Wipro Sets up Design Centre in Silicon ValleyWipro
Infotech Group has decided to set up a separate company in the US as a front-end for
design of semiconductor IC products or "soft chips", as the company calls them.
The functionality areas would be datacom, telecom and embedded systems for consumer
applications.
Wipro's Global R&D Division recently created generic
designs separately for hardware ASIC, operating system, networking and for embedded
applications. 'Soft chips' include design, simulation, circuit synthesis, and testing. The
division has several OEMs in the US, Japan and Taiwan.
The new company, whose name and location would be decided
within this month, will focus on product conceptualisation, architecture, sales and
marketing, and customer support. Back-end engineering will be carried out at Wipro's India
facilities. The idea to set up operations in the US is to combine the advantages of
domain-specific user knowledge in the US and the competencies achieved in India, according
to Sridhar Mitta, chief technology officer and president, Wipro Global R&D, who will
head the new assignment for Wipro.
Local professionals in the software industry would be hired
to run the US operations for sales and technical support. The company will have an
operation in Japan where Wipro has lately been active. Media reports suggest that the
Japan operation will be named Wipro Nihon and will involve an investment of $1 million.
ATM Switches to Spruce Up
Network at DOT
 The Department of
Telecommunications (DOT) has initiated measures to spruce up its network by integrating
new telecom technologies and equipment. Speaking at a seminar, "ATM Technology Plans
in Indian Telecom Network" in Bangalore last month, P.K. Agarwal, deputy director
general, TEC (Telecom Engineering Centre), DOT, informed that in initial stages,
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches would be installed in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore
and Calcutta. It would then be extended to link Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chennai.
A national interest group including members from DOT, Centre
for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and other companies involved in developing
ATM technology would be set up. A tie-up is also expected between this proposed body and
ATM Forum, an international consortium of members in the telecom industry pushing for
awareness and market development for ATM.
K.N. Gupta, executive director, C-DOT, said that ATM will be
a cost effective solution, truly integrating switching and transmission techniques, and
flexibly affording addition of new services. India, he said, could leapfrog to the
advanced information infrastructure with ATM and achieve significant results with low cost
per line for low-bit rate speech services.
DOT has also decided to hasten the commercial launch of the
long-awaited Intelligement Network (IN) services. Said Gupta, IN services will mainlycater
to business community. MTNL, Delhi, last year introduced a toll-free IN service on an
experimental basis.
VSNL Forms Subsidiary for
Net Biz
 Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd.
(VSNL) has set up a new subsidiary called VSNL Seamless Services Ltd. (VSSL) to separate
its core business of providing international telecom connectivity from its value added
telecom services. The new subsidiary will take care of its four core service areas: GIAS
(Internet services), GEMS (E-mail and electronic fax), GEDIS (Electronic data interchange)
and video-conferencing.
According to B.K. Syngal, chairman and managing director,
VSNL, the move is aimed at creating a level playing field for VAS (Value-added Services)
and thus prevent any problems that might otherwise arise once private service providers
enter the market. According to him, competition for the new subsidiary will come from
private Internet Service Providers (ISPs), tentatively by this year-end.
The subsidiary is expected to start full operations from
September this year and VSNL is targeting a turnover of Rs 110 crore in the first year. He
pointed out that earnings from Internet services, which accounted for 0.3 percent of
VSNL's revenues in 1996-97, are expected to go up to 1.5 percent, amounting to about Rs 70
crore by March 1999.
AT&T Helps
Establish Tele-teaching Course
 Indian Institute of Technology
(IIT) and AT&T Communication Services India Pvt. Ltd. have completed a joint distance
learning experiment. It established India's first tele-teaching and distance learning
courses, claimed Ashok Sapra, country manager, AT&T India. With a $60,000 grant from
AT&T, the Centre for Educational Technology at IIT, New Delhi, studied the
effectiveness of various methods of distance learning which are expected to change
teaching methods and benefit students across India.
The experiment included video-teleteaching,
video-conferencing, cable-simulated video-conferencing and the use of the Internet as
distance learning techniques. It also conducted a pilot course on video-teaching with the
Indira Gandhi National Open University. Following its success, the IIT has recommended
that downlinks with direct receiving sets be installed at all regional and state
engineering colleges with an uplink at IIT Delhi. While the experiment was on, the IITs in
Delhi, Mumbai, Kharagpur and Chennai were linked together through video-conferencing, and
interactive discussions were held between students, professors and industry professionals
on the techniques used in distance learning.
The AT&T grant for this project was administered by the
AT&T Foundation and the International Council for Distance Education as part of the
AT&T Global Distance Learning Initiative (GDLI). AT&T selected the IIT project
from 85 proposals, representing over 260 institutions in 40 countries.
NIIT Finds Foothold in
Malaysia
 NIIT Ltd. has identified
Malaysia as a key area of growth in the ASEAN region. NIIT's Malaysian venture has signed
an agreement with Malaysia's first virtual university, University Tun Abdul Razak
(UNITAR). A wholly owned subsidiary of KUB Malaysia Bhd, UNITAR will commence its course
in September this year. Besides designing the curriculum and preparing the courseware,
NIIT will help in creating multimedia content for the courses and setting up a multimedia
facility.
R.S. Pawar, managing director, NIIT, said, "This is to
further NIIT's ambitious plans for the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) which
include educational multimedia content development; development and implementation of
multimedia solutions while leveraging the expertise of successfully creating multimedia
solutions."
NIIT shifted its ASEAN headquarters for multimedia, education
and training business lines from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in January this year. It has
also launched two education centres in Penang and Johor Bahru cities through its business
partners. The training major expects to garner 10 million Malaysian Ringitt in its first
year of operations. This figure is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years. |
