Computers Today, May 16-31, 1999, Country Buzz, pg2

May 16-31, 1999 COUNTRY BUZZ

QAI India Allowed to Assess for SEI-CMM Quality Certification

Santhakrishnan Srinivasan Quality Assurance India (QAI) plans to offer the formal software CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Assessment in India, offering organisations the coveted Level1-Level5 rating. The formal CMM assessment, known as CBA-IPI (CMM Based Assessment-Internal Process Improvement), ascertains an organisation's maturity level on Software CMM, developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Carnegie Mellon University, USA.

Santhakrishnan Srinivasan, lead assessor, QAI (India) says, "The credibility of QAI worldwide would now be available to software companies in India at a much lower rate that what Indian companies were having to pay for a CMM Assessment earlier. Moreover QAI's wholesome experience in consulting and training is now supplemented by CMM Assessments, thereby offering full solution software process improvement package to organisations." QAI is the first organisation to deliver CMM Assessments commercially to third parties.

Assessments conducted by QAI (India) would be filed with SEI. To start with, the organisation plans to serve Indian and South East Asian markets, later extending its services to other parts of the world.

The formal CBA-IPI assessment is a unique combination of training and assessment. A formal assessment is spearheaded by a lead assessor, who is accompanied by 6-8 members of the organisation that is under assesment. This process usually takes about 8-10 days. All lead assessors have to be officially registered and authorised by the SEI to carry out any formal assessment.

Indian firms which have already been assessed at Level 5 of CMM are Motorola India Electronics Ltd, Wipro ECD, Wipro GE Medical Division, ICIL and Satyam Software Services. Some of the Level 4 companies in India are TCS (SEEPZ office), CITIL, COSL, DSQ Software and Cognizant Technology Services.

Paints Major Streamlines Supply Chain

India's foremost paint manufacturer, Asian Paints India Ltd (APIL), has selected i2's RHYTHEM solution to make its supply chain more reflexive and responsive. The implementation is being led by siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISIL), i2's first consulting partner in the country. The solution is within the RHYTHM e-Business Process Optimisation framework-a new class of decision intelligence software developed by I2 technologies. This implementation is expected to hike product velocity and optimise supply and distribution in Asian Paints' high volume system, creating value for the firm.

C-DAC Language Tool Brings Life to Set-top Arena

Mindport, a leading media commerce technology provider for electronic pay media, interactive applications and the Internet, has signed an MoU with C-DAC, who has developed a unique Indian Languages Embedded Subtitling System called LIPS (Language Independent Program Subtitiling). Both the companies will redesign the subtitle mastering station to incorporate the requirements of DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) authoring system. This will allow DVD-based programming to be broadcast via digital transmission through a multiplexer and received by a DVD compliant Set-top Box.

SUPPORT SERVICE
IT Companies Talk Support; Weary Customers Tune in

Sumeet Kapur Increasing competition, rising customer expectations and gobalisation. They are shifting the wheat from the chaff, For infotech firms who are looking at completely integrated and reliable solutions, these challenges to customer relationships are increasingly becoming critical. Which is why Oracle Corporation has launched their customer relationship management (CRM) applications in India. With this application, customer-responsive companies will be able to leverage Internet-enabled applications, unified customer interaction channels, such as call centres, the Web and direct sales force and customer intelligence to effectively grow their businesses and maintain profitable customer relationships.

The CRM solutions are mainly targeted at service intensive market segments such as financial services, telecom, power and engineering. Oracle's CRM works on the UNIX and NT platform. According to T. Srinivasan, director-sales, Oracle Software India, "Indian companies are in for a new set of challenges such as increasing competition, demanding customer expectations and globalisation. Oracle's CRM offerings cater to an emerging worldwide market worth $7 billion by the year 2000. New Delhi-based Global Groupware Solutions has launched its CRM solution-'Smiles' on the Lotas Domino R5 Groupware platform. The company plans to showcase the new offering on Lotus Notes Release 5.0 and Lotos Domino Super Human software on April 28-29 in Delhi. Sumeet Kapur, chief executive officer, Global Groupware Solutions says, "Smiles is a powerful answer to the problem of building seamless relationships with the customer without giving up the advantages of functional division along sales, commercial, and service line of the internal organisation." Smiles automates the entire sales, order fulfilment and the customer service processes of an organisation.

"The solution delivers to the end-customer, value through efficient and speedy service in the realm of dispatches and deliveries, post-sale support, complaint management and resolution. All the areas are interlinked with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the customer's individual and specific needs as well as long term plans and requirements, Itapur says. Smiles is available on Lotos Notes Domino's latest version R5 and leverages the full power of its messaging, data replication and workflow application capabilities to create a victual online system.

The application can be implemented by organisations in a wide array if industries from computer hardware to consumer durables and is internet and Intranet ready. Computer Associates Inc. (CA) has decided to expand its base in India by setting up a new support centre in Mumbai. The project, as pact of CA's $1OO million investment commitment made last year, is being launched to provide support to corporates in the SAAAC region. The support centre, to be completed by the second quarter of this year, will support telecom companies, especially those having call centres or complete telecom solution.

Aditi Tech Gets MS' Primary Vendor Status

Aditi Technologies has announced that is has been selected by Microsoft Corp. as one of its primary vendors to provide contingency staffing for temporary technical positions. This single two-year contract represents a revenue potential of $30 million over the next two years for Aditi.

The primary vendors are a select group of companies that Microsoft turns to when it requires experienced software engineers to cover sudden surges in its staffing requirements. Aditi is one of nine companies selected as primary vendors from a group of more than 20. This is the second successive year that Aditi has been awarded Microsoft's primary vendor status.

"What made Aditi stand apart from other firms was the fact that we provide engineers with a career path, and continue to challenge and grow both their technical and managerial skills, says Tarun Gulati, general manager, Aditi Development Services. Onsite development work plays an important role in Aditi's overall strategy.

Tata IBM Kicks Off New Software Product Initiative

The Software Group of Tata IBM Ltd, has announced new initiatives for its software products and solutions in the Indian market. The Software Group will focus on a wide range of solutions for E-business, business intelligence, network and systems management. Vishwesh Padmanabhan, vice president, Software Marketing and Solution Developer Marketing, Tata IBM, says, "We have created an integrated strategy for a highly diverse product line. Today, with IBM software running on the most popular operating systems, from Unix to Windows and Windows NT, we are set to become leaders in the openness movement.

He informed that IBM will address these segments with a three-pronged strategy based on new offerings, new partners and new commitments. IBM Software's new offerings will focus on solutions for Business Intelligence and Web Self Service (WSS). The solutions would be driven through specific marketing campaigns spread across the rest of this year. The product offerings include UDB Universal Database 5.2, Intelligent Miner and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). Towards extending its reach across the country, IBM as integrated its channels with the channel network of Lotus Corporation. This move will help IBM and Lotus brands leverage each other's distribution strengths.

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