delay in decision was due to BSNL's vast network and changes in the company's requirements. BSNL will implement CDR-based billing and customer care solutions across India with four zones and four data centres.


EMERSON OPENS DEVELOPMENT CENTRE IN CHANDIGARH
Pune, September 10, 2007
The Hindu Business Line Emerson has opened a design engineering centre at Mohali near Chandigarh, its second in the country.
The new facility will engage in the development of solutions supporting global IT systems for finance, HR and supply chain management and also be involved with product and sustaining engineering.
The centre is being developed on the business model of the centre at Pune and will augment the engineering and IT capabilities for Emerson to meet its customers' needs, a statement said.
The Pune center, opened five years ago, was the first multi-divisional global R&D centre for Emerson anywhere in the world catering to the entire product development cycle, from concept, design and optimisation to physical prototype, testing and product manufacturing. It currently has 500 employees.
Both the centres in India will help Emerson spread globally, speed time-to-market for new products and assist its businesses in developing and tailoring its global products and solution platforms to meet the needs of customers.


FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGIES LOOKING AT CHINA OPTION
Dalian, September 10, 2007
MintFinancial Technologies (India) Ltd, India's leading technology solutions provider for capital, commodities, forex and debt markets, is mulling at venturing into China.
"We are here to personally see and evaluate the Chinese market for our kind of mission-critical expertise," Chairman and CEO of Financial Technologies, Jignesh Shah told PTI on the sidelines of the Inaugural Annual Meeting of the New Champions organizsed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the northeast Chinese port city.


STORAGE
DOMESTIC, GLOBAL COS EYE SOLAR CELL MARKET
Sreekala G & Appaji Reddem, Hyderabad, September 10, 2007
The Economic TimesAfter IT and pharma, India is on course to emerge as a solar hub. The Centre's move to offer fiscal incentives to solar cell and photovoltaic (PV) manufacturers, coupled with surge in global demand for renewable energy sources, has triggered domestic and multinational companies to set up shop here.
Leading the pack is home grown Moser Baer, followed by US-based Signet Solar and Solar Semiconductor. More are set to join.
Moser Baer, a leading optical storage manufacturer, is in talks with the AP government to acquire 100 acres in the Fab City — the chip-making hub. The company was among the first to set up a wholly owned subsidiary — Moser Baer Photo Voltaic — in 2005 to focus on the high-growth solar energy segment. It also plans to build a Rs 330-crore silicon PV manufacturing facility (near Delhi) and has tied up with Applied Materials for technology transfer.
The US-based Signet Solar, on its part, has drawn up an ambitious $2 billion investment plan to set up three PV production facilities in the country. It is also looking at an R&D base here. The company is already in talks with the Andhra Pradesh government to set up two manufacturing facilities here.
Solar semiconductor — another PV manufacturing company — has lined up an initial $40 million investment to set up two production units. The company has already started building a 30MW per annum plant near Pochampalli. The second one — with a capacity of 40 MW — is being readied in the Fab city. "We are looking at garnering another $330 million from private equity firms," said Solar Semiconductor's CEO Hari Surapaneni.


HARDWARE
APPLE READY TO LAUNCH UPDATED IPODS NEXT WEEK
Venkatesh Ganesh, Mumbai, September 10, 2007
Hindustan Times (Delhi edition)There is unlimited music and surfing in the offing for Indian consumers.
California-based Apple is set to launch its touch screen iPod and upgraded version of its original iPod in India next week.
The brand iPod Touch - iPhone minus the phone with a browser to surf - has been creating waves in the US ever since its launch last week. The upgraded brand iPod Classic can store as many as 40,000 songs.
"The new products are going to be available in Apple's stores and through its authorised dealers from next week," said a source close to Apple. An Apple Asia spokesperson said that the price and availability of the products would be disclosed at the time of the launch.
The pricing of the products in the Indian market is crucial since higher import duties are reportedly slowing sales of Apple's existing line of iPods. If Apple follows the global pricing model, the iPod Classic will be available in the range of Rs 13,337 to Rs 18,745.


