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.
Indian operators offering BlackBerry services, top executives of Canadian telco Research in Motion (RIM), the company that owns the brand, security agencies and officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are expected to meet on March 14 to answer the concerns of security agencies in a bid to prevent having BlackBerry services terminated after the March-end deadline.
