Agrani may get Alcatel Space as shareholder
New Delhi: Media baron, Subhash Chandra’s ambitious satellite project, Agrani, is likely to see Alcatel Space Industries pick up a substantial stake. While company officials refused to comment, it is understood from reliable sources that a deal to this effect is shortly to be signed between the two companies.

Alcatel is also selling Agrani the C and Ku-band satellite that Agrani hopes to put in orbit in 2002. Chandra’s satellite dreams date back to 1998, when he tried in vain to put a Agrani satellite for satellite telephony in space.

The current project is a small part of the original mega-project and deals with primarily broadcasting aspects and public mobile radio trunking services.
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IBM to establish global test centre in Bangalore
Bangalore: Computer major, IBM, today announced the setting up a global test centre at Bangalore. This would make India the fourth country outside the US, France and Mexico to host a facility of this kind for the technology giant.

The India Test Centre was aimed to provide the best application software testing services to IBM units and its customers worldwide. The centre plans to recruit and train top-class practitioners in software testing and test methodology and create a pool of qualified software testing professionals.

The centre, besides being a clearing house for processes, methods and tools supporting the discipline of software testing, will also have teams that will work as an arm of its global software development teams, performing testing of software systems.

The applications will typically deal with areas like banking, industry, retail, transport and telecom.

The global test centre in Bangalore employs around 25 professionals. There are plans to ramp up this number to at least 100 by end 2001, making it one of the biggest testing facilities in the IBM family.
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Tektronix to increase India presence
Mumbai: US-based, measurement solutions major, Tektronix, has decided to increase its presence in the country and will invest more to cater to software development. The plans are to expand its existing Tektronix Engineering Development India team of engineers by 30 per cent per annum over the next three years.

With this the company will also augment its software development center located in Bangalore substantially. This is being done to coordinate product development with Tektronix engineers around the world.

Tektronix Engineering Development operations have helped Tektronix to leverage the 24-hour product development cycles on specific programmes. Its expansion will enable the US major to align software development with the company's overall strategy and operations.

Tektronix Engineering Development India began operations in 1997 with an initial investment in excess of $10 million. It functions under Software Technology Park scheme as a 100 per cent software exporter.
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Singhania family stake in Raymond to increase
Mumbai: After successfully completing the buy back program for which the company has spent so far Rs. 158 crore, the Singhania family has managed to increase its stake in flagship Raymond Limited from 27 per cent to 31 per cent.

Once the entire buy back program, of which 80 per cent is complete, is over the promoters’ stake is likely to go up 5 per cent. According to the family sources there was no further plan to increase the family's stake.

Sources said that increasing corporate takeovers through the open market route had prompted the company to opt for buy-back.
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Essar Refinery gives ABB 25 per cent stake
New Delhi: Swedish power equipment major, ABB Lummus, which is also the procurement and construction contractor for the Rs. 7,800 crore Essar refinery, has acquired a 25 per cent stake in the refinery for an estimated Rs. 585 crore.

Construction on the 10.5 million ton refinery project, financial closure for which has just been made, will begin next month, Essar Group chairman Shashi Ruia said on Friday The refinery is expected to go on stream in 18 months.

Construction work on the 10.5 million tonne capacity refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat would start early next month and as per the schedule, the refinery should go on stream in 18 months, he said.

Essar Group has 68 per cent stake in the project and the rest is held by financial institutions and the public.
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Cytrix Systems to acquire Sequoia Software
New Delhi: In an all cash transaction valued at $184.6 million, Citrix Systems, a global leader in application server software and services is set to acquire Sequoia Software Corp, a provider of XML-based portal software.

With this acquisition, Citrix will be positioned to deliver a more complete applications services platform — one that gives users secure access to any information source, business process or application whether it’s Web, Windows or Unix.
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Verisign’s mistake results in fake certificates
Seattle: A costly mistake by Verisign, the California-based digital certification authority, has resulted in an unauthorised party obtaining two digital certificates that would enable that party to falsely represent themselves as the software giant, Microsoft. Someone posing as a Microsoft employee was able to trick VeriSign into issuing the certificates.

Microsoft and VeriSign were working to correct the problem, both companies said. Users were warned to inspect for certificates that were issued on January 29 and 30, since no legitimate certificates were given on those dates, and to notify Microsoft or VeriSign if they discover them.

Microsoft also advised customers to set security levels to prevent viruses from being transmitted by e-mail in case the fraudulent program was opened.
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