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Gartner: Domestic IT spending to cross US$54bn by 2008
Mumbai: Recording a 19 per cent annual growth, Indian information and communications technology (ICT) spending is poised to surpass US$54.8bn by 2008, from US$29.5bn posted in 2004, according to a study by Gartner, the global research firm.

According to the firm, ICT exports from the country, including IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing (BPO), will be worth US$16.5bn by the end of 2005.

"The growth of Indian ICT market will be driven by a combination of factors like the economic upswing of the country, the government policies and an expected increase in foreign direct investment (FDI)," Partha Iyengar, vice-president (research), Gartner India Research & Advisory Services, said.

Presenting the study at the curtain raiser press conference to the Gartner Summit India, 'Conquering IT Complexity', he said the emergence of Indian companies as global entities in the Fortune 500 list would also be a main driver.

Telecom would be the most dominating sector, followed by hardware, IT services and computer software.

On the export of ICT from the country, Gartner estimates application outsourcing to be one of the main drivers in helping the country post US$16.5bn by 2005-end. This will be followed by IT services and high-end BPO, and these sectors are poised to grow at 35 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively by the end of 2006.

At present, domestic vendors account for 42 per cent of the market share as opposed to 58 per cent held by foreign vendors. This, Gartner warned, is likely to "slip even further by 2008", if Indian vendors do not focus on the domestic market opportunity.

"If Indian vendors have no standing in the local market and do not compete for higher-end deals domestically, it will hamper their prospects in pursuing similar deals in global markets," Iyengar said.

There is a lack of management vision and clear mindset among domestic vendors, which are hampering their growth prospects, it said. However, this would change and the domestic market will emerge in the 2008-2010 period, if the overall economy continues to post a strong growth.

'Conquering IT Complexity', a two-day event slated to open on Tuesday, will focus on the future of technology, software as a service, BPO, security and business intelligence, benefits realisation and costs of outsourcing.
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Ratan Tata: Tata Group to be a good corporate citizen around the world
Mumbai: India's largest corporate house Tatas, on Monday said it was waiting for Islamabad to open its doors for Indian businesses.

''I am hopeful that sometime in the near future Pakistan will open up the possibility for Indian business. When it does, we will be there in the automotive business, in the hotel area and in the software area,'' Tata group Chief Ratan Tata said.

''We believe that we can establish viable businesses in Pakistan, even joint ventures with Pakistani companies to serve that country's economy,'' he said, exuding confidence that Tatas could add value and create jobs in Pakistan.

On the group's expansion in neighbouring China, Tata said: ''In hotels, we have been endeavouring to do that. In software, we are already there. In automotives, we have some agreements but we have not seen that much action so far.''

Emphasising that Tatas would like to see the group's presence in all the countries, where it enters, as an ''enterprise in that country, working with that country and not against that country.''

Elaborating on the group's philosophy on international business expansion, he said he would be ''most satisfied'' if the group was remembered as a corporate citizen that really contributed to the growth and development of a country and ''not one that took away from that country for our prosperity somewhere else.''

The group's philosophy was to ''partner those countries in infrastructure, in development, in bringing knowledge, in collaborating in new fields; just to be as nationalistic in Bangladesh for Bangladeshis or in Vietnam for the Vietnamese as we would be in India,'' Tata added.
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Tata Steel and Nippon Steel sign MoU for Orissa plant
Bhubaneswar: Tata Steel and the Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC) of Japan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for Tata's proposed six million tonne per annum steel plant in Kalinganagar, Orissa. According to B Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel, the company chose to partner with Nippon Steel as it is the best steel technology company in the world.

Under the agreement, NSC will provide technical assistance to Tata Steel, which will ensure the selection of the most appropriate facility in planning and layout of the proposed steel plant.

H Shima, managing director, NSC, said the company is happy to collaborate with Tata Steel because it is the topmost steel technology company in India and also because of its rich experience in steel making since the turn of the century.

Tata Steel has partnered with NSC in the recent past for the 1 million tonne and 2.4 million tonne growth plans and the cold rolling (CR) mill in its Jamshedpur steel works in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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Tatas looking at sustained growth in overseas business
Chennai: Tata Groups internationalisation of its select businesses was aimed at making them competitive in the global market, Executive Director, Tata Sons, Alan Rosling has said. He said that the group was aiming at sustained growth in its overseas operations over the next couple of years.

"In the last couple of years, revenue from overseas operations doubled from US$ 2.2bn in 2002-03 to US$4.5bn in 2004-05. We expect the same growth rate in the next couple of years too," Rosling, told reporters here. Total revenues for the group stood at about US$18bn.

Rosling said that the Group was taking select businesses to the international market to make them competitive in approach, offerings and staffing. TCS had truly become an international company and it was competing against companies like IBM, he said.

