Monday, June 18, 2001		Newsscape

Intel Corp says it has made a research breakthrough that could sharply boost the speed of computer chips and extend the semiconductor industry’s pace of innovation for a decade, says a Dow Jones report published in The Economic Times. Intel researchers have built transistors for microprocessors and other logic chips that are just 20 nanometres wide, or four times wider than a single atom! The microscopic components are 30 per cent smaller and 25 per cent faster than transistors previously developed in Intel’s labs, and nearly 1000 times faster than transistors on the company’s fastest commercial chip.

The world’s leading mobile phone makers and operators announced on Wednesday an industry-wide initiative they hope will bring true Internet functionality to next-generation cell phones and lay the ghost of past failures. The Mobile Services Initiative hopes to introduce an open software and hardware standard within mobile Internet in a bid to avoid the fiasco that surrounded the first attempt at mobile Internet, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), reports Reuters. Although the WAP standard was widely adopted in the industry, it proved far too slow and cumbersome and few worthwhile services were offered. The new initiative would allow the faster GRPS networks, now being rolled out in some regions, to offer consistent high-quality mobile Internet.

Wipro has been placed among the top 100 companies in the world while Infosys Technologies and VSNL are among top 200 firms on the list compiled by Business Week, says a PTI report from New York.

Wipro occupies the 87th position. Infosys is placed at 102 and VSNL at 143 in the rankings published in the latest issue of the magazine. The ranking is based on the most recent annual sales and earnings, revenue growth rate and return on equity among other factors, the magazine said.

Leading portal Rediff.com India and Standard Chartered banking group today signed a pact to provide retail banking services, including information on deposits, loans and mutual funds on the Internet. Users will be able to directly interact with the bank and make request for products at standardchartered.rediff.com, a PTI report quoted Standard India chief executive Harpal Dugal as saying. The bank would pay charges to the portal for the business garnered through the Web site.

After bandwidth, it’s the co-location and Web hosting services offered by Internet data centres (IDC) that are likely to get commoditised, says an Economic Times report. Rising competition among data centre players and low utilisation of their existing facilities have forced them to offer hosting and co-location services at rates much lower than before. Basic services like hosting form the core business for most operational data centres. "Anything that is standard and not value added will become a commodity in future. And, therefore, basic services call for a reduction in price," says Sharad Sanghi, director, Netmagic Solutions, a Mumbai data centre operator.

Indian export of electronics and computer software is estimated to touch $ 8.08 billion in 2000-01, accounting for 15 per cent of the country’s overall export earnings, the minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Mr Omar Abdullah, said while addressing a seminar on foreign investment opportunities in Italy, reports The Hindustan Times. The export of computer software during 2000-01 grew by about 47 per cent over the previous year to $5.98 billion.