Six directors resign from Reliance Energy board
Mumbai: Six directors of Reliance Energy Ltd have tendered their resignations from the board of the company, deepening the mystery surrounding the differences between the two Ambani brothers. No reasons were cited for their sudden resignation.

The directors who have submitted their resignations are: Satish Seth, Executive Vice-Chairman; K.H. Mankad, Whole-time Director (finance); S.C. Gupta, Whole-time Director (operations); J.P. Chalasani, Whole-time Director (business development); Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, Director; and Prof J. Ramachandran, Independent Director. While four of them are from the Reliance Industries fold, Prof. Ramachandran is a faculty member of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Reliance Energy communicated news of their resignation through a notice to the stock exchanges on Thursday afternoon.
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Anil Ambani: "Long hours and long days…"
Mumbai: The Vice-Chairman of Reliance Industries, Anil Ambani broke his silence on the Reliance ownership controversy yesterday through a brief statement to newspersons outside the Reliance corporate headquarters in South Mumbai.

He said: "I am sure you will appreciate that I have not spoken till now and I will continue in that mode. At an appropriate stage and time, when it is necessary and if necessary, I will again make a statement on other issues. There are long hours ... and there are going to be long days."

The resignation of six directors from the board of Reliance Energy will be considered and intimated to the stock exchanges at the appropriate time, he added.

The company would keep the stock exchanges, investors and the media informed of developments, Ambani said. "I am not going to comment on any other issue at this time."
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Rolls Royce CEO bullish on India
New Delhi: The seven-decade long partnership between Rolls Royce and the Indian market is to be further cemented in the coming years, seventy years after Rolls Royce sold its first aero engine to J.R.D Tata.

The Rolls Royce Chief Executive, Sir John Rose, told the media that the continuous economic success in the country was creating opportunities across the range for the company, which has had a long-standing industrial relationship with India.

"India is a place where we find a market for most of what we do. People are getting addicted to travel besides which demand for electricity is also going up," said Sir John.

The group focuses on providing power systems and associated services for use on land, sea and air.

Currently, India provides about £ 100 million of turnover annually to Rolls Royce, half of which comes from the civil aerospace business.

Sir John who has already met with the President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, apart from several Cabinet Ministers is schedule to travel to Mumbai and Bangalore for meetings with Ratan Tata and Azim Premji among others.
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Hyundai may hike prices in the coming year
Bangalore: Hyundai Motor India is planning to increase prices of all its models next year by 2-3 per cent.

The company has said that it is considering a move to increase the prices because of Euro 3 norms coming into effect next year and also because of rise in input and interest costs.

The price of Santro is expected to increase by Rs7,000-Rs8,000 and it will be effective from 2005. The increase in prices of other models will be around 2 per cent.
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Taj to spread wings abroad
New Delhi: The Taj group of hotels, which is keen to have a presence in London, New York and China, also plans to set up luxury apartments in various Indian cities including Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

The group has recently raised $150 million to fund overseas acquisition and upgrade properties.

Besides, the group will be setting up more budget hotels called Indione within the country and has already signed an agreement for four such hotels in Orissa.
The company plans to have at least 10-15 hotels every year.
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BHEL units bag awards
New Delhi: Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has bagged the CII-Exim Commendation for Business Excellence for its four manufacturing plants and one power plant.

BHEL is the only company where all the five participating units have received the award.

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and the Exim Bank of India have instituted the CII-Exim commendations jointly.
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Siemens clears three strategic investments
Mumbai: The Board of Directors of Siemens Ltd has approved three strategic investments - the amalgamation of Siemens VDO Automotive, Bangalore, into itself, 100 per cent acquisition of an industrial turbine company, and the acquisition of 51 per cent stake in a gas turbine servicing company.

The acquisitions will together cost around Rs25 crore.

Shareholders of Siemens VDO will be offered one share of Siemens Ltd for every 12 shares held, said Mr J. Schubert, Managing Director, Siemens Ltd, at a news conference here.

The industrial turbine company is a Rs250-crore business based in Vadodara, called Demag Delaval Industrial Turbomachinery Pvt Ltd (DDIT), which would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens. This would strengthen Siemens' portfolio in the area of industrial power plants, said the release.

Siemens will buy 51 per cent stake in Pimac Engineering and Services Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, which is into maintenance and servicing of gas turbines and a range of industrial applications. This would strengthen Siemens' service business. Siemens will purchase the remaining stake in the company in a phased manner, said a news release.
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Janapriya plans townships in Mumbai and Bangalore
Hyderabad: Janapriya Engineers Syndicate, a city-based housing construction company, has unveiled its plans to develop residential townships in Mumbai and Bangalore besides Hyderabad in the coming year.

The company's new projects include construction of independent duplex houses and luxury flats near Sainikpuri and Badangipet here and at Manisankari, Sukantadatta and Neelamangala in Bangalore. Janapriya has also acquired land for building a township in Mumbai.

