A recent KPMG survey highlights the huge potential for banks to grow their market with the rise in mobile phone subscribers in India. The most profound impact of mobile banking and payment services is that they provide the non-banking population with access to modern financial services, giving them tools to improve their living standards. Innovative m-banking services are fast arriving in the market.
Partly an answer to downturn, political pressure; trend should shift again, say analysts.
Though it is smaller than the $11 billion BPO exports market, it is expected to reach $6 billion by 2012, according to a new Ernst and Young study. The domestic BPO market, hence, presents a huge untapped growth opportunity. Its addressable market opportunity is in the range of $16-19 billion by 2012, with significant business growth coming in from sectors like BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), telecom, media, retail and government.
Some employees have alleged that close to 20 employees of the troubled Satyam Computer Services have been promoted to the I-1 and I-2 bands (representing assistant vice-president and vice-president levels) and also received a salary hike of 20-40 per cent. The timing has caused much resentment with some employees taking up the matter with the human resources department.
India's second-largest IT services firm, Infosys Technologies, has set up a separate unit within its business process outsourcing arm (Infosys BPO) to concentrate solely on the domestic BPO market.
Not only have they been thriving for over 10 years in India alone, but also have stood their ground in the face of newer and smarter technologies like radio-frequency identification, which promised to revolutionise the retailing sector.
IIT Bombay, for instance, recently joined hands with Intellectual Ventures to seek support in marketing and licensing patents the institute holds.
"Nearly 83 per cent Indians have an online friend. Netizens are fast opening up to newer technologies such as instant messaging, social networking and texting that are being used to strengthen relationships to keep kids, parents and grandparents connected," said David Freer, vice- president (consumer business -- APAC & Japan), Symantec.
Sony is hopeful of growing the fledgling Rs 410 crore console gaming industry in India with games that will be developed in India and will be essentially based on Indian storylines. The journey has begun with the launch of the first India developed game for the PS2 platform, Hanuman: Boy Warrior, which is based on the hit Indian animation film Hanuman.
In an earlier interview, chief operating officer N Chandrasekaran had voiced this concern and said TCS was taking some measures. The impact was also evident on the overall revenue contribution, which fell to 4.7 per cent in FY09 from 5.2 per cent in FY08. TCS' head for Apac, Girija Pandey, feels the region will continue to be volatile till they reach a certain level.
Driven by their dream to start their own venture, they almost scandalised their families when they launched a company Tachyon in 2000, right after college with a paltry investment of Rs 400,000.
New Delhi-headquartered IT services provider HCL Technologies plans to cancel hedging contracts worth $600 million (around Rs 2,970 crore), as the rupee continues to remain at Rs 49-50 levels. These hedges, analysts opine, would be taken at a rate of around Rs 41.
Having spent the first 90 days meeting employees and key clients, Jeya Kumar, new CEO of Patni Computer Systems, is clearly in control. While he acknowledges concerns due to the current slowdown, he has started restructuring the company. He details the growth plans in a chat with Business Standard's Shivani Shinde.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
If you have been using the same old mouse on your computer for a long time, then you might be surprised to learn the new features that a new mouse sports. Optical and laser technologies are fast replacing the rolling ball that used to adorn the underbelly of the old mouse.
Over the next three to five years, according to a Credit Suisse report, these cheap laptops and netbooks could add 170-250 million units globally to the current figure of around 300 million units. Netbooks sales, alone, could be 25 million units in 2009.
Wipro sees a silver lining in Q1; others say recovery by 2009-end.
"We have reduced the time period for improving skills. Earlier, if an employee would show even a small improvement, we would give an extension of a few more months. Henceforth, that will not be done," said Ajoy Mukherjee, vice-president and head, global human resources. The company will consider an employee's performance for the past three years so as to maintain consistency.
According to a survey conducted by the Deloitte and Data Security Council of India, 37 per cent of wireless networks had no encryption at all, followed by 49 per cent using a lower-level protection like Wired Equivalent Privacy encryption and just 14 per cent using security layers like Wi-Fi Protected Areas (WPA and WPA2) to secure their networks.
Disney Publishing Worldwide (India), a division of Walt Disney Company (India), has announced a licensing agreement with local publisher Junior Diamond to publish Disney comic books, both in English and Hindi.
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