 |
|
Oracle identifies mid-sized firms as growth area
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cenzer watch unit
in HP next year Tata group to set up hotel in Haryana
Women can submit Form 15H
Bull-run to continue
|
|
Oracle identifies mid-sized firms as growth area
New Delhi, December 21 “Mid-sized companies are a key focus area for Oracle in India. With a rapid implementation methodology and affordable pricing, which is further enhanced with the use of Linux on Intel platform, the Oracle e-Business solution will enable these companies in India to achieve critical business control and decision-making quickly and cost-effectively”, Managing Director of Oracle India Shekhar Dasgupta said in an interview. Besides mid-sized companies, the other focus areas are Linux and e-governance. On the company’s strategy on Linux, Mr Dasgupta said the domain expertise about running Oracle on Linux for enterprise class deployment and the opportunity to drastically reduce IT infrastructure costs has provided the catalyst for Oracle to move to the next step which is to “provide front-line technical support for the Linux operating system”. Linux is “an open, secure and stable operating system” which a large number of organisations, including those in the government across the globe (including India), have adopted as the platform of choice. “The key benefits of Linux being security, reliability and performance at lower cost. Like elsewhere in India, the low cost of ownership of Linux OS is offers a great advantage for small and medium size businesses for running their
enterprise application. It is also becoming a preferred platform in high-end computing areas where security is paramount — the defence sector. It is already a very popular development platform”, he said. In India, in particular, Mr Dasgupta said, Linux can play a major role in education and e-governance and “Linux is more attractive today than it ever was, as customers are looking for cost-effective solutions”. On the e-governance initiatives Mr Dasgupta said “the success of e-governance projects depends on the leadership; it depends on who is driving the project”. Mr Dasgupta identified four sectors where there is going to be large IT spendings. “The four sectors are the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom, e-governance and manufacturing. While the first three are growing very fast the last one has shown encouraging revival signs. We are closely focussing on these four sectors and we believe most of the IT spending will happen here. The other sectors to watch out for are the pharmaceutical and infrastructure sectors”, he said. On the growth of the company in India, he said India is Oracle’s fifth-largest market in Asia in terms of revenue, up from tenth two years ago, “and can lay claim to the largest research and development investment outside the US”. Oracle India, which began its operations in India through a distributorship with a local partner in 1987, today has 3,700 employees. “We plan to grow to 4,000 by the 2004”, he said. The company will “continue to grow the development centres” and has recently started work on a wholly owned campus in Hyderabad. The company set up its India Development Centre (IDC) in Bangalore in 1994 followed by its second development centre in Hyderabad. Last year Oracle and H-P opened an “e-governance centre of excellence” in Gurgaon to support e-governance initiatives by “central, state and local government bodies”. The developer community plays an important role in popularising Oracle technology. “For Oracle the development community is divided into three groups — in house development teams of organisations, those who are a part of formal software development organisation and the third is more or less a floating population best identified in individual capacities”, he said. The developers act as “force-multipliers for the go-to-market
strategy". "The partner community creates what we call the Oracle Economy (services and products around the Oracle programmes), which is typically seven to eight times the Oracle licenses."
|
Hughes Soft to hire 1,000 New Delhi, December 21 “We will add 1,000 more professionals next year to work on communications software, including next generation applications, among others to our current strength of 2,200”, Arun Kumar, President and MD, Hughes Software Systems, told PTI here. “We have already hired 400-500 so far,” he said. The company is moving towards meeting its forecast of 60 per cent growth in revenue and 80 per cent growth in the net profit by the end of the current fiscal. In October, the company had revised its net profit guidance for the year 2003-04 to approximately 80 per cent from the earlier 60-70 per cent but retained the earlier sales growth forecast of 55-60 per cent during the year. While admitting that there is a huge competition at the bidding stage in million dollar contracts, he said there is no pricing pressure with established customers while adding that the company has bid aggressively for the Lucent deal which is believed to be in the region of $ 100 million. In September, Hughes bagged a multi-million dollar deal from Lucent for the supply of software and services for 3G mobile equipment to Lucent Technologies.