INT/E-COMM
QUALCOMM MAPPING OUT 4 RURAL CONNECTIVITY PROJECTS
Thomas K. Thomas, New Delhi, September 10, 2007
The Hindu Business Line Technology major Qualcomm Inc is planning four new initiatives under its Wireless Reach programme to provide connectivity and applications to rural India.
The company is in talks with service providers, non-government organisations, and financers to put together projects in various part of the country. The projects will use wireless technology to offer relevant services to the rural people.
One of the new projects is being firmed up in association with the Azim Premji Foundation. These new initiatives will take the total number of India-specific rural communications projects from Qualcomm to eight.
Qualcomm's Wireless Reach initiative supports programmes and solutions that bring the benefits of connectivity to developing communities. The company had recently announced a project called Fisher Friend that provides real time information regarding weather and price to fishermen.
"The project has been launched as a pilot in Tamil Nadu. If it is successful, we hope to scale this up to fishermen communities in other parts of the country," said Parag Kar, Director (Government Affairs), Qualcomm India.
The company has roped in M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Tata Teleservices, and Astute Systems Technologies for this project. Fisher Friend provides access to a menu of services on specifically designed mobile handsets uniquely focused on fishing communities such as sea wave heights and satellite scan data about fish shoals.
The company had earlier announced an alliance with the Nasscom Foundation to provide CDMA-based wireless Internet connectivity solutions to 65 Village Resource Centres under Nasscom's Rural Knowledge Network Program.


BSNL BROADBAND ON DEMAND
Visakhapatnam, September 10, 2007
The HinduThe Visakhapatnam region of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) would completely remove the waiting list for the value added broadband connections in the city by this month-end. Besides it will provide another 3,500 such connections on demand as it has increased the capacity.
Stating this to The Hindu, BSNL General Manager P. Nagaraju said that this was possible as the additional equipment for the triple play broadband service – where customers could get voice, data and video -- had been added her e.
The department had provided as many as 2,500 broadband connections in the last one-month taking the total of such connections in Vizag to 7,600.
There was capacity to add another 5,000 connections. "We hope to complete the job by October," he said.


NETWORKING
VIJAYA BANK TARGETS RS.1 LAKH CRORE BY 2010
T. Valliappan, Madurai, September 10, 2007
The HinduThe Bangalore-based Vijaya Bank has set a target of Rs.1 lakh crore by 2010, which will enable it to enter the big league of banks.
About 475 banks had been connected through Core Banking Solution. This covered more than 80 percent of the bank's business. By March 2009, all the branches would be covered. By March 2008, 90 percent of the bank's business would take place in branches covered under Core Banking Solution, he said.
"We have already done the groundwork in most rural braches. To overcome power interruptions and lack of connectivity in remote locations, we are using Very Small Aperture Terminals (V SAT) connectivity and powering the branches through solar technology. We also have branches in the North Eastern States also," he said.

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

HeadLine :SONATA TO BUILD DEVELOPMENT CENTRE IN HYDERABAD

POLICY
POLICY ON IT INVESTMENT REGIONS SOON
Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee, New Delhi
The Hindu Business Line In line with infotech industry's demand for creation of integrated modern townships in the country, Ministry of Communications and IT has prepared a draft policy on setting up of Information Technology Investment Regions (ITIRs).
According to sources, the Department of IT has already sought views of other ministries and departments including Urban Development, DIPP, Civil Aviation, as also the Planning Commission on the issue, and has received feedback from some of them. "We are waiting for other Ministries to respond, after which we will consider the feedback before preparing a cabinet note," sources said.
The ITIRs would be larger than IT SEZs in terms of format and include residential, office, commercial space in addition to schools and hospitals. Sources, however, pointed out that the Government is yet to finalise the policy.
"It is envisaged that the State Governments could propose the locations of ITIRs. At this stage the Ministry has not identified the places for setting up of integrated townships in the country," sources pointed out.
It may be recalled that the IT industry has been calling for strengthening of local infrastructure, with a Nasscom-McKinsey report in 2005 emphasising that India needed to deliver on both basic (power, public transport, international connectivity) as well as business infrastructure (office and retail space, security services).
"Between today (2005) and 2010 we estimate that the IT and BPO industries will have to employ an additional workforce of approximately one million workers near five Tier I cities (New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai), and about 600,000 workers across other towns in India," it had said.
The report had pointed out that IT and BPO sectors needed at least five new 'Gurgaon-plus' and five to seven new 'Pune-plus' integrated townships, and noted that the resulting burden on urban infrastructure was likely to be substantial.


