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May 16-31, 1999 COUNTRY BUZZ |
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COMPUTER BUSINESS Compaq, Deluxe Consolidate Their Indian Operations
The decision forms part of the company's restructuring drive. The Digital India board feels that it would transform the company into a focussed software and services exports company and enhance shareholders' value. Post-restructuring, the company will have over Rs 150 crore as cash resources for funding future growth. Compaq Computer managing director Som Mittal feels that "Digital India in its new form will be able to unleash its software business potential and grow the business by providing software and services not only to Compaq but also to an independent client base. The company will now have the resources to set up additional infrastructure and future growth." Of the existing 835 professionals in Digital India, 305 are currently in the software and services export business; 530 are with the domestic computer products and services business. The deal entails shifting the 530-strong domestic services staff to Compaq India. A new board is being created which will focus on driving a software and services exports business. It will have four Compaq representatives and four independent directors including a new CEO. Digital India has been reporting declining revenues from its computer products and services business. The decline was 52.9 percent in the third quarter ended March 1999 over the corresponding period last year. On the other hand, software exports of the company rose 26.8 percent over the previous period. The merger of Digital and Compaq worldwide also saw many branded products going out of Digital India's portfolio. Digital India reported a net profit of Rs 2.95 crore for the third quarter, a decline of 72.8 percent year-to-year. US-based Deluxe Corp. has acquired HCL Corporation's 50 percent ownership in its joint venture company, HCL Deluxe. This is part of Deluxe's plans to strengthen its Indian operations by designating the facility as one of the corporations' four independent operating units worldwide. The joint venture would now be renamed to function as a wholly owned subsidiary of Deluxe. The new company will continue to focus on software development, maintenance and support services. It will also outsource business to leading international financial services companies. Deluxe's new business model for India envisages a holding company for four newly designated, independent operating units. One of the major strategic initiatives undertaken is the creation of Efunds Corporation, a combination of Deluxe's information and payment protection businesses with its electronic transaction processing business. Other independent operating units are Deluxe Paper Payment Systems, the leading check printing business in the us Government services, and a software development and business facility. Birla Horizons Rechristened; New Set-up Seeks to Focus on E-commerce, Internet
The name change follows the decision of the C.K. Birla Group to buy out the 50 percent equity of Computer Horizons Corporation in Birla Horizons International. Birla Horizons International was a 50:50 joint venture between C.K. Birla Group and Computer Horizons Corporation. The company was engaged in software consulting and development, with particular emphasis on offshore services. With clients such as Citicorp, Bell South Telecom, AT&T, Merrill Lynch in the us, the company has subsidiaries in the USA and UK. Outlining his vision and plans for Birlasoft, Jain said, "Identifying opportunities and keeping the company at the forefront in the IT services industry would be of top priority for me." Currently a $33 million company, Birlasoft aims to achieve a turnover of $200 million in the next five years. "We hope to achieve this by consolidating on our current lines of business, increasing presence in the projects segment, expanding geographically and identifying vertical segments for specialisation," lain says. The company has a well-equipped, software development centre in Noida, staffed by software professionals with expertise in a wide spectrum of platforms/tools. To push its growth in India, Birlasoft plans to focus on new technology areas such as E-commerce and Internet, acquisitions in overseas markets and expansion of its existing facilities. NEC Expands SW Operations in India
NEC has also entered into an agreement with CBSI to jointly work on Nec's Application Framework Software. Under the agreement, NEC would utilise CBSI's development centres in India to help develop key components of their application framework called APBASE. At CBSI, the development would be carried out on HP's Unix platform using C, C++, and popular middleware like BEA's Tuxeda and IBM's MQ Series. The development centre would be linked to NEC's facility in Japan using a dedicated high-speed satellite link. "We expect to invest about USD 85 million to design, develop, and deploy the APBASE project," says Ebino. Bangalore Tops with Highest PC Penetration Levels: Study Bangalore has the highest PC penetration among Indian cities, according to a survey conducted by IDC (India) which covered 5,316 households across 13 cities in the country. At 14.8 percent, its penetration level was much higher than the national PC penetration at 9.6 percent. The survey, which focussed primarily on the home segment, was conducted during November-December 1998. It was based on the education and occupation levels of the population. Following Bangalore closely were Pune, Chennai, Lucknow and Delhi. According to an IDC official, "the high penetration levels in Bangalore and Pune was owing to software parks, a high concentration of software developers, and an IT-savvy population. ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
