But this study is sure to create an impact in the minds of more and more people, and ultimately drive Microsoft to their worst nightmare of Open Source taking over the corporate word (at least). But let’s talk about Government Initiative in the Open Source… Now there’s a catch!

WARNING: In the following section, I might sound Frankenstein running after NIC’s to rip it’s neck of it’s body.

IBPS Site may damage your PC

Does government actually support FOSS Initiatives ? I don’t know if you are looking at th small line at the bottom of most of the Government websites, where it says – “Please use Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or “Best viewed on Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or something analogous. Does it

SBI site is on ASP (Microsoft Active Server Pages) meaning NOT FOSS, they are using Microsoft Technologies and are actually not leveraging the benefits of FOSS where they can be best achieved – WEB and SERVER Technologies. If you anytime in your life have applied for any of the Country’s bank exams be it PO, Managerial or Clerk, you have to visit the site of Institute of Banking Peronnel Selection (IBPS). You would notice that it won’t open on Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or Google Chrome – it’s is simply loyal to Microsoft Technology – Internet Explorer.

Let’s visualize a simple example, where a person who loves linux or cannot afford Microsoft Window Operating System and want’s to make every move chaste, without the pains of proprietary software involved – Is demoralize, demotivated, his faith shattered to dust with a website popping up saying I need INTERNET EXPLORER! That wasn’t the idea of Tim Berner’s lee when he proposed Internet.

Does Government really support FOSS?

If the government really want’s to take initiatives, it should have made all the websites on NON-Microsoft Technologies, it would have saved them Millions actually Billions. Today NIC has 90% of their websites being maintained on proprietary – age old technologies, that are in no way match for today’s glossy looking, superbly interactive, and Intelligent websites. Are they ? They don’t even look like Corporate/Identity websites for Company information. Even if NOW!, after going through the Prof. Rahul De reports they think of moving from proprietary to FOSS Tech’s – who the hell be accountable for the earlier un-informed baseless decisions ?

The only one of the few website I’ve seen is the NIC’s Indigov. Its’ one of the best website, and based around php. Now what new I see is a Quality certificate being attached to the website by SQTC. Does that make a difference? What is then W3C for? CDAC, NOIDA has been one of the biggest contributor and promoter of W3C in Indian Government sector. However, now NIC & SQTC comes out with their Certificate attached to the website, ignoring all the work done so far in the field by W3C and unnecessarily putting  their precious efforts into standards that have been pre-established. No doubt the website is accessible, but that accounts to just 0.1% of the websites NIC is hosting/developing/maintaining (I would rather say lingering on with). Most of the disabled people are ignored in the country (I know low floor buses just landed in Delhi, but that’s just Delhi -not India right!) and Information Technology is the last seen area where you could consider disabled people to be preferred – in INDIA.

The author is not Anti-Microsoft, he just want the web to be independent, free from the boundaries just like a free bird.  As Internet / Web was essentially created to be platform-independent so that we could; and today as we are able to browse websites over Mobile Phone, Browser’s across operating systems like – Windows, Mac and Linux. And they look same everywhere.

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!

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.

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.

The  Government of India  has taken following steps to control software piracy. In India, the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of software is covered under Copyright Law, violation of which attracts both fine and imprisonment on a mandatory basis.
According to the Government, a police officer of the rank of sub-inspector is empowered to seize infringing copies, duplicating and other equipments used for making infringing copies, without a warrant. The ‘Copyright Act’ also prohibits the sale or to give on hire, or offer for sale or hire, any copy of the computer programme without specific authorisation of the Copyright holder.

The Government has also set up a Copyright Enforcement Advisory Council (under MHRD) — the nodal administrative ministry which reviews the progress of enforcement of the Copyright Act and also advises on measures, both on the policy front as well as on the implementation front for its better enforcement. Special cells for monitoring the enforcement of copyright have been set at police headquarters in the states/UTs. Computer software is exempted from customs duty.

The Centre has also instructed various government departments to only use legal copies of software. Ministry of human resource development and department of information technology, Government of India, as well as NASSCOM, will sponsor ‘Software Management Seminars’ to enhance awareness.

“The market competition has also been instrumental in reducing the costs, thus making the products affordable and hence bringing down the piracy. The introduction of software services is another step towards countering piracy,” notes Sachin Pilot, minister of state, ministry of communications and information technology, Government of India.