INDUSTRY
MEXICO PRESIDENT TO VISIT INDIA'S TOP TECH FIRMS
New Delhi
The Economic Times Mexican President Felipe Calderon was expected to visit top technology companies in Bangalore on Tuesday, a day after he held talks with Indian leaders to strengthen ties between the two countries.
Calderon planned to tour the facilities of Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Wipro Ltd., India's second and third largest software exporters, according to an advisory released by the Mexican Embassy. He is also scheduled to tour the laboratories of Biocon Ltd., India's top biotechnology company.
The visit to Bangalore is intended to help Calderon understand the success of Indian outsourcing companies and encourage them to invest more in Mexico. Several Bangalore-based information technology companies operate centers in Mexico to provide services to US-based clients.


MEXICO TO SET UP KNOWLEDGE COMMISSION
Chicago
The Economic Times Mexico City is taking a leaf out of India's National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and is taking the help of its chairman Sam Pitroda to turn the megapolis of 20 million people into "the knowledge capital of Latin America."
The initiative has come from Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard who recently hosted Pitroda in the first in a series of visits to help evolve a plan that is expected to be operationalised by the end of the year.
He said when former city Mayor Manuel Camacho visited New Delhi and Bangalore he came back convinced that Pitroda's "enormous" success in building India's information and communications technology sector in the 1980s as well as his work at the Knowledge Commission could be leveraged in Mexico City.
"We are well aware of the amount of work Sam Pitroda put in to turn India into an ICT powerhouse it is today. We are also aware of what he is trying to accomplish through the Knowledge Commission. His visit made a big impact in terms of the clarity and practicality of his vision," Camacho said.


SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC TO SET UP MANUFACTURING PLANT IN HYDERABAD
Hyderabad
The Financial ExpressSchneider Electric is setting up its 10th manufacturing plant in Hyderabad with an investment of euro 5 million. The proposed plant will be used to manufacture high technology products used in electrical distribution, industrial control and automation for the global markets.
''We will further develop Schneider Electric India's global capabilities such as R&D, projects and services, software development. Besides, we leverage the capabilities in India to develop regional competency centres in projects and solutions,'' he said.


NOIDA SET TO GET GPS TECHNOLOGY FOR POLICE
Kapil Datta, Noida
Hindustan Times (Delhi edition)With the Noida authority sanctioning Rs 1.08 crore for a hi-tech police control room, Noida will probably become the second in India after Delhi to have Global Positioning System-based technology to track the patrolling vehicles and decrease response time.
Noida authority Additional Chief Executive Officer Y.K. Bahl said, "Noida Board on Monday approved the Noida Police project of hi-tech police command and sanctioned Rs1 crore. However police would be told to have tender process rather than giving it to HCL as proposed by them. HCL can also compete for the project. The company with the lowest price and better technology will be selected to implement the project."


IT PARKS/SEZ
NCCL BAGS RS 272-CR ORDERS
Hyderabad
The Hindu Business LineHyderabad-based Nagarjuna Construction Company Ltd (NCCL) has announced that it has bagged new orders totalling Rs 272 crore. Out of this, the major orders comprise a project for construction of shell and core in the SEZ Infocity in Hyderabad for Satyam Computer, worth Rs 96 crore. The second contract entails construction of a mall for Market City Mumbai project in Mumbai for Offbeat Developers, worth Rs 60 crore, a company release said.


LAND ACQUISITION FOR TECHNOCITY BEGINS
Thiruvananthapuram
The Hindu Business LineThe process of land acquisition for the proposed 'Technocity' project in Thiruvananthapuram has been initiated.
The Kerala Chief Minister, V.S. Achuthanandan, said in State Assembly on Tuesday that of the 507 acres of land identified for the project, draft declaration had been published for 205 acres and the work in respect of survey of the remaining 302 acres, after discussions with the land-owners was progressing at a brisk pace. The Technocity project is envisaged as the fourth phase of development of the existing Technopark.
Replying to questions, he said that Technocity would encompass projects that have huge development potential such as information technology, biotechnology and knowledge-based industries. Meanwhile, the acquisition of 100 acres of land for the third phase of development of Technopark is nearing completion.