The SAP Mill Products for textile manufacturing was configured and developed by SAP India for AML. It enables the company to support its complex manufacturing environment that has to cope with varied product configurations, complex product dyeing and finishing procedures, and customer requirements that change according to season and fashion. SAP's executive vice president for the Indian sub-continent, Ruth Connolly says, "In an industry as complex as textile manufacturing, Arvind Mills has achieved an industry benchmark with its speedy implementation of such a comprehensive suite of applications". AcceleratedsAP is a methodology, which speeds up the implementation of SAP enterprise applications. Its methods and tools are based on thousands of implementations of SAP enterprise software worldwide. Stock Holding Corp. of India Ltd. (SHCIL), a leading custodian and depository participant which represents all major institutional investors in India, has selected Computer Associates' Unicenter TNG to monitor and manage its highly distributed and diversified IT network. SHCIL chose Unicenter TNG, for its feature-rich and low-bandwidth VSAT network. Samsung, a consumer electronics major, implemented an enterprise Web solution, called the X-tranet, which will help Samsung build strong relationships with its customers and dealers. According to Sanjay Shetty, CEO, DBS Internet Services, which has developed the solution, With endless information, faster communication and online applications being its key features, the X-tranet was looked up on by Samsung to be its ideal platform to build a collaborative relation ship with its customers and dealers. To initiate this, Samsung chose its IT division as a 'pilot' to test the benefits of the X-tranet." This is a complete end-to-end business solution on the Internet, allowing far greater flexibility than other isolated 0LAP/0LTP applications used by companies in the past. It offers greater integration of communications between internal and external customers, and real time retrieval of data, similar to ERP, al a fraction of the cost (both in terms of time and money). SAS Institute India, the wholly owned subsidiary of the us-based SAS Institute Inc., a leading player in data warehousing and data mining solutions, has bagged the first end-to-end data warehousing project from National Accounts Division (NAD) of the Central Statistical Organisation. NAD regularly compiles and publishes estimates of national account aggregates. SAA will also build a separate data mart for the public sector. The data warehousing solution will aid NAD with reports on macro economic aggregates. |
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If "synergistic" was one word which aptly described Compaq
Computer's global acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC),the global merger set the
tone for their Indian subsidiaries to integrate their operations. Now, Compaq Computer
India, the wholly owned subsidiary of Compaq Computer has decided to buy the domestic
computer products and services business of Digital Equipment India Ltd (DElL) for Rs 83
crore. 
The C. K. Birla Group wants to have a
bigger slice of the IT action. It has gone bang on with a series of initiatives. To begin
with, the company has changed its name from Birla Horizons International to Birlasoft
India. Then, the group appointed Anal jain, an IT industry veteran of 28 years as the new
chief executive officer of Birlasoft. jain has a varied background, with stints in
companies like the ORG Systems, Wipro Infotech, Tata IBM, Sun Microsystems and most
recently as the promoter and coo of Linc Software. 
Go global. NEC of Japan has entered into an agreement with Complete Business
Solutions in India Ltd (CBSI) and Wipro infotech Group's Software and Services division to
outsource its software requirements from the duo. To start with, NEC has joined hands with
Wipro Infotech to set up Middle Software Lab in Bangalore which would work exclusively on
NEC projects. The new lab would focus on Internet technology, Java, HTML, Network
Security, C++, front end GUI development, and systems management software predominantly in
the Unix area. The work will be done on varying platforms such as Sun, HP, and IBM
machines. The lab would initially house 85 software professionals. Yukio Ebino, general
manager, NEC, says, "We hope to use this dedicated Lab to launch new products related
to Middleware in the world wide market as well as provide 24-hour a-day, 7-days- a-week
support to NEC's worldwide customers. 
When the going gets tough, it's better to
start chanting enterprise-wide computing. Corporate India is doing exactly that. Many
firms are undergoing paradigm shifts in enterprisewide computing, which combines resource
planning and integration of manufacturing, distribution and financial applications,
messaging and electronic mail, usage of Internet technology within the organisation and
datawarehousing. Early this month, Arvind Mills Ltd (AML), the world's third largest denim
manufacturer, has gone live with the first complete SAP Mill Products implementation
covering the full textile manufacturing process from cotton to finished fabric. Setting an
industry benchmark, the implementation was completed in record seven months using
AcceleratedSAP. 
