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.
"We have signed an MoU with Cisco to make an investment in GIFT and help us evolve our technology platform. The American giant is likely to invest over $2 billion in the project," a top government official of GIFT said. Cisco is also expected to pick up some stake in the project. However, the details are still being worked and it will take about three-four months to finalise the deal, the official added.
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.
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.
The equations would take change completely in case a third front forms the government. Many experts feel that banking, insurance and healthcare will not be impacted whoever forms the government.
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.
As part of its focus on developing startups across the world, Goldman Sachs is looking at training and development of around 29 select women entrepreneurs in India.
Asked if it is looking at the Maruti 800 and the Chevrolet Spark segment, Nigel E Wark, executive director, marketing, sales and service, Ford India, said: "Yes, we will be launching the small car in this segment broadly, but there are sub-segments and this is where we will differentiate ourselves. We will be competing in the largest volume segment. India and China are the two markets where small cars are in huge demand and we will be focusing on these countries."
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.
RIL is aiming to revive its 350-odd outlets in Gujarat and Maharashtra by the end of April, followed by the rest of the country. The company may sell only these two products for some time. The company had closed all its 1,400-odd retail outlets through the country last year, after sales dropped drastically due to its inability to match the subsidised prices offered by state sector oil marketing companies.
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.
Now, watch customised election news on your TV. Big TV, a Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group venture, is launching election-based interactive services that will be provided by its content partner CNN-IBN.
Data from web analytic firm Comscore shows that last year, social networking traffic saw a surge of a whopping 51 per cent in India. Social games are simple games such as word puzzles, antakshari or quizzes. Also referred to as Gaming 2.0, this form of gaming does not require high-end PCs or 3D graphics. ComScore reports that networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace, iBibo and Hi5 draw maximum number of social gamers.
"Japan currently accounts for 5 per cent of our revenues but we see this touching 9 per cent in the next three years. Business from Japan grew almost 35 per cent last year and we expect healthy growth from this region," said Deepak Khosla, senior vice-president and head, Asia-Pacific. Patni company has been in Japan for over 10 years but, in the past two years, the momentum of deals has increased considerably.
In a bid to increase efficiency, telecom major Vodafone Essar is set to relocate over 1,500 of its employees to Ahmedabad from all over the country.
Analysts see HCL's Rs 1,780 crore deal with Reader's Digest and another half-a-dozen big deals signed in the past three months by Indian IT firms, encompassing both global and domestic markets, as evidence that the outsourcing story continues to progress as the best option for companies to cut costs in the current difficult economic environment.
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