VCF/PVT. EQUITY
FXLABS TO RAISE $5MN VC FUND
K Rajani Kanth, Chennai/ Hyderabad
Business Standard FXLabs Studios, a Hyderabad-based developer of game products for PCs and video game consoles, is in the process of raising $5 million (approximately Rs 20.5 crore) venture capital fund to steer its growth plans, including pitching in for more PC games based on popular Bollywood movies.
The company is a joint venture between Sashi Reddi, chairman and CEO of Philadelphia-based software testing firm AppLabs Technologies, and city-based Suresh Productions. Thus far, around $6 million (Rs 24.6 crore) has been infused into the company, with half of it invested by Reddi in his personal capacity.
"We have started negotiating with a few US-based venture capital firms, which have a proven track record in gaming, to add impetus to our plans. The fund-raising exercise should be completed in the next four to six months," Reddi, founder and chairman of FXLabs, told Business Standard.


M&A
ONMOBILE BUYS VOXMOBILI
Bangalore
The Hindu Business Line OnMobile, a telecom value added services (VAS) provider, has acquired the France-based Voxmobili for an undisclosed sum.
With this acquisition, OnMobile will strengthen its VAS data products offerings and accelerate its position within the global telecom VAS industry.
The acquisition of Voxmobili will add customers such as Orange, Cingular-AT&T, France Telecom, T-Mobile, Wanadoo and Turkcell to OnMobile's clientele. In addition, it will augment its current domain and technology competence due to the depth and breadth of Voxmobili's IP and cutting-edge proven data products.
Voxmobili's core products are centred on synchronised address book and advanced phone backup wherein mobile phone users can backup all their personal data including calendar and contacts onto a secure network-based server, and mobile paparazzi wherein mobile phone users can publish information, photographs and videos directly from their phones to Websites and mobile sites.


ZYLOG SYSTEMS EYES GLOBAL ACQUISITIONS
T.E. Raja Simhan & M. Ramesh, Chennai
The Hindu Business Line Zylog Systems Ltd will spend $10 million (Rs 41 crore) from the recent IPO to acquire two or three small companies in the US or Europe, the Chairman and CEO, Sudarshan Venkatraman, said.
The company had raised over Rs 575 crore through the IPO, issuing over 1.64 crore equity shares at Rs 350 each.
The Chennai-based IT company is looking at companies that specialise in providing software for the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) vertical, he said.
Venkatraman said the acquisitions should be completed before December. Zylog is looking at companies to enhance the domain competence in areas like BFSI and telecom; expand service lines; obtain access to new markets/verticals and enhance technology footprints.


GENESYS PLANS TIE-UPS WITH TCS, RCOM
Rajesh Unnikrishnan, Melbourne
The Economic Times (Mumbai edition)Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, a subsidiary of French conglomerate Alcatel, is planning technological tie-ups with two of India's leading technology firms, TCS and Reliance Communications.
Speaking on the sidelines of GForce 2007, Sunny Rao, managing director, Genesys Telecommunication Labs India, said they were in the process of finalising alliances with TCS and Reliance Communications. "We will announce both these alliances formally very shortly," he said. While TCS is planning to develop new software applications for core banking and ERP by using software applications developed by Genesys, the US firm will manage Reliance's call centres as well as the small-sized call centres managed by Reliance Communications. Genesys, the leader in the call centre technology, recently unveiled some key technologies that could have an impact on the contact centre industry in the Asia Pacific region in the next 3-5 years.
At G-Force Melbourne, an event hosted by Genesys Telecom Labs USA recently in Melbourne in Australia, the entire global contact centre industry converged to discuss trends on technologies related to enhancing customer service and experience standards. Speaking at G-Force Melbourne, Wes Hayden, president & CEO, Genesys Telecom Laboratories, said they are expanding operations in India.


SOFTWARE
TECH MAHINDRA DEPLOYS SOLUTION FOR KUWAIT TELECOM FIRM
Mumbai
The Economic Times DNALeading software provider Tech Mahindra has successfully deployed the Adjunct Rating Solution (ARS) for telecom service provider Zain in Kuwait that would help it reduce operational costs and improve flexibility.
Zain Kuwait is the leading mobile telecommunications provider in the Middle East and Africa. The company operates under the Zain brand in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Sudan.
Tech Mahindra has used RateIntegration's PriceMaker Enterprise Pricing Server product, which has reduced operational costs, time-to-market for new services and improved the flexibility of the entire billing process for Zain in Kuwait, a company statement said here today.
This is Tech Mahindra's second installation of the Adjunct Rating Solution after a successful deployment at Zain in Jordan.


