Monday, August 20, 2001		Newsscape

The Jamshedpur-based management institute, XLRI, will henceforth conduct its admission tests online right from the application stage as reported by The Hindu. Director XLRI P.D. Thomas told the daily that the electronic process would simplify the test process. Online application submission would be possible through the Web site www.xlri.edu. Students could go to their preferred exam centre, invariably Internet centres, with sufficient infrastructure. The test to be undertaken in January 2002 could be taken and answered by students online.

In a major restructuring, the consumer portion of Mantra Online’s ISP business will be split between Bharti Broadband Network Ltd — the Internet arm of the Bharati group and Bharti Telenet, which is engaged in basic telephony service, The Economic Times reports. Under the new arrangement, the consumer portion of Mantra Online’s business will become a part of Bharti Telenet’s basic telephony services offering and gradually cease to be a stand-alone business. For the dialup business of Mantra Online, Bharti Broadband will become a wholesaler for Bharti telenet selling it bandwidth and technology support, according to the newspaper.

Why would Honda Motor Co. the auto giant, launch an interactive video game. The answer in a word is branding, according to an agency report published in Hindustan Times. The report says that the game, to be launched next month, is just the latest effort by a big-name company to use online fun to build brand loyalty among tech-savvy Americans. Like the trend to place branded products in music videos and movies, branded online games were born of the idea that companies can build consumer loyalty by associating their brands with entertainment. Among the big names that now offer interactive games on their Web sites are Nabisco, Burger King and Kellogg Co.

Online instant messaging (IM) is fast becoming a hit in Asia with 7.7 million users, making the region a key battleground for industry players, an Internet monitoring firm said as pre an AFP report. IM usage across Asia soared 57 per cent to 7.7 million users as of June, from 4.9 million in January, the global Internet measurement company NetValue said. "The next online battleground is emerging - this time it's on the instant messaging front," NetValue said in a report. Hong Kong had the most IM users, with 65 per cent of the Internet population having the service. Singapore came in second with 50 per cent, NetValue said. But the growth of IM usage in the first six months of this year was highest in South Korea where it jumped 10 per cent.

Companies from India and South Korea will be setting up shops in Singapore to help start-ups from their own countries establish their businesses, The Straits Times said. These companies, called incubators, will aid start-ups by giving them some funds, advice on working conditions and offices to work from. The Indian facility will be set up soon by entrepreneurs from the sub-continent, and the South Korean one by a Korean venture capital company, according to Seto Lok Yin, director of the Economic Development Board. They also chose Singapore to make use of its good infrastructure, availability of IT talent and financial expertise, he said. Dr Clement Wang, acting director of the NUS centre for management of innovation and technopreneurship said: "We feel that by bringing the teams to Singapore, they will have a chance to explore the investment community in Singapore."