India News Brief

ABS India to market Alcatel WAN solutions
ABS India, an enterprise communication solution provider, has signed an agreement with Alcatel India for marketing Alcatel’s Wide Area Network (WAN) range of solutions in the Indian sub-continent. ABS India will provide solutions to enterprises with multi-service switches, voice and data multiplexers, extended digital subscriber line (XDSL) and network management systems. ABS India will also provide installation and support for Alcatel’s WAN solutions. These products would be targeted at contact centres, IT companies, utilities such as large oil companies and large corporate customers within India and the subcontinent, which includes Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Patni bags knowledge management award
Open Text Corporation, a maker of collaboration and knowledge management software, has awarded Patni with the ‘Best Knowledge Management Solution’ award at a recently held ceremony at LivelinkUp 2003, Paris. The award recognises and showcases organisations around the world that are dedicated to achieving real business value and competitive advantage through innovative knowledge management solutions. Participants were evaluated based on return on investment, innovation, scope/nature of problem solved, impact of the solution on the organisation/market, functionality and benefits to users.

ICICI Infotech in alliance with Veritas, Hitachi
ICICI Infotech, Veritas Software and Hitachi Data Systems have announced an alliance to provide an integrated disaster recovery (DR) solution. Under the terms of the alliance, ICICI Infotech will provide system integration expertise, Veritas will provide storage management solutions and Hitachi will be the hardware partner. The alliance plans to tap the lucrative $1.3 billion disaster recovery market in the APAC region.

Kenoir in training partnership with SystemLogic
Kenoir Embedded Systems Centre, a Singapore-based training centre for embedded systems has announced a strategic partnership with SystemLogic Solutions. Under the terms of the partnership, SystemLogic will invest in a training centre to be set up in Bangalore at a cost of Rs 3 crore and would offer Kenoir’s various courses at the new centre.

ESS to automate Spicenet
Eastern Software Systems (ESS), an ERP solutions provider, has bagged Spicenet as a customer. Formerly known as Modi Olivetti, Spicenet is a technology vendor selling hardware, software and solutions. ESS will deploy ebizframe at Spicenet’s headquarters and at its distribution centres, making the complete supply chain management process efficient and cost effective.

Reduxi targets mobile workers
Pradeep Singh, the founder of Aditi Technologies and the co-founder of Talisma, has launched a new product company called Reduxi. The new firm will provide mobile workforce solutions to enterprise customers. The company’s product development will be done at its R&D centre in Bangalore. Reduxi will also have offices in London and Seattle. The company has received $2 million as seed investment and it aims to tap the US and UK markets. Reduxi will kick off with 50 people and aims to scale up to 300 people by mid-2004. The company will build its products on the J2EE framework and provide product-related services. Pradeep Singh, Reduxi’s founder and chairman says, “Mobile devices and wireless technologies have reached a point where meaningful automation of the mobile workforce can take place. The opportunity is tremendous—there are over seven million mobile workers who are yet to be automated.” Meanwhile, Pradeep Singh has relinquished his post as the head of Talisma but will continue to hold a stake in that company. His place has been taken by Dan Vetras, till recently the chief operating officer at Talisma.

MSN India targets youth with Messenger 6
Microsoft’s online arm, MSN, has released Messenger 6. The latest version of Microsoft’s Instant Messaging (IM) service is being targeted at the youth segment. As usual, Messenger 6 will be available as a free download from www.msn.co.in. MSN will rely on advertisements displayed within Messenger to make money from the service. Shriram Adukoorie, director of the MSN Business Group in India said, “We are targeting this new version at the younger generation in India, in particular the 18-35 age group as a majority of IM users fall into this category.” Through Messenger 6, users will be able to customise emoticons as per their mood, personalise backgrounds and share them with their friends while chatting. Version 6 will also let you play games with your friends while chatting and it allows for Webcam integration, letting you see the person with whom you are chatting.

Connect 2003 to put Chennai on global ITES map
The third annual ICT show of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Tamil Nadu government—Connect 2003—a four-day international conference cum expo, is to be held at Chennai between September 18 and 21, 2003. The expo will also have a global conference, chief information officers’ summit and roundtable sessions focusing on banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare and the transportation sector. According to Vivek Harinarain, IT secretary of Tamil Nadu, the event will project and promote Chennai as a destination of choice for IT and ITES with a special focus on value-added BPO, highlighting the state’s capabilities and domain knowledge in accounting, automotive, engineering design and healthcare. The IT opportunities in the domestic market, e-governance in states and enterprise verticals will also be highlighted. The CIOs Summit is expected to attract around 200 CIOs and CTOs. D Jayakumar, the state’s IT minister said that the conferences and seminars will attract over 800 participants—international delegations from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, the US, Europe, Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region are expected to take part in the event. Around 125 companies are likely to put up their stalls and as many as 20 new products will be launched. The event is expected to attract around 25,000 business visitors and around 100,000 general visitors.

IBM helps bring e-governance to Pondicherry
IBM Business Consulting Services India has formulated an e-governance master plan and implementation road map for the government of Pondicherry. The plan aims at increasing transparency and improving efficiency in operations across different government departments. The blueprint covers 16 key departments and encompasses the overall IT architecture, the IT organisation structure, cost estimates for funding the recommended IT initiatives and the implementation roadmap to achieve the Pondicherry government’s vision of e-governance. As part of the plan, a team from IBM Business Consulting Services has recommended an integrated approach to facilitate the e-governance initiative for Pondicherry. The team has identified applications that can be shared by departments and hence can be jointly developed and deployed. The IT architecture has taken into consideration the sharing of critical infrastructure such as the data centre, WAN, etc. This approach will help in reducing the cost of implementation.

Kanbay bags $65 million contract from Household
Kanbay International, a global systems integrator and managed services firm specialising in the financial services industry has signed a four-year, $65 million contract with Household International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC. The service level agreement (SLA) is Kanbay’s largest in its 13-year history of working with Household International. Currently representing over 40 percent of Household’s code development capacity, Kanbay and Household are tightly integrated in a co-sourced model that unites the resources of both companies to form a unique approach to developing technology solutions. Kanbay provides advanced financial solution sets, industry best practices, process excellence and information technology enablement. Kanbay’s services for Household range across several core businesses, including consumer and mortgage lending, banking and private label credit card systems, internal business, data, testing and internal messaging systems.

Modern Engineering and Geometric announce partnership agreement
Modern Engineering, a US-based provider of design and engineering services to the North American engineering and manufacturing community, and Geometric Software Solutions, an end-to-end provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, have announced a partnership agreement to expand the offerings of both companies, and further their global presence. This agreement is Geometric’s first engineering partnership with an US-based engineering firm.