SONATA TO BUILD DEVELOPMENT CENTRE IN HYDERABAD
Bangalore
The Economic Times Deccan Herald Bangalore-headquartered Sonata Software Ltd, on Tuesday announced that it would set up its second development centre in Hyderabad as part of its growth strategy.
The company has been allotted seven acres of land in SEZ being set up by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, for setting up an IT campus, a company statement said. The land is located in the emerging IT hub at Kokapet, near Gachhi Bowli.
Sonata plans to invest Rs 100 crore to build the state-of-the-art campus, which will function as a dedicated facility for its global clients.
Sonata's present facility in Hyderabad has modern infrastructure, computing and working environment, the statement said.


RENAULT-NISSAN'S R&D CENTRE TO WORK ON CARS FOR GLOBAL MARKETS
S. Muralidhar, Chennai
The Hindu Business Line India's hopes of becoming the preferred global product development hub for small cars will receive another boost with the setting up of the Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd (RNTBCI).
Nissan's big plans for the centre include product development work for new vehicles that will be sold in other markets, in addition to developing India-specific vehicles. The Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd is a 50:50 joint venture between the French and Japanese automobile alliance partners.
Speaking exclusively to Business Line, Colin Dodge, Senior Vice-President, General Overseas Market (GOM) operations, Nissan, said that the new technology and business centre being set up here will play a key role in the Japanese automobile company's product development plans for many markets.
By 2010, when the RNTBCI unit will be fully staffed, it is expected to employ about 1,500 technicians, designers and information systems professionals. About 60 to 70 percent of the employees at the centre will be attached to the Nissan Technical Centre in Japan and will be involved in core product development activity, Dodge said. He added that at the initial stages, the RNTBCI would be providing basic CAD (computer-aided design) services, but will later scale up to cover the entire spectrum of product development work.
Design and development at the centre will also cover components that may be sourced from India for export and vehicles that are to be manufactured here for export to other countries.


SATYAM TO EXPAND PRESENCE IN ASIA-PACIFIC
V. Rishi Kumar, Hyderabad
The Hindu Business Line Mumbai Mirror IT services provider Satyam Computer Services Ltd today said that its business and revenues from Asia-Pacific are poised to grow with the company stepping up presence in Malaysia, China, Singapore and the region in particular.
From 85 per cent revenues few years ago from the US, the mix has changed to 20 per cent from Europe and 18 per cent from Asia-Pacific and this is likely to go up, B. Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer, said.
Raju said that the company adopted 'follow the customer model' that suits their business requirements.
Earlier, Satyam announced 500-seat Global Solutions Centre (GSC) and expects to ramp this to about 2,000 people and has initiated work on the campus. The facility was inaugurated in the presence of Malaysian officials. The GSC with mostly Malaysian IT engineers, supports Satyam's ASEAN, West Asian, and American customers.
The GSC accelerates the consolidation of Satyam's Global Delivery Model 2.0, an integral part of the company's strategy to provide a distributed delivery capability for global customers. The GDM 2.0 calls for components of large-scale projects to be completed wherever it makes the most business sense, rather than having an entire programme in a single facility. This delivers cost reductions and in quality enhancements.


SYBASE TO TAP SMBS FOR POWERBUILDER 11.0
Vinay Umarji, Mumbai/ Ahmedabad
Business Standard The Indian subsidiary of one of the largest global enterprise software companies, Sybase Inc, intends to focus now on small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country for its 4GL rapid application development (RAD) tool PowerBuilder 11.0.
The company initially set a target of promoting its newly-unveiled product in at least 5-6 tier-II cities including Ahmedabad, Kochi, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Dehradun and other cities.
PowerBuilder 11.0 is the latest version of one of the most popular products of Sybase's among application developers and enterprises across the world.
The tool enables developers to develop applications without incurring a significant cost or learning curve to understand new technologies. The RAD tool provides updated database support and support for Win32 and NET platform.
Post-launch, sales of licenses and upgrades have tripled for the company, informed Dave Fish, senior technical evangelist, Sybase Inc. He added that the company is eyeing a big growth for the market in its product, especially among the SMBs where the company sees a high potential for its usage.