Well Guys ..The steps have been taken, but it is still duty on our part as well to stop piracy at the individual level at least.

• Socrata :  Social Data Network. One of the most advanced data creation, collection and management tool.
• Google Docs : One of the most used by me, as all the data gets stored as Excel sheet, Automatic graphs based on data.
• Free Online Surveys : Free Solution for your survey or Quiz needs. Quite an apet
• FormSite : A free and easy to use solution

Google doing Analysis of your data!

<DING> I was writing this article and guess what? Well I received another Question a part of one more Questionnaire, hopefully I was successful in stopping the transfer that could have taken my mind for answering those questions on chat, rather I offered help to make that dull chat session into a simply exciting good looking web based questionnaire using Google Docs, and guess we did!! and we got 35 responses in just 18 hours. There was one another Questionnaire which I made for my junior, which was about 12 pages in length of Microsoft Word format. I still remember it was midnight when I working on it, and till that time she hadn’t got a single response from it. And the very next day even before it was 9 in the night, she had 62 responses right in the excel sheet waiting for to lay her hands on it.

Still the practice, the.. information, the.. simple technological usage that could be easily disseminated among the students, among interns still remains hidden from the most of the world. Well, I hope this article does what is necessary.

It turns out many of the Internet’s top news sites fared better at handling the glut of traffic following the death of singer Michael Jackson than previously thought.

Keynote Systems, a company that tracks site performance, said Friday that it erred in measuring performance for news sites and issued incorrect information Thursday evening.

Dan Berkowitz, Keynote’s spokesman, said the most important thing was to correct the record about ABCNews.com, which he said delivered pages to visitors close to normally during the hour-long traffic spike following Jackson’s death. He added that the company is still studying the causes of the error. A representative for Disney, which owns ABC, said the company saw “no dips in performance” as a result of the traffic glut.

While Keynote’s assessment of site performance may have been overly bleak, many news sites were slow to deliver pages and in some cases were inaccessible at times.

When news of the iconic performer’s death began trickling out, scores of people turned to the Web for information. TMZ broke the news that Jackson, 50, known for producing some of the world’s best selling records, including “Thriller” and “Bad,” had died Thursday afternoon, but the gossip hub cited only unnamed sources and offered few details. As other news services turned their attention to the story and as the public took to the Web to learn more about the performer’s condition, some Web sites began slowing down.

Some Google users complained that the search engine’s News area was inaccessible for a time.

A Google representative confirmed that “between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson.”

CNN.com appeared to be sluggish delivering Jackson stories at times. In its defense, the news organization said that the site saw 20 million page views and a fivefold increase in traffic (from where it was prior to when news about Jackson’s death began widely circulating) in one hour.

Even before Jackson’s death, Thursday was a big day for news sites as word of actress Farrah Fawcett’s death hit the wires in the morning and continued interest in the scandal surrounding South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

The traffic deluge came swiftly and lasted for about a half hour, according to internal data here at CNET News, which saw twice the normal amount of hourly traffic shortly after word of Jackson’s death spread. At sister site CBSNews.com, traffic numbers were five times their normal levels.

On Friday, antivirus vendor Sophos reported on a wave of spam related to Jackson’s death that claims to have vital information about the news event. There are no malicious URLs in the spam, but recipients who reply to the message are then providing proof that the e-mail address is legitimate and will likely be targeted in future spam campaigns, the company said.

The company now has 60 stores in 27 cities in the country and plans to take the number up to 100 by December this year. It has signed up with 81 franchises already. The company runs over 1,700 stores globally across 51 countries. US, one of its mature markets, with around 600 stores has also shown a year-on-year growth of 15 per cent last fiscal banking on the same phenomenon.

“The recession has actually been good for us. It made larger corporates ready to try our product”, Rakhecha said adding that India is one of the fastest growing markets for Cartridge World. It,however, currently contributes a mere 4-5 per cent of the global turnover of the company that is pegged at around $450 million.

Rakehcha informed that the company was all set to get into agreements with hypermarkets, electronic superstores and other leading retail outlets to have shop-in-shop formats. “We are very close to inking a deal and will announce the first tie-up within a month, and a couple of others will follow”, he added. It will also increase the existing product line that its stores offer to include allied products like stamps, office supplies besides printer repair services.