— PTI
|
|
|
Cenzer watch unit in HP next year
New Delhi, December 21 “We are planning to set up a new manufacturing unit in Himachal Pradesh, which, we expect, will be operational in early next year. We have already acquired a plot for the facility,” Mahendra, CEO of Cenzer Industries Ltd, said here. The facility will focus on manufacturing Cenzar brand of watches and Bistec brand of calculators. “The investment is expected to be about Rs 5 crore. The facility will have a capacity of 7,000-8,000 pieces each for watches and calculators,” he said. The Cenzer group and its associates are engaged in the manufacturing, import, marketing and export of a range of products including watches, dials, electronic calculators, digital diaries and personal digital
assistant (PDAs), and also basic and caller ID phones. The group claims to have a turnover of Rs 100 crore and has nine manufacturing facilities with over 600 workers.
— PTI
|
Tata group to set up hotel in Haryana
Jamshedpur, December 21 Talking to reporters here, Mr Chautala said in a recent development the country’s major industrial house, the Tata group, had decided to invest around Rs 200 crore to set up a five-star hotel near Gurgaon and it had already acquired 10 acres of land for this purpose. The Tata group will also impart computer education from standard sixth in the government schools in the urban as well as rural areas in a bid to make the students computer savvy. Mr Chautala, who came here to attend a business meet organised by the Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation, will also meet Tata Steel Managing Director B Muthuraman. He further said though Haryana is basically an agriculture-based state, it also had the investment opportunity in other sectors as the state can provide a good infrastructural facilities. He said a rapid industrialisation is taking place in the state, which is placed second in the country as far as industrialisation is concerned.
— UNI
|
by Lalit Batra
Bull-run to continue
The stock market ended yet another bullish week, with the Sensex closing at 5,541, a new 46- month high. The 30-share Sensex surged 225.54 points last week. The broader S&P CNX Nifty index gained 79.65 points, to settle at 1,778.55. The buying frenzy was brought about by the news of the government’s decision to hike FDI limit in private sector banks, the decision to allow PSU oil companies to sell their cross-holdings, arrest of Saddam Hussain and India, Pakistan talking peace again. An upgrade on the outlook of India’s long-term foreign currency rating by Standard & Poor’s from ‘negative’ to ‘stable’ reflecting the nation’s improved external finances also boosted the market sentiment. The undertone of the market remains firm as the corporate fundamentals continue to be strong. The third quarter results of corporate India will start trickling in from early January, 2004. These will reflect the impact of a good monsoon and so they are expected to be encouraging. At the current juncture, while the index levels have doubled in a short time (April ‘03-till date), the gains going forward will be much more stock, sector-specific and at a relatively relaxed pace. The market movement from now will be based more on the earnings delivered by India. Investors must stick only to the stocks of top-rung companies in the industry and avoid the business they do not understand.
FMCG
FMCG stocks were among the key gainers on the bourses last week. The sudden interest build up towards the sector can be attributed to the valuations of the FMCG sector which seems attractive. Considering the fact that the effect of monsoon on the economy is generally felt with a lag effect of six months to one year, the potential upside for the sector seems encouraging since it has been a laggard in this rally. The companies to look for in this sector are Dabur, HLL and Gillette.
Cement
Cement stocks also attracted some buying during the week on the back strengthening of cement prices in the western markets. The producers in Gujarat have hiked cement prices by almost Rs 25 per bag. This augers well for producers in the state as they were suffering on account of the prices falling below the Rs 100 bag mark. With the increase in prices, the manufacturers have more than one reason to cheer as the demand has also picked up in the post-monsoon period. L&T led the rally in the sector. The stock surged a whopping 14 per cent last week to Rs 498.25. Gujarat Ambuja Cements (GACL) and Grasim also surged. There have been indications in the media that cement markets have formed a cartel again, prompting production cuts in order to push up prices.
Reliance
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries surged on hectic buying by FIIs and retail investors. The stock surged 6 per cent last week to settle at all-time high of Rs 520.40. A couple of announcements are due from RIL in the coming days. These concern setting up of petrol pumps and the launching of a pre-paid card. The market has been abuzz with rumours about the launch of a pre-paid cary by Reliance Infocomm by the end of this month. RIL holds a 45 per cent stake in Reliance Infocomm, a new company.
|
bb
Work on Koldam project from Jan 14 H-P printers sale Hardware exports |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
New Delhi, December 21
Designer
Sabyasachi Mukherjee unveils his Fall-Winter collection at Carma Fashion
Store in New Delhi.
(