The company, which had completed 20 years this year, has so far built 18,000 flats in Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Next year the company would start construction of luxury flats and independent duplex houses in a 22-acre site at Manisankari, Bangalore at a cost of Rs175 crores.
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Wipro survey: `More domain-specific work being outsourced'
Bangalore: US companies are sourcing industry and domain specific applications more than ever before, according to a recent survey conducted by Wipro Technologies.

The survey, administered at Wipro's Strategym Conference, held recently in New York, included data from over 80 senior management executives. The results showed that more than 40 per cent of the respondents were actively sourcing industry-specific domain solutions and another 42 per cent were piloting/researching the same with active interest, said a Wipro press release.

Specific domain/industry centric solutions that were being sourced included those in the areas of customer services (CRM, Business Intelligence); operational excellence (ERP, Supply Chain, etc.) and specialised industry solutions (RFID, Risk Management Solution, etc.)

Global sourcing is becoming vital for organisations across the world since it enhances value creation and increases competitiveness. The topic was explored in detail with over 80 senior management executives from the US end-user organisations, practitioner CXOs, industry experts and noted academicians.
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Printer sales up three per cent in Q3
Mumbai: The total printer sales in India was 3,49,000 in the third quarter of 2004; this is 2.9 per cent higher compared to the same year-ago quarter, and 3.5 per cent higher over the second quarter of 2004, said research firm Gartner.

The sales figures include dye sublimation, line and serial dot matrix printers, and single function inkjet and laser printers.
Among the vendors, Hewlett Packard continued to be the leader with a 37.2 per cent market share, which was however lower than its year-ago market share which was 44.8 per cent.

Epson, with a 23.7 per cent market share (18.8 per cent) and Canon with 12.1 per cent market share (11.5 per cent), were at positions two and three. "The major growth area in the market came from the serial dot matrix printer, which showed a 14.7 per cent increase over the last quarter as a result of printer replacements and increased consumer demands in different segments of the printer market in the third quarter," said Gartner.
The growth of the Colour page printer sales recorded an increase of 6.4 per cent over the previous quarter, and of 93.9 per cent over the year-ago quarter.
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HCL Info launches RP2 power support system
Hyderabad: HCL Infosystems, manufacturer of personal computers in the country with a marketshare of about 14 per cent has announced the launch of an innovative PC that addresses the major problem of power supply issue, particularly in the rural areas.

The RP2 system that comes with the entire range of HCL desktop PCs Infiniti Pro, Ezeebee, BusyBee and Beanstalk and serves as an interface between a PC and a car battery, making it the first such computer range in the country that ensures uninterrupted PC performance in all environments.

Developed in-house by HCL Labs, RP2 systems provides continuous power for eight hours making HCL desktop PC range the only one to have this kind of unique advantage. The system allows connectivity in remote locations, particularly in rural areas.

The HCL Group has recorded a total turnover of $980 million in the last fiscal ending June 2004, and expects this to go up by 25-30 per cent this year.
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LG forays into server market
New Delhi: The Korean major, LG Electronics India Ltd, has announced its foray into the server segment by launching its product for the `small and medium business' (SMB) segment.

The LG Pro Server is priced in the range of Rs54,000- Rs1.4 lakh. LGEIL is already offering a whole range of PCs catering to the varied market segments.

The company has an assembly line plant in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh near Delhi. The facility has a capacity of five lakh units. LG's current market share in the monitors and OSD segment is 34 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively. The turnover in the IT segment for the year 2003 was Rs450 crore.
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Nasscom team to visit Pakistan in December
New Delhi: The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) to increase bilateral trade during the first ever IT summit between the two countries in Islamabad next month.

Nasscom will lead a delegation of 20 Indian IT companies to Pakistan for the summit to be held from December 15 to December 18.

Led by Jerry Rao, Chairman, Nasscom, and Kiran Karnik, President, the delegation will comprise representatives from leading companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, HP Globalsoft, i-flex, Oracle, MphasiS, Xansa, NIIT, Computer Associates, Zensar Technologies, Mindtree Consulting, Wipro Infotech, Nucleus Software and Newgen Software Technologies.

Kiran Karnik said that Nasscom had been working with P@SHA to contribute to the growth and development of the ICT industry in both the countries. Earlier this year an IT delegation from Pakistan, led by P@SHA visited India during Nasscom 2004, the chamber's annual event for the sector. He said that taking this association forward, Nasscom would be leading a high level IT delegation to Pakistan to participate in the summit. The signing of MoU will also help provide a framework of co-operation for continuous interaction between IT companies in the two countries.
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MedScribe center to come up in Chennai
Chennai: The US-based MedScribe Communications Inc., which is into medical transcription business, would set up its own centre in Chennai for medical transcription and associated software development.

The $5 million company would begin operations on December 1 with a 20-member team, and expand it to around 100 by the end of first year. The number would increase to 200 in two years, the company said.

The company outsources work to four Indian firms (two in Chennai, and one each in Hyderabad and Bangalore), with bulk of the work going to two Chennai-based firms. Around 300 employees are doing medical transcription work for the company in India.

The cost for transcribing was $14 an hour in the US as against $175- $225 a month in India.
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