IBS PLANS TWO CENTRES OUTSIDE KERALA
Thiruvananthapuram
The Pioneer IBS Software Services, a leading provider of new generation IT solutions to the global travel, transportation and logistics (TTL) industry, is planning to set-up shortly two new development centres outside Kerala, with the aim of growing into a Rs 1,000-crore company in three years, VK Mathews, chairman and managing director, IBS group, said.
Speaking at the tenth anniversary celebrations of the group here last week, Mathews said that IBS was now well equipped to seize the opportunities that the future will undoubtedly bring, in the dynamically expanding TTL domain, leading the company to the next level of growth, evolution and innovation.


HARDWARE
INDIAN INGENUITY FUELS HP'S PRINT 2.0 THRUST
Anand Parthasarathy, Singapore
The Hindu Business Line An online consumer photo storage and print service — a key element of global printer-leader Hewlett Packard's newly announced Web-enabled thrust — has a strong India connection: Snapfish, its hugely successful, Internet-based photo resource where registered users can store their family albums — and have them printed and delivered when required — is the brainchild of Indian Institute of Technology alumnus, Bala Parthasarathy who went on to co-found a US-based company of the same name in 2000.
By the time HP acquired the start-up in 2005, Snapfish had acquired 13 million customers who liked the way the free resource allowed them not just to put their pictures on line – but also to have them printed almost overnight when ever they needed prints.
This combo of secure storage and painless printing has seen the membership grow to 40 million today – using 4 peta bytes or 4 million gigabytes of storage, Parthasarathy Business Line, on the sidelines of HP's annual technology showcase here on Tuesday. Now the Vice-President of the printer major's Digital Imaging division, he added that Snapfish would soon be offered in an Indian edition — the planned launch is late 2007. While Indian members can already enjoy the online storage and album sharing features, HP is currently establishing links with printer players in as many Indian cities as possible before the 'desi' launch. "We will also Indianise much of the content like greeting card tools," Parthasarathy added.
Snapfish is one of the crucial ways HP is reinventing itself for what is being called Web 2.0 — the newly emerging 'Net-enabled' consumer era. Its own realisation is being called Print 2.0 – a mix of wireless printing, touch-based access technologies, kiosk-based printer services, and 'smart' solutions for printing content from the Web.


FISCAL SOPS IN NEW HARDWARE POLICY
Vrishti Beniwal, New Delhi
The Financial ExpressThe $35-billion hardware industry has a reason to cheer with the government all set to cut duties and taxes by almost half, bringing them on a par with the Asean level of 12-16%. At present, all the levies add up to about 30-32%.
The much-awaited hardware policy, which has been finalised by the department of information technology (DIT) and expected to be announced shortly, is likely to rationalise the taxes to give a fillip to the sector by encouraging competition, investments and employment.
"The hardware policy for the sector is almost ready and will be released shortly after consulting all the stakeholders. About 90% of the issues have been sorted out and it is in the final stages of formulation," a senior official in the department of information technology said. "To ensure that the domestic industry is not at a disadvantage, the policy will aim to bring taxation in India on a par with Asean."
The policy is also expected to address issues such as infrastructure and skill development besides specifying measures to leverage on research and development skills to make India a hardware hub.


SHARP LAUNCHES SOLAR BUSINESS IN INDIA
New Delhi
Business StandardJapanese firm Sharp today announced the launch of its solar business in India with an aim to take over 20 percent of the Rs 600 crore domestic market by 2010. "We hope to achieve Rs 100 crore turnover in the next three years from our solar business in India, but the company's internal targets are much higher," said Sunil K Sinha, managing director, Sharp Business Systems India. The solar energy business in India, estimated at Rs 400-500 crore, is expected to touch Rs 600 crore in three years and the company is eyeing a 20 percent share of this market. Sharp Business Systems India is one of the three subsidiaries of Sharp in India which sells multimedia projectors, facsimiles, electronic registers, LCD displays and electronic calculators in the country.


AMD LAUNCHES QUAD-CORE PROCESSOR
Bangalore
Business Standard The Economic Times (Delhi edition)Chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Tuesday unveiled its quad-core microprocessor Opteron, code named Barcelona, for servers used by data centres and enterprises. It is aimed at delivering higher performance, power efficiency, enhanced virtualization and upgradation. AMD Director (Marketing & Sales) Michael O'Brien said, "The Opteron processor-based servers, rolled out by original equipment manufacturers and system integrators, has shown 50 percent increase in energy efficiency, enhanced virtualization performance, investment protection when upgrading from dual core using the same power to reduce IT infrastructure costs.