- i-flex solutions delays IPO opening
- TIE revamps itself, to focus on other areas
- Hinduja TMT to pump in Rs 50 crore into ITES
- HP to phase out own PCs, sell only Compaq’s
- Indian software products to touch $10 billion exports by 2008
- IBM Introduces new eServer i890
- eGain deploys eGain Mail at Transworks
- NSTL brings WHQL Fest to India
- Concerto to provide customer interaction solutions for Daksh
- Vismaya launches Webcontact
- SG Software increases capital to $2 million
- HCL Comnet bags India’s first VSAT-based rural telephony order
- Rashi introduces Fortune Maker
- Symantec launches new VPN appliance
- IT in Hospitality Product Finder

i-flex solutions delays IPO opening
i-flex solutions is working on a new schedule for its much awaited initial public (IPO) and is expected to announce it in the next one week. According to sources, the company will announce a minimum floor price, along with the opening and closing dates for the IPO subscription, in the next seven days. The firm, whose single largest shareholder is Citigroup with a 47.47 percent stake, had last year said the company plans to launch its IPO by March 2002. JM Morgan Stanley is the lead manager for the offer and Kotak Mahindra, DSP Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney are co-managers for the IPO.

- Business Standard

TIE revamps itself, to focus on other areas
The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TIE), which was in the forefront of the dotcom boom in India, has decided to opt for an image makeover. TIE, which consisted primarily of Indian Americans who had made it big in IT, is revamping itself in the changed environment. For a start, TIE will no longer stand for The IndUS Entrepreneurs. Instead, it will stand for talent, ideas and enterprise (TIE), thus ensuring that the initials remain unchanged. Earlier, TIE Silicon used to be the parent organisation for all the TIE chapters worldwide, this has now been replaced by a global board of trustees, which will lead and guide the organisation.

- Economic Times

Hinduja TMT to pump in Rs 50 crore into ITES
Hinduja TMT is planning to invest up to Rs 50 crore for expansion of its IT-enabled services delivery during the current financial year. The company set up its first call centre in November 2002 and already has over 500 agents in the call centre operation and about 250 agents in claims processing. These numbers are expected to grow up to over 1000 by June 2002 and cross the 2000 mark by 2003. Hinduja TMT already has 47 acres of land close to new international airport in Bangalore available for expansion. But, according to company sources, in order to hedge risks and meet client requirements, the company would consider setting up operations for expanding in Mumbai, Chennai or any other location which offered economical and reliable infrastructure.

- Business Standard

HP to phase out own PCs, sell only Compaq’s
Hewlett-Packard will now sell only Compaq’s PCs in India and is gradually phasing out its own PC brands. The move follows the merger of the two companies. In contrast, the new global portfolio will include HP’s Pavilion range of PCs. Among business PCs, HP Vectra will be pulled out and Compaq Evo will be retained. Same is the case with laptops, where HP’s Omnibook will bow out; and handhelds, where Compaq’s iPac will be available. However, all Compaq’s PCs will be rechristened as HP, while retaining their original sub-brand. HP has also decided to retain the manufacturing facility in India, unlike some others in Asia, which may be shut down. India will also be the one of the five hubs planned for tele-sales and support by the company.

- Economic Times

Indian software products to touch $10 billion exports by 2008
The Indian software industry has the potential to play in the high value software products and technologies game and could even generate around $10 billion from exports by 2008 from this segment alone. The observation is a part of the revised report of a joint study conducted by McKinsey and Nasscom to be released this month. The report, however, points out that companies will have to move up in the value chain in the global marketplace. The high-end product and technology segment includes enterprise application software, embedded software, technology services for product development, development of upgrades and localisation components and Web services related software tools. Product and technology is one of the three areas in which the entire software sector has been divided in the report. The other two are IT-enabled services and software services.

- Financial Express

IBM Introduces new eServer i890
IBM India has announced a new server for the midmarket segment-the IBM eServer i890, featuring mainframe-class technology and the company’s POWER4 microprocessor. The new server is aimed at organisations that need to consolidate their mission-critical applications and server farms in order to reduce complexity and total cost of ownership. It would also benefit organisations that require flexibility while choosing the best platform to run their business applications as well those looking for an affordable growth path.

The 32-way i890, running the latest release of iSeries’ operating system "OS/400 Version 5 Release 2" nearly doubles the processing power of the previous top-of-the-line iSeries, the i840, and delivers enhanced server consolidation capabilities with support for up to 32 OS/400 or Linux dynamic logical partitions. The new eServer features the 1.3 GHz POWER4 microprocessor with 174 million transistors. POWER4 is the winner of the 2002 MicroDesign Resources Award for best server processor.

"The debut of POWER4 technology along with significant improvements in our flagship operating system make the iSeries a more compelling choice for data centre applications than ever before" says M Ganesh, country manager, Enterprise Systems Group, IBM India.

eGain deploys eGain Mail at Transworks
Mumbai-based TransWorks recently deployed a Web management solution developed by Pune-based eGain Communications, a provider of e-customer communication solutions. The company claims that the solution, christened ‘eGain Mail’, offers sophisticated workflow, issue tracking and intelligence response tools needed to accurately respond to high volumes of mail and Web form enquiries.

The solution is currently being used worldwide by corporations such as McAfee.com, CNBC.com, Walgreens, 3Com, ABN AMRO, DaimlerChrysler, etc. eGain, whose activities in India were thus far limited to product development and consulting expects this successful deployment to provide their products with an entry into the Indian market.

NSTL brings WHQL Fest to India
NSTL India has announced that it would be organising the WHQL Fest, a seminar on Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) process, for the first time in India on June 11, 2002 at Mumbai. The process is the facility within Microsoft that is responsible for the "Designed for Windows" logo.

