Monday, July 29, 2002		Companyspeak

Cisco Systems has announced the launch of its latest generation of IP phones - the Cisco IP Phone 7905 series- in India. Cisco IP Phone 7905 brings state-of-the-art technology to voice communication solutions for businesses, corporates and mass usage like in those at PCO’s, SOHO and Homes. Cisco IP Phone 7905, also called the Little Dragon, is based on Cisco’s AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data). This launch comes in the wake of the latest developments in the telecom arena with the introduction of IP Telephony. It is a full-feature IP phone aimed primarily at addressing the needs of enterprise and mass users. The 7905 delivers essential business communications by providing the most frequently used business features - such as instant updates on stocks, quote of the day, weather or any other Web-based information. Other key services provided are video conferencing and collaboration and other value-added options such as prioritising calls received, calling party name and number, calls received, missed calls and dialled calls etc. - in an easy-to-program and easy-to-use platform, at a touch.

CSG Systems has announced that it was selected as the exclusive billing and customer care subcontractor to support India’s government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) launch of GSM mobile services to more than 4 million subscribers. CSG was selected as a subcontractor for the comprehensive contract awarded by BSNL, the governmental agency in charge of delivering wireline and mobile telecommunications services throughout India. The contract that entails the construction and ongoing support of a GSM mobile infrastructure in south zone, was awarded to Motorola. In addition to CSG, the contracts include other hardware, networking and software companies necessary to build the infrastructure needed to support these services. CSG is working with the lead contractor selected by BSNL in the South zone to provide end-to-end billing and customer care solutions.

NIIT, an IT training company, in a press release stated that it has introduced a special Swift package to celebrate the monsoon season. The monsoon offer consists of a 36-hour program. The learners enrolling between June 24 and July 31 will have an opportunity to win a computer as they get started with the IT and Internet literacy. Those enrolling would get a scratch card wherein they could win computers besides other assured gifts. The program is priced at Rs 2,749 and is available at all centres of the institute.

Port@l Net Services (PNS), a part of the UK-based Port@l Group, has announced its plans to set up three contact centres in India with 1000 - 1500 seat capacity over the next 12 months. The company is looking at investing approximately $ 7.5 million into the Indian market and will in the first phase of its India operations use Port@l’s proprietary ‘Reverse Hosting’ model to lease 750 seats from existing call centre units located in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The report found that the call centre industry development in India is highly speculative and that approximately 74 per cent of newly built call centre capacity in India was currently being under-utilised. Given the problems of under utilisation and lack of quality standards, the Reverse Hosting model has been introduced by Port@l Net Services. In India it will allow the company to negate the existing imbalances in the Indian operating environment, while simultaneously allowing it to leverage off the inherent advantages for ITES that the country offers.