17th Sept, 2009 – HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL), a leading global IT services provider, entered into a five year Transformational IT Infrastructure Management engagement with Oncor to seamlessly connect and support Oncor corporate functions, grid management operations and numerous community- based field service centers located throughout Oncor’s service area.

Oncor operates the largest electric distribution and transmission system in Texas, delivering power to more than 3 million homes and businesses through approximately 117,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. “With this new contract, HCL will be investing in both the utilities sector and in Texas, through the development of a worldwide Utilities Center of Expertise in Dallas.

The Center will research and develop technologies to help transform the way energy is generated, marketed and delivered to customers around the world, which fits Oncor’s leadership in advanced Smart Grid technology deployment,” said R Srikrishna, Senior Vice President and Head – Global Sales, HCL Infrastructure Services Division (HCL ISD).

HCL’s scope of work (SoW) will cover end user computing (service desk, desk-side services) for approximately 3,600 employees; datacenter and network Services, business continuity /disaster recovery and consulting services supporting Oncor’s IT infrastructure architecture and platform modernization projects. “Our client services delivery model utilizes local personnel for on-site support, which contributes to local job base stability,” said Todd Crandall, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Energy and Utilities Sector, HCL Axon. “This engagement clearly underlines our commitment and dedicated focus in Texas.”

Now this is interesting they are also utilizing local personnel and following the govt. guidelines as the part of Obama’s initiative to save jobs and reducing the loss of jobs due to off-shoring – great going. I believe it is necessary – Everything can’t be remote!

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The project is designed to help the DoP, which has been reporting losses to drive revenue and regain market share in different services and products such as bill payment, e-posts, life insurance, money transfer and banking. The technology upgrade would also benefit citizens via speedier banking and insurance services, track and trace abilities and would help the postal department to compete effectively with the local and international courier firms. Accenture would also advise DoP on the development of a wide-area network that helps connect all post offices on which various online services can run.

Krishna G V Giri, who leads Accenture’s Management Consulting practice (Health and Public Service operating group) in the Asia Pacific region said,”Armed with efficiency at DoP, the government will be better positioned to share various social schemes, such as Mahatma National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, with even the most remote citizens.”

- – Source: EconomicTimes

With commonwealth games planning that was going on in the last few years, Department of Post earlier mentioned to make use of their unused or rather less used Post Offices turned into WiFi Centers / Cyber Cafe for the tourists. With Post Offices present almost everywhere, I believe it was the right decision. DoP has many IT Services at their disposal :-

• Internal Mail |
• Sahuliyat HelpDesk |
• A Sluggish looking website |
• A Hindi Website (which as all govt. websites requires fonts) which seems not up to date.
• and last but the most important thing –  Visibility of Internal/official news to the general public over the website which can ultimately become a security threat or a loop hole.

However I think they have taken a right decision, but why NOW ?

– With so many IT services at their disposal! Why did they loose the opportunity cost of not giving the contract earlier to an experienced organization?

– Obviously with all websites / services being maintained by NIC, it’s quite visible the kind of quality they are delivering – Pathetic.

Its for us to decide, whether we allow our hard-earned and payed as Income Tax to let go loose or not, we can see the govt. utilization at some points and its crystal clear about their mis-utilization.

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Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ search advertisers.

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force. Under the agreement, Yahoo! will innovate and ‘own’ the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology. Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites. Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 per cent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement. Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.

The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, e-mail, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The companies expect the deal to close in early 2010.

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HCL will also operate a global service desk in 9 languages for UTi. The Indian IT firm didn’t disclose the value of the deal or the number of employees to be deployed on the contract. A few UTi employees will also be transferred to HCL as part of the deal but both firms refused to divulge details.

UTi Worldwide senior VP and chief information officer Ron Glickman said the deal with HCL will help reduce the complexity of its disparate IT systems and total cost of ownership. Under the contract, HCL will provide operational support for over 250 applications and IT infrastructure in over 60 countries. It will also enable UTi’s transition to a single enterprise software solution and consolidate the firm’s over 50 data centres into two large enterprise-class data centres.

HCL manufacturing and travel, transportation & logistics (TTL) global head Sandeep Kishore said the IT firm will invest the cost savings through the transition into further incremental and transformational projects. “It’s a significant relationship for HCL as it’s a transformation-led integrated applications and infrastructure deal that deepens our credibility,” he said.

HCL started the IT applications and infrastructure transition at UTi towards the end of calendar year 2008. The global service desk will be operational by July, while the consolidation of networks and data centres will be completed next year. Mr Kishore said HCL sees significant growth opportunities in the TTL industry that faces the task of consolidation its disparate IT systems.

HCL has clinched a number of outsourcing deals in the recent past, the largest being a $350-million total IT services outsourcing deal with Readers’ Digest Association (RDA) last month. It also won a seven-year, Rs 393-crore IT services deal from general insurer National Insurance Company that covers application blueprinting, systems integration and IT infrastructure management.

Earlier this month, it signed a $100-million data centre services and transformation deal with printing major Xerox Corporation.

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“In addition to IBM’s strong credentials, the team showcased excellent knowledge of our domain and was able to put us at ease from day one. We strongly feel that in order to provide the best customer service, it is imperative to be flexible and agile to the changing needs of the market place. The SAP solution, implemented by IBM, will allow us to do that.”

said Sanjay Jain, CFO, Star India.

- – -

“We are delighted to have made in roads into the Media and Entertainment space in India. We strongly feel that this is a market with a lot of potential, although it is also one of the most competitive industries in the world. IBM offers an unmatched breadth and depth of services that drive business results for clients like STAR India, allowing them to strictly focus on their customers.”

Sandip Patel, Managing Partner, Global Business Services, IBM India/ South Asia remarked,

IBM Global Services works closely with over 2,200 organizations in India, spanning across varied industries, providing them diverse spectrum of IT services. 2008 saw the company signing up customers — small, mid-sized and large — across all the key industries and regions. This partnership will strengthen IBM’s leadership in the domestic IT services market and bring about significant Business Transformation engagements. This deal with Star India was signed in February 2009.

About STAR:

STAR is a leading media and entertainment company in Asia. STAR broadcasts over 60 television services in 13 languages to more than 300 million viewers across 53 Asian countries. STAR and its joint venture channels cover all genres including general entertainment (Star Plus, Xing Kong, Star Chinese Channel, Star World, Star One, Star Utsav, Star Jalsha, Star Pravah, Vijay, Asianet, Asianet Plus, Sitara, Suvarna, antv, Phoenix Chinese Channel), sports (ESPN, Star Sports, Star Cricket), movies (Star Chinese Movies, Star Chinese Movies 2, Star Gold, Star Movies), music (Channel [V]), and news and current affairs (Star News, Star Ananda, Star Majha, Phoenix InfoNews Channel).

STAR controls over 20,000 hours of Indian and Chinese programming and also owns the world’s largest contemporary Chinese film library, with more than 600 titles, featuring superstars including Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Bruce Lee. In partnership with leading companies, STAR businesses extend to filmed entertainment, television production, cable systems and distribution, direct-to-home services, terrestrial TV broadcasting, wireless and digital services. STAR is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation. www.startv.com

About IBM:

For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

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