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Bill on outsourcing put off in USA
Now Reuters to outsource to India |
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Good times ahead for steel sector, says Fitch
Zee to raise $ 100 m
HCL creates jobs in UK
Ranbaxy launches diabetes drug in US
Sugar mills not to be sold GRAPHIC: INDIA'S
NATIONAL & PER CAPITA INCOME
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India hub for Linux initiative
Oracle clients adopt system
New Delhi, February 11 “This year will be the year of Linux in India. We see the
banking, government and education sectors leading the adoption of Linux
to run mission critical applications,” Oracle India Managing Director
Shekhar Dasgupta said. “Seven of our new customers — the Indian
Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, South Asian Petrochem Ltd,
Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDBI Bank, the Central Bank of India, the
Department of Treasury, Government of West Bengal and BSNL — have
recently chosen to run Oracle technology and applications software on
the Linux Operating System (OS),” Mr Dasgupta said. “By using
Linux we estimate 20-30 per cent savings on our total IT investments
each year. That will amount to close to a total of $ 4 million in
savings,” Mr K. Raghuraman, General Manager, Central Bank of India. APAC
2004 predictions from analyst firm IDC state that Linux is predicted to
have a compounded annual growth rate of 17.9 per cent over 4 years, from
$ 5.04 million in 2003 to $ 9.74 million in 2007. “Oracle has worked
with the Linux vendors to enhance the Linux kernel and helped make it
enterprise ready. It is, therefore, exciting to see such a large number
of Oracle developers in India using Linux as the platform for Oracle,”
Mr L. Gopalakrishnan, director, Platform Technologies, Oracle India
Development Centre said. Oracle has the largest developer community in
India outside the US. Over 1,80,000 developers from India are registered
on Oracle Technology Network, the online platform where Oracle
developers interact with each other and Oracle experts. Last year saw
Linux emerging as the second most popular platform for Oracle downloads
from Oracle Technology Network. Oracle works with all key Linux
distributors to test and optimise the OS to effectively handle business
critical applications. — UNI
IBM to invest more
New Delhi, February 11 The IBM, which is pushing Linux globally, sees the market for
open source operating system in India rapidly expanding in both server
and desktop space. “In India, adoption of Linux is growing at a rapid
pace and we would continue to invest here in our competency centre for
the operating system for strengthening it,” Programme Director, Linux,
at IBM Mary Ann Fisher said. A part of the investments will go in to
30-people Linux Technology Centre in India, which is a part of the team
of 250 put up IBM worldwide to work around Kernel and leverage internet
to improve it. “India is also being developed as a hub to support
IBM’s Linux programme in Asian. India offers a large base of engineers
well versed with Unix environment, which is very similar to Linux. As
the worldwide market for Linux grows it offers a new outsourcing
opportunity to Indian companies which are strong on services side,’’
Linux Business Manager ASEAN and South Asia Sandeep Menon
said. “Linux adoption will be strong in government, finance and
industry and we would also invest in that marketplace,” Ms Fisher
said. “Linux market was 10 billion dollars last year and of that two
billion was accounted for by governments,” she said. Other IBM
establishments in India which support its Linux initiatives include a
porting centre where vendors can test and certify their applications,
Linux Solutions Centre, e-governance and e-business solutions
centre. IBM has already signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with
governments of West Bengal, Karnataka and Uratanchal for e-government
initiatives. It is also working with National Informatics Centre (NIC)
and CDAC in its Linux supercomputing initiative. — UNI
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Bill on outsourcing put off in USA
New Delhi, February 11 Yesterday US President George Bush’s key advisors told
him that outsourcing of services to India and other countries in which
they had a comparative advantage was a win-win for both exporter and
importer and that export and import of services was as logical as the
export and import of goods. But a day earlier, Senate State Veterans
and Military Affairs Committee of Colorado voted 4-3 to postpone action
on the Bill that sought to deny government contracts and benefits to
companies that moved jobs offshore. Republicans in the committee
opposed the Bill while Democrats supported it. The Bill was one of the
two introduced in the legislature under which companies that send jobs
overseas would have their contracts cancelled. The Job Preservation
Bill was introduced by Democrats Deanna Hanna and Terry Phillips on
January 27, 2004. The Bill stipulated that any company which employed
more than 100 people in Colorado that had a net loss of 100 persons or
more during the previous calendar year due to sending of jobs overseas
would not be allowed to bid for government contracts. It also sought
to deny these companies government grants and loans and use industrial
development revenue bonds from state or local government. The
ineligibility was to last seven years. The committee, however, put the
Bill in abeyance till February 9. More such Bills, however, continue
to lie in various state legislatures in USA. Around 15 states have
voted on laws to ban government work from being contracted out to
non-Americans. More recently, the US Senate approved a Bill aimed at
restricting outsourcing of contracts from transport and treasury
departments. — UNI
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Now Reuters to outsource to India London, February 11 Reuters, which is implementing a massive
cost-cutting programme, is to try out the reporting of Western business
news from a base in Bangalore. India has seen a flood of call centre
and IT jobs from the West but now companies are looking at putting core
operations and more sophisticated positions, such as equity research, in
