Computers Today, October 1-15, 2000; Country Buzz, pg3

Delhi-based XO Infotech Ltd, a leading contract manufacturer of PC motherboards and cards for electronic devices, plans to expand its business operations by infusing Rs 5 crore in R&D and new equipment acquisition. The $10 million XO Infotech will set up more service centres in Indian metros for catering to the customers' requirements. The firm has also bagged orders from Lucent Technologies for supplying its specially designed exchange cards.

Varun Talwar, joint managing director, XO Infotech Ltd, said, "As the domestic market for computer motherboards is increasing exponentially, we are concentrating on the domestic market. We have successfully faced competition mainly from Taiwanese firms in the PC motherboard segment." The firm plans to increase its production level from its current 15,000 motherboards to 30,000 in a few months' time. Apart from XO's existing service centres in Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad, it has plans to open service centres in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Calcutta.

Dell to Turn Bangalore Centre Into Customer Support Facility

Dell Computer Corp. is likely to convert the Bangalore call centre facility into a global customer support services centre. The call centre, which is being set up with 100 people initially, will be expanded "after looking at all the feasibility studies and would be made into a global call centre", the company said.

The call centre would be operational by the year-end. This would be apart from the Dell subsidiary that is being planned in the country. The company is all set to introduce its Dell Direct model in the country soon. Ron Goh, vice president (Asia), Dell Computer Corp., during his recent visit to Dell Asia Pacific Customer Centre in Penang, Malaysia, said, "India is a huge market and is now opening up. Apart from the Dell Direct model, we are also in process of establishing a support centre in Bangalore. This will be made into global customer support, sales and marketing centre after our preliminary study."

IT-enabled Services to Gross $18 b by 2008

IT-enabled services are today permeating every element of the value chain, providing tremendous opportunities for Indian players to offer remote services to big players, especially in the West. Employing 45,000 people, the sector grossed a revenue of Rs 2,400 crore during the last fiscal and has the potential to earn up to $18 billion by 2008, says a survey conducted by NASSCOM-McKinsey report 1999.

To highlight this fact and help firms tap the vast opportunities lying at the doorsteps of India, NASSCOM organised a two-day conference in the capital last fortnight. "IT-enabled services: IT opportunity of the millennium for India" was the theme of the conference "India IT-enabled services 2000". Speakers at the conference said that India needed to build a brand for itself and expand the range of services, particularly to animation. Marc Vollen- weider, principal at McKinsey, said in the IT-enabled service business, customers were the key and not infrastructure. "Many Indian firm lacked understanding of potential customers. Besides, they do not have access to appropriate levels in customer's organisation," he said.

TELECOM & ISP
Wipro Unveils B-to-B Digital Marketplace for IT Industry

Wipro Corp. has launched a B-to-B IT digital marketplace, 01markets.com. The portal provides a platform for buyers and sellers to transact and offer a wide range of marketplace services. Wipro has also announced that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission covering a proposed public offering of 2,750,000 American depository shares, representing 2,750,000 equity shares. At 01markets .com, the procurement services allow customers to choose from a wide range of IT products and brands.

01markets.com provides content services by being a one-source for all information on IT and has tied up with Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, 3Com, Indiatimes, Itspace, BusinessLine and Internet News as partners for bringing the best of case studies, white papers and articles to the IT customer. Suresh Vaswani, president, Wipro Infotech, said, "Competitors are globally collaborating in a fundamentally different manner than ever before to form industry-wide exchanges in segments as varied as automotive, aerospace, cement and IT. The portal will be a single-point service provider for the IT community through multiple services like market-making, support, procurement, payment and logistics services for customers."

Sify Sets up Web Hosting Facility

Satyam Infoway Ltd (SIFY) has launched its first Web hosting centre at Vashi, Mumbai. It has also announced plans to invest up to Rs 160 crore over the next one year to expand its Internet operations, including rolling out new E-commerce strategies, in the country. "With the hotting up of the Internet market, it becomes imperative to invest further for strengthening our infrastructure and for rolling out new brand-building exercises," said SIFY president and CEO George Zacharias.

According to him, the hosting facility would cater to the requirements of Indian corporates and businesses. "Satyam's endeavour is to offer India's largest hosting infrastructure to customers, with world-class facilities." He added the centre has been designed to act as a reliable and scalable facility to host mission-critical applications.

Dishnet Registers 1 million Internet Subscribers

Internet service provider Dishnet DSL Ltd has announced that it has registered more than 1 million paying users, mainly aided by its network of browsing cafes. "DishnetDSL iis the first company to reach 1 million users mark, including over 800,000 people visiting our hub centres and paying to spend an hour or more on the Internet," said C. Sivasankaran, Dishnet's founder and chairman of Sterling Infotech group. The company has also announced plans to lay a 2.5 terabits per second submarine cable between Singapore and Chennai to add substantial bandwidth availability for Indian technology companies.

Dishnet, which launched India's first broadband digital subscriber line (DSL)-based Internet service in January 2000, said the subscriber base for its dial-up access service crossed the 215,000 mark earlier last month. Dishnet plans to raise up to $350 million through an issue of 1.6 million American Depositary Receipts later this year. Dishnet is closely chasing Satyam Infoway, India's leading private sector ISP, which had about 250,000 subscribers.

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