Rosling said that about 90 per cent of the international business would flow from five companies — TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Tea and Hotels in the near future. "After a few years, we will see more group companies going international in a significant way," he said.

Of the total of US$4.5bn revenue from overseas operations last year, TCS contributed about 40 per cent, while 15 per cent each was from Tata Steel and Tata Motors and the balance from other operations.
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First indigenously developed optical fibre amplifier launched
Kolkata: The country's first indigenously developed optical fibre amplifier, used in cable TV networks and telecommunications systems, has been launched here for commercial applications.

The Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI), Kolkata, and Network System Technology Group (NeST), Cochin, have jointly developed the device.

Work on the complete integration of multiple fibre devices has been carried out jointly using erbium doped optical fibre developed by CGCRI and the same has been tested in a test bed that is created especially for the purpose. A few units of the developed devices have been successfully deployed by some cable TV network systems in Kolkata and Mumbai.

According to CGCRI, the ongoing fibre optics programme and the development of the amplifier devices have been funded by the CSIR Network Project that falls under the aegis of the Tenth Plan Programme of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Javad K. Hassan, Chairman and CEO of the NeST Group of Companies, said the innovation is a "giant step in the development of hardware infrastructure technology which is crucial to the development of India in today's information age." He stressed upon the significance of hardware technology development and said the focus should be on development of cost-effective applications that would facilitate telecommunications, telemedicine and e-governance.

Dr Hassan said India must compete with China in the hardware arena and develop better quality hardware products if it has to stay ahead of competition.
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IDEB Construction and Chinese construction major sign MoU for domestic projects
Bangalore: IDEB Construction Projects Pvt Ltd has signed an MoU with Shanghai Urban Construction Group Ltd for taking up large infrastructure projects such as the construction of bridges, roads, tunnels, highways and Metro Rail in India.

Shanghai Urban Construction is one of the largest construction companies in China with a turnover of US$1.6bn.

IDEB, with a turnover over Rs200 crore, has already undertaken major projects such as a water supply project, bridges on National Highway 4 & 5, Delhi Metro Line and the construction of the PP Line & Cooling Tower at Reliance Petrochemicals, Jamnagar.

It has also undertaken projects such as the Sigma Malls & Sigma Soft Tech Park and residential development in Bangalore.
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Jaquar sets turnover target of Rs.350 crore
Hyderabad: Jaquar & Company, a leading player in bathroom fittings and kitchenware, has set a turnover target of Rs350 crore. Last year, the company registered a turnover of Rs260 crore.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Rajesh Mehra, Director (Marketing), said the company would open four more `display centres' by December-end taking the number to 21. "This will help us reach out all States," he said.

The company's products ranged from Rs4,000 to Rs40,000-50,000. The company catered to both the low-end and high-end market segments, he said.
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Hutchison Max to be renamed Hutchison Essar
Mumbai: Pan-India GSM wireless operators, the Hutch-Essar combine, are readying themselves for an Indian float. The company has now changed its name to reflect the consolidation of its five entities, under Hutchison Max Telecom Ltd (HMTL) earlier this year. The name of the company is now being changed to Hutchison Essar Ltd, said a news release from the group.

Essar Teleholdings' stake in Hutchison Essar is over 30 per cent. The Hutch-Essar subsidiaries include Hutchison Essar Mobile Services, Hutchison Telecom East, Hutchison Essar South, Aircel Digilink India and Fascel.

Having established itself as a major entity in the Indian mobile phone industry today, this consolidation reinforces the company's commitment towards further strengthening and expanding its services across the nation, said the release. The group has over 8.8 million subscribers in India.

Dennis Lui, Chief Executive Officer of Hong-Kong based Hutchison Telecom International, said, "This change in the name of the company is the next natural step in the consolidation of the various joint ventures that have resulted in this entity. Hutchison Essar Ltd will now further reinforce the company's presence in India. "

Hutchison Essar provides cellular services in 13 circles - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, UP East, UP West, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal.
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Airtel boosts capacity in Mumbai with additional switch
Mumbai: Airtel has installed its third switch in Mumbai, which will create capacity for an additional six lakh customers in the city and allow the handling of an additional one million calls during peak hours.

The additional switch will absorb the growing voice and data traffic and simultaneously offer a congestion-free network for prospective customers, said a news release from the company.

This third switch has been supplied by Nokia and will be located in Lower Parel, in south central Mumbai, and will bring in further redundancy to the Airtel network in Mumbai.

The other two switches are located in North Mumbai, in Malad. Airtel is also planning to increase the number of cell sites in Mumbai from 800 to more than 1,000 by the year-end, said a statement from Bharti Tele-Ventures.

Airtel Mumbai has a current customer base of 8,13,381 as of end July 2005.
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