"While telecom operators may get a licence for spectrum and have the money to build networks, they may not necessarily have the management skills. We are in talks to explore possibilities of knowledge transfer and help operators build capacities by lowering entry barriers," said Barry West, CTO, Sprint, and president, Xohm. Globally, Sprint is not doing well. It is now banking on WiMax to boost its revenues.
The industry experienced new pressures on its operating margins and sales in the wake of increasing input costs and new excise regime. For the domestic spirits manufacturing industry, the cost of raw materials such as molasses doubled since March. Packaging costs rose by 15-20 per cent. The widening of services tax resulted in 50 per cent new services to be taxed at 12.36 per cent. Besides an increase in labour costs, inflation also played havoc with the operating margins.
"The 33 per cent extra scheme by Frito-Lay's on Lay's and Kurkure got good trader and consumer response. In the next four-six weeks, a similar scheme will be offered by ITC," market sources said. ITC has been able to capture 7 per cent of the chips and snacks sector in 2007 within a year of its launch. "It has already made a dent in Frito-Lay India's share," according to a Euromonitor International study on sweet and savoury snacks in India.
Media-buying and advertising agencies are a worried lot. The last quarter was bad for them with overall advertising, across all media, dipping by 10-20 per cent.
The total wine market in the country consists of 1.2 million cases, according to an industry estimate, of which the imported wine segment is a mere 22,000 cases or 20 per cent. Champagne Indage -- one of the biggest domestic players and producers of domestic wine under the Chateau Indage umbrella -- recently launched Indage Vineyards to bring in contemporary and new range of wines from across the globe to India.
Talking about the company's portfolio expansion, APB-India CEO Ashwin Deo said, "Currently, we are looking at consolidating our presence and will look at introducing new products at various price points in the next eight to 10 months."
With India's two leading IT outsourcing companies, Infosys and HCL Technologies, vying to acquire the UK-based consulting firm Axon, SAP implementation is back in focus.
Eyeing to make 8 buys to meet their revenue guidance.
The Olympics have come a long way since the first one in Athens where athletes alone mattered. Over a century later, technology too is helping athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics games to smash records.
Can security agencies arrest you if an e-mail sent from your computer implicates you in a case of cyber-terrorism? Currently, the answer appears to be "yes" despite the fact that e-mail IDs can be spoofed (faked) and IP addresses (your computer's identity when surfing) manipulated with ease.
The uproar against outsourcing work to Indian IT service providers has risen once again as Nielsen Co, the media company which signed a $1.2-billion outsourcing deal with Indian IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services last October and is facing strong criticism for announcing it, would lay off 117 workers this month at its largest global technology centre in Oldsmar, Florida. It has 1,700 employees at this facility.
Mark-to-market losses due to the unexpected fall of the rupee against the US dollar, euro and pound; the impact of wage increases in the first quarter; a stagnant global economy; and margin pressure owing to inflation are expected to impact the rupee-term fortunes of Indian IT firms that will declare their quarterly results for the April-June 30 quarter beginning this week.
The contentious issue of software patents is rearing its head again, both in India and globally. The Indian Patent Office, for instance, invited companies and institutions to comment on its Draft Manual 2008 - Patent Practice & Procedure (software patents included) this April.
In another setback to software giant Microsoft, it will have to wait for "several months" before the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) can take a final decision on whether its Office Open XML (OOXML) file format will be an international standard or not.
The Finnish handset giant, however, has never been able to cope with the mystique that surrounds Apple CEO Steve Jobs' iPhone, which has been illegally imported and unlocked by hundreds of Indians -- corporate chiefs and celebrities included. Jobs has now announced a 3G version of the device with full global positioning system for just $199 (around Rs 8,400) for the 8GB model and $299 (Rs 12,600) for the 16GB version.
The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, has taken strong objection to the fact that despite a "No" to OOXML by a majority of the Bureau of Indian Standardsmembers, the software giant "continued to make representations to the top Indian leadership (read Ministry of Consumer Affairs), pressuring them to change the Indian vote".
Even as India's external affairs ministry has reportedly assured Canada that the Department of Telecommunications is trying to resolve the issue of a potential threat to India's security posed by BlackBerry phones, Research in Motion, the makers of the phones, said it is committed to addressing all aspects of the issue.
In the largest deal in the domestic information technology (IT) space, MindTree Consulting is set to acquire mid-tier outsourcing product development (OPD) and testing player, Aztecsoft, for around Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion). Both are Bangalore-based firms. Aztecsoft has over 2,200 employees and caters to the North American, European, Indian and Australian markets.
Hundreds of sellers of eBay have called for a global boycott of the online auction giant on May 1 over payment, pricing and feedback changes which they allege will hurt their profits. The sellers, for instance, are distressed that they can no longer give buyers negative feedback, and that eBay will increase the fees that are paid as a percentage of the final sales price. Their angst has spilled over social networking sites and forums like Myspace and Delphiforums too.
It's a $38-billion company with a touchingly simple ambition. Cisco wants to become a household name. Having sold over 80 million devices to consumers the world over, it no longer wants to be perceived as a boring company that only manufactures networking gear such as routers and switches. The ambition may sound soft but for Cisco, it is serious business.
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