GAIL and Bangladesh's COSMOS sign MoU
New Delhi: GAIL (India) Ltd has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with COSMOS, Bangladesh for joint cooperation in the areas of NGL fractionation, gas processing and LPG projects in Bangladesh.

COSMOS is engaged in the areas such as oil and gas exploration, transmission and distribution and petroleum geology study.

GAIL has planned to take these projects on build-own-operate and transfer basis or any other criterion as offered by the Government of Bangladesh or the authorised agency. COSMOS will provide all the support required for timely, cost-effective implementation and statutory clearance of the projects.

COSMOS will also develop business opportunities involving GAIL's expertise in the areas of gas processing, LPG production, distribution and marketing for other private and public sector companies in Bangladesh.

GAIL and COSMOS, together will present consultancy services to Pertrobangla and its subsidiaries for design, development, operation and maintenance of NGL fractionation, LPG and gas processing plants, including upgradation of existing plants.
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Car sales dip while motorcycles sales shoot up in Feb.
New Delhi: The sales of passenger cars during February, 2005 slipped by 4.23 per cent. The drop is on the back of budget expectations and the subsequent fall in purchases.

In all 62,072 units of passenger cars were sold in the reporting period, down from 64,819 units posted in February 2004.

Meanwhile, due to improved performances by Bajaj Auto and Hero Honda, the motocycles segment continued to move upwards.

Motorcycle sales registered 16.89 per cent growth at 4,25,077 units last month as against sales of 3,63,655 units in February 2004
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Bomb hoax at Infosys
Bangalore: An anonymous call claiming that a bomb had been planted in the campus of software major Infosys set the IT major's campus aflutter but it turned out be a hoax.

A search was carried out at the campus of the Nasdaq-listed company with the help of the bomb disposal squad and sniffer dogs after the police control room received the anonymous call around midnight. The search lasted for a few hours but nothing was found.

Last week, a similar anonymous call at the office of another software major Wipro in Bangalore had also turned out to be a hoax. A Wipro employee was arrested within hours on March 9 and police quoted him as having said that he made the call to expose the lax security in software companies.

The incident had, however, created panic as it came close on the heels of Delhi Police uncovering a plot by Laskhar-e-Taiba militants to target software companies in Bangalore.
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Maruti to hike prices from April 1
New Delhi: India's largest automobile manufacturer, Maruti Udyog, will raise the prices of all its models by two to three per cent from April 1. The hike is being attributed to the rising steel prices following this year's budget proposals.

The proposed raise will be in addition to new pricing announced by the company for switching its cars to Euro III emission norms in eleven cities and to Euro II in other parts of the country, said sources.
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IDC: Mobile users looking for better operators
New Delhi: Thirty per cent of mobile subscribers are likely to shift to an operator offering better service, if given the option, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) India's Mobile User's Study.

The big plus that emerges from the study is the remarkable improvement in overall satisfaction scores of service providers over the last years. Two Global System for Mobile Services (GSM) operators - Aircel and Idea - have crossed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommended benchmark of 95 per cent on a 100-point user satisfaction scale.

"In Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), the surprise was the State-owned MTNL Garuda scoring better than the bigger and more visible brands Tata Indicom and Reliance," said IDC.

The areas of concerns include customer care and billing. The average waiting time while speaking to the customer care executive is five minutes, the study points out.

On billing, 23 per cent of the mobile users were a dissatisfied lot. Almost all operators had a high number of billing-related complaints. Users perceive wrong amounts being charged by the operator as the primary concern in billing. To make matters worse, for 43 per cent of the billing complaints, it took more than three days for operators to resolve issues.
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Xenitis Group launches Apna PC
New Delhi: The Xenitis Group has launched its 'Aapna PC' range of computers in Delhi and has said that it is setting up a PC components unit in West Bengal at a cost of Rs250 crore. The 'Aapna PC' range consists of desktops and laptops, with starting price of sub Rs10,000 and sub Rs40,000 respectively.

The lowest end desktop model is priced at Rs9,990 and has a Cyrix-based chip platform. The entire range is currently available in Eastern India under the brand name 'Amar PC,' and in the West as `Amchee PC.'

The company recently entered into a joint venture with China-based Unitek Computers Company Ltd., to manufacture computer cases & SMPS, media chips and peripherals like keyboard, mouse, CD ROM drives, CD-DVD drives, speakers and home theatres.

The new factory spread over 200,000 square feet area would come up at Chinsurah, West Bengal and would have a capacity of 1.25 lakh units per month. The company was eyeing revenues of Rs160 crore for the year ended March 2005.
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Web conferencing service launched by Microsoft
Bangalore: Microsoft India has launched MS Office Live Meeting 2005 and MS Office Live Communication Server, its Web conferencing and enterprise instant messaging server.

Microsoft's real-time communication offerings, as these technologies are called, will enable corporates reduce communication costs and improve productivity and efficiency by enabling workers, and corporate partners to talk, collaborate and conduct Web-conferences easily.

The Live Meeting allows participants to be called directly to join a meeting and allows presenters to mute, unmute, and disconnect participants from MCI, BT and InterCall audio-conferencing systems.

Internet Audio Broadcast lets users stream audio over the Internet using VOIP and so meeting participants need only the speakers on their PC to participate, the company said.

The company plans to launch the MS Starter, the stripped down version of Windows XP software, in India with local language capabilities by the middle of the year. Through OEMs at first and later through local assemblers, the company expects to sell its no-frills starter edition in Hindi first and later in other languages, according to the company.
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Newell & Budge buy out Momentum Tech.
New Delhi: UK-based IT consultancy and services company Newell & Budge has announced the acquisition of IT development firm Momentum Technologies and said it plans to add 100 professionals every six months in the "foreseeable future".

The company said that the acquisition was the next logical step in its offshore strategy. For over seven years the company had been working with Indian partners, and had delivered a number of very large projects in that time. The company said that by acquiring Momentum they had gained access to a highly technical offshore facility, which fully complements its current UK workforce. The company however did not disclose the size of the all-cash deal.

Following the acquisition, Momentum would become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Newell & Budge Group and would be the company's first offshore development centre.

Newell & Budge reported revenues of about $55 million in the year ended October 2004.
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