Jyotin Mehta, senior manager-business development, NSTL India, says there were many changes to the WHQL process, which added new benefits to system builders to get the Windows logo. The entire process can look very complicated to a vendor unfamiliar with the steps needed to get the logo for a system or device.

Earlier, Microsoft has presented the WHQL Fest in the US, Taiwan, Japan and Europe. The seminar will cover various topics, including basic process and changes in the process, time frames within the process, hardware compatibility test, submission process, online crash analysis programme and legal documents. Daryn Rank of Microsoft US WHQL for system testing would be the speaker at the seminar.

Concerto to provide customer interaction solutions for Daksh
Concerto Software, provider of customer interaction management (CIM) solutions, has announced that Daksh eServices has selected the company’s Ensemble customer contact suite and LYRICall agent desktop solution for its multi-channel contact centre.

Daksh will use Concerto’s solutions to integrate inbound and outbound voice, e-mail and Web functionality to better manage customer interactions across multiple channels. Daksh anticipates a rapid return on investment through improved agent productivity and increased customer satisfaction.

Vismaya launches Webcontact
Vismaya Technologies has announced that it has successfully installed its newly developed Web collaboration product, Webcontact, to enable exchange of information with customers on the Web at Wipro Technologies.

Says Vasu Krishnamurthy, CEO, Vismaya, "Webcontact allows an organisation to help customers navigate through the website and exchange information and address the difficulties faced by an agent to up-sell and cross-sell various products on the Web". The product offers significant value addition to managing and processing Web contacts. It sends a notification to the live agent sitting at the back-end about the visitor on the company’s website and facilitates proactive permissible interaction with the customer so as to personalise the entire transaction. It helps companies to hold on and interact with customers on the website, so as to satisfy their information demands.

SG Software increases capital to $2 million
Bangalore-based SG Software, the software research and development centre of the corporate and investment banking arm of the Societe Generale Group, recently announced that it is injecting an equity capital of $1.8 million. The total capital injection of the company has now reached $2 million.

The company has also invested $2 million on infrastructure and equipment. Other than this, the company was recently awarded the ISO certification for its compliance with ISO 9001 standards. SG Software has managed to garner revenues of $2.7 million since the launch of its operations in India.

HCL Comnet bags India’s first VSAT-based rural telephony order
HCL Comnet has become the first VSAT provider in India to install solar powered VSATs to enable rural telephony in 1,000 villages in Andhra Pradesh. HCL Comnet bagged the services order from Tata Teleservices to implement 1,000 VSATs connecting villages in and around Paderu district (150 kms from Vishakhapatnam). This project is the first of its kind in India, based on the Gilat DialAway technology, which uses solar panels capable of giving 72 hours backup without recharging the battery.

The project involves installation of VSATs and bandwidth allocation as per the requirements. In the first phase of the project, HCL Comnet has already installed over 150 VSATs. The company has undertaken hub installation, backhaul connectivity between Hyderabad and Noida Hub and switch integration in five days and activated 120 VSATs in a record time of seven days. Slated to offer services by end-June 2002, Tata Teleservices is the first basic service provider in the country to launch this initiative towards fulfilling the USO obligation of village private telephony using VSATs.

Rashi introduces Fortune Maker
In a bid to maintain partner loyalty, Rashi Peripherals has constantly come up with a partner promotion programmes titled ‘Fortune Maker’. The scheme is open for a period of three months, and applies to Rashi’s entire brand portfolio consisting of Asus, Logitech, C-Net, Rptech Systems, Sony, Pixelview, Microtek, Jetway and Aviosys. For every purchase that a partner makes, he will gain points that can be redeemed for specified products at the end of the quarter.

In an attempt to ensure consistency in business, Rashi is also offering bonus points to regular customers. Says Rajesh Goenka, divisional head, Rashi Peripherals, "This initiative is a part of our ongoing strategy to cultivate competition among our channel partners for brand leadership, which is one of the primary reasons why we have names like Asus, Acer, Logitech, Pixel View, Jetway, Lifeview, Sony and CNet on our partner list".

Symantec launches new VPN appliance
Symantec has just released Symantec VelociRaptor 1.5, a new version of its firewall and VPN appliance. Designed for customers who value ease-of-use and security at a reasonable price, VelociRaptor now provides support for Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and new proxy functions to best secure videoconferencing. In addition, VelociRaptor offers the ability to extend the appliance’s scalability and eliminate network downtime by integrating high availability/load balancing.

Symantec VelociRaptor offers enterprise-class security by incorporating the hybrid security architecture of Symantec Enterprise Firewall. Unlike other firewalls that require users to open holes into their networks to support videoconferencing, VelociRaptor extends its industry-leading security with new full application inspection proxy functions for videoconferencing and application sharing. "Businesses of all sizes require a high level of network security to protect against today’s multifaceted Internet attacks" says Joy Ghosh, country manger, Symantec-India. "The Symantec VelociRaptor firewall/VPN appliance provides an ideal network perimeter security solution for offices that demand exceptional data throughput, remote manageability and enterprise-class security in a plug-and-protect appliance".

IT in Hospitality Product Finder
As IT increasingly provides a crucial business advantage in the hospitality segment, Express Hotelier & Caterer, Indian hospitality’s No 1 business publication, is all set to launch the latest edition of the Hospitality Product Finder (HPF). HPF is the Indian hospitality industry’s first attempt to catalogue the products and services available for this vast and fast growing industry.

Through HPF, hotel owners and key decision makers in hotel operations will have the opportunity to make use of a database that helps them take purchase and other business decisions easily. On the IT front, HPF will offer hoteliers a one-stop shop for IT segments such as networking, bandwidth, software, hardware, ASPs, etc, in sections that are designed to highlight the USP of each product category. For more details, e-mail marketing@expresshotelierandcaterer.com.