the country. Reuters is to hire a reporting team to work alongside its
existing data-entry operation in Bangalore. Initially only half a dozen
journalists will be taken on for the pilot scheme. They will concentrate
on reporting about small and medium-sized companies listed in the United
States. David Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor, said
depending on the results of the trial, the journalism operation in
Bangalore could be significantly expanded. "It's not just call
centre jobs in India any more. What is very appealing is that there are
a very well-educated people there, with good English...It's a question
of doing work where it is best suited," he said. Schlesinger said
the Indian journalists would do "basic" reporting from
"standardised announcements" such as company results. If the
story turned out to need further investigation and interviews with
company officials, Reuters journalists in the US would take over to
produce updated versions of the news. The move would enable Reuters to
expand its coverage of small and medium-sized companies and that
"cost was only one factor" in hiring the new journalists in
India. "We will still have journalists elsewhere doing the
value-added stuff. This will free up journalists in the West for
value-added, such as interviewing," Schlesinger said. |
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Good times ahead for steel sector, says Fitch
Mumbai, February 11 “The Indian steel industry reaped benefits of improved
pricing and worldwide demand growth during FY03 with most of the
participants reporting substantial improvement in profitability and
overall financial position. This trend has continued during the first
nine months of the current fiscal too”, Fitch Ratings Director R
Jayakumar said in the report released here. The outlook on the sector
was primarily driven by the trend in the global steel sector. However,
considering the 7 per cent growth estimated during the current and the
next year, Fitch expected the Indian steel sector to fare better than
its counterparts in other countries, it said. This was based on
assumptions regarding growth of the construction and infrastructure
sectors, it added. Fitch, which believed that fundamentals of the
steel sector were improving, said the industry enjoyed inherent
advantages in terms of availability of raw material and cheap labour. A
focus on improving efficiencies and productivity was expected to further
enhance this competitive advantage thus positioning it better to address
the cyclicality. Fitch said operating margins of integrated
manufacturers - Tata Steel, Sail and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd -
registered improvements during FY-03 on account of higher capacity
utilisation and better control on raw materials. The operating margins
of secondary manufacturers, on the otherhand, were under pressure due to
increasing raw material prices of iron-ore and coal. However, with
higher utilisation of capacities, most Indian producers reported
substantially higher cash flows with improvements in interest coverage
and debt protection indicators, it said. Fitch said confronted with
issues stemming from the US such as Section 201 trade sanctions, there
were fears that such measures would disrupt supply channels and hurt
exports to all regions thereby reducing sales volumes and creating over
capacity in local markets. However, world prices for steel products,
such as hot and rolled steel shot up as some of the other countries
imposed their own protective import restrictions in an effort to curb a
possible surge of diverted lower priced steel imports. Strong demand
from alternate markets, particularly China, helped absorb some of the
additional global capacity on account of lower exports to the USA,
benefiting most steel producers worldwide through better pricing and
higher capacity utilisation, the rating agency said. — PTI
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Zee to raise $ 100 m
Mumbai, February 11 The company board today approved
the proposal to raise long-term funds of up to $ 100 million by way of
an issue of ECBs in the form of convertible bonds, a senior company
official said here. The bonds would be convertible into the company’s
equity shares following the date of issue. It is proposed that the bonds
would be listed on an international stock exchange, he said, adding that
a meeting of shareholders has been convened on March 9 for seeking their
approval. — PTI
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HCL creates jobs in UK
London, February 11 HCL BPO has taken on the extra staff in Belfast in
Northern Ireland after securing a major deal with a British retail
chain. The company, which has several contracts with many blue chip
companies in Britain and the US, has not identified its newest customer
due to a confidentiality agreement, nor has it revealed the value of the
deal. The latest job boost brings its total workforce to 861. Staffing
levels have risen by 30 per cent over the past year. — IANS
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Ranbaxy launches diabetes drug in US
Silicon Valley, February
11 Metformin is the number one prescribed oral
treatment for Type 2 diabetes, the seventh leading cause of death in the
US, the company, based in Jacksonville, Florida, said yesterday. Dr
Andrew Drexler, a leading New York City diabetologist and Associate
Professor of the New York University School of Medicine, said, “I
routinely prescribe metformin to my diabetes patients. Riomet will allow
me to provide them with a liquid alternative of metformin, which may
improve compliance among my patients who cannot or prefer not to swallow
a pill.” As a liquid form of metformin, Riomet may significantly
improve lives of people with diabetes who are unable to swallow tablets,
a condition known as dysphagia. — PTI
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Sugar mills not to be sold
Mohali, February 11 He was addressing the gathering after
inaugurating the new head office of the Sugarfed in here. To be built at
a cost of Rs 2.70 crore, the new building, at present, has two stories and basement ready
for use. The construction work had been undertaken by
Markfed at cost of Rs 87 lakh. — TNS
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