The printer cartridge industry in India is estimated around Rs 3,000 crore which is largely dominated by original equipment manufacturers. Around 20 per cent lies with the re-filling industry and of that a large section again belongs to the unorganised sector players. Organised re-filling is still quite nascent in India. Cartridge World currently enjoys a more than 50 per cent market share in the space.

Source:  Business Standard

“In the backdrop of one of the worst ever global financial and economic meltdown, it is estimated that in 2009, the overall India IT/ITeS industry is expected to grow at 10.8 per cent, which is the lowest in the last five years. “Going forward, the overall IT/ITeS industry is expected to grow at 13.9 per cent (CAGR 2008-2013) to touch over $110 billion in 2013,” IDC India Country Manager Kapil Dev Singh said in the report.

The total revenue for the Indian IT industry in 2008 stood at over $57 billion in 2008.

“The ongoing global slowdown will definitely have its impact on the Indian IT sector. Despite that the industry is still expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.4 per cent by 2013,” IDC India Country Manager Kapil Dev Singh said.

The domestic IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) revenue is slated to touch about Rs 2,06,398 crore by 2013 from Rs 99,254 crore in 2008, growing at a CAGR of Rs 15.8 per cent, the study said.

“The growth will be led by spending by the government, manufacturing, telecom, pharmaceutical, utility and healthcare sectors. Retail, IT/ITeS along with banking and financial services would also continue to spend on IT,” Singh said.Export of IT/ITeS are expected to grow 12.7 per cent to touch Rs 3,28,081 crore by 2013 against Rs 1,80,064 crore in 2008, Singh said.

IDC’s study pegs the total IT industry revenue to touch Rs 3,09,573 crore in 2009. Of this, while the domestic IT/ITeS market accounts for Rs 1,09,406 crore, exports could touch Rs 2,00,168 crore, the study said.

“The hardware market will remain under pressure through the year, while the software and IT services markets will also be affected, though to a comparatively lesser extent, the share of IT/ITeS in the Indian domestic market is expected to rise from 31.7 per cent to 41.9 per cent in 2013, signalling the increasing focus of enterprises to ‘leverage’ the capacities built-up,” Singh said.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com

Gaming is not new to UTV. The company used the acquisition route to enter the segment in 2007, when it acquired online and mobile gaming firm, Indiagames. It simultaneously acquired the UK-based console gaming firm, Ignition. And finally in 2008, it acquired US-based True Games, an online gaming firm.The strategy has worked so far. For fiscal 2009, the gaming content segment revenue (comprising online, console and mobile games) almost doubled to Rs 110.5 crore. By FY10, the company expects the gaming segment to contribute 32 per cent to its total revenue (18 per cent in FY09).

Taking its gaming plans forward, UTV Media recently showcased three games — War Devil (a third-person player game), Reich (a first-person player game) and El Shadai (an action and adventure game) — at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) gaming conference, one of the biggest events for the console gaming industry. The company has invested Rs 280 crore in the development of these three console games alone.

“I was taken by surprise and awe. Surprise, as we have had a first look of not one or two – but three high-end games. Normally game companies track each other well – so they are all surprised as to where and how long we have been working. And awe, as the quality and the game play, as well as the diversity, of the three games has really created an impact,” Screwvala told Business Standard.

These games are being develped from its studios in Japan, London and Florida (US). The company, though, is yet to work out the additional investment that will go towards marketing and distribution of these games.

The focus of its console gaming segment is clearly the international market. “Our three markets are international and there is nothing Indian about them. Our market in India for these games, too, is insignificant. Besides, in many cases we are creating our own patented technology for the games,” added Screwvala.

While he did not share the revenue estimates these new console games will contribute, he explained that “The upside for even a moderately successful game is huge. We know our cost for creation is very competitive and lower than most in the industry. The gross margins on games can be anywhere between 40 and 300 per cent and if they are even a moderate success, they go into sequels and the margin increases.”

In the online segment, UTV’s True Games unit will be launching its own massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORG) by the second quarter of FY10 in the US and emerging markets like Turkey, Brazil, etc. This unit is also working on additional intellectual properties (IPs).

Indiagames, on its part, is focused on the mobile segment and has grown 120 per cent in FY09, with 60 per cent of market share in India, according to UTV. The company expects this will continue to have a growth rate of 50 per cent year-on-year for some more years.

Source: Business Standard

Isaac Daniel, whose Global Positioning System (GPS) sneakers gained worldwide attention in 2007, has announced the company’s newest GPS shoe,  Blue GPS. The new version of the GPS shoe is being billed as a social networking shoe. Called Blue GPS because of their Bluetooth capability, the new shoes enable the wearer to be tracked by friends and family through their cell phones. The wearer simply inputs up to five phone numbers of family/friends into his cell phone (eventually this capability will be able to be expanded to up to 20 people) and pushes a button on the shoe to activate a link with those on his list. The Blue GPS can be enabled with all cellular phones.

“This is an important step in the progression of our company and product line,” said Isaac Daniel, chairman, IDG (Isaac Daniel Group). “This is an affordable price point for consumers and a fun product to have. People will be able to see where their friends are — and have a better idea of estimated arrival time — without having to call them. And, because the wearer doesn’t have to be talking on the phone while driving, it will definitely improve safety.”

Daniel, on a recent business trip to Europe, tested the phone with various friends and business associates in the United States, Europe and Africa.

“I inputted several names worldwide and activated the link,” he said. “They were able to track me via their cell phones and even on Facebook. That’s why we refer to the Blue GPS as social networking with your feet.”

In addition to the button linking the shoe and cell phone users, another button can be pressed for an ‘E911′ call. When that button is pushed, a signal is sent to IDG’s monitoring division, ID Conex, which then attempts to contact the wearer. If the shoe wearer does not respond, ID Conex then alerts the proper authorities.

Daniel also emphasised that the original GPS shoes — using IDG’s patented Quantum Satellite Technology — are currently being field tested for future military and healthcare industry usage.

Blue GPS is expected to retail for about $150 when it hits stores in Latin America this fall.

Now that is some Extra Ordinary Extra intelligent footwear one can buy!!

Wave is a very bold way to re-write the manner in which people communicate and interact online. It is nothing conventional you can think of. Google merges your e-mails, IMs, Twits, Facebook and a lot of other such services and offers them under one roof called Wave.

You can understand Wave as a content that you have created. Let’s assume this news item. Now, you can share this news with people, and your friends may keep adding content to it. They may write some more, add some pics, comment through twits and much more. According to Google Blog, “A ‘wave’ is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps and more.”

Here’s how it works:

In Google Wave, you create a Wave and add people to it. Everyone on your Wave can use formatted text, photos, gadgets and even feeds from other sources on the Web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your Wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use ‘playback’ to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

The Google Wave protocol is the underlying format for storing and the means of sharing waves, and includes the ‘live’ concurrency control, which allows edits to be reflected instantly across users and services. The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone’s Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service. To encourage adoption of the protocol, Google says it intends to open source the code behind Google Wave.

Google has not yet decided the specific time frame for public release, but plans to continue working on Google Wave for a number of months more as a developer preview.

At the end of 2008, approximately 19 per cent Internet connections around the world were at speeds greater than 5 Mbps — a 21 per cent increase over the average global connection speed at the end of 2007.

This is according to the State of the Internet report, a quarterly study by Akamai Technologies, the US-based Internet content distribution giant. The State of the Internet report tracks average connection speeds for countries around the world.

Check out the top 10 nations in terms of average Internet connection speed.

1. South Korea

South Korea rules supreme when it comes to Internet connection speed and broadband connectivity. It is the world’s No.1 with average connection speed of 15 Mbps, ten times the global average!

During 2008, South Korea’s rate of quarterly change appeared to be locked into a cyclical pattern, with quarterly decreases being recorded in the first and third quarters, and increases seen in the second and fourth quarters.

For the whole year, South Korea saw a modest 7 per cent rise in their levels of high broadband adoption. South Korea is also ranked first in terms of high broadband connectivity with 69 per cent connections above 5 Mpbs.

2. Japan

Japan ranks 2nd in terms of Internet connection and high broadband connectivity. Japan ranks 2nd in terms of high broadband connectivity. About 54 per cent of the connections in Japan are above 7 Mbps.

3. Hong Kong

Hong Kong ranks third with an Internet connection speed of 6.9 Mbps. The country ranks fifth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 38 per cent of the connection above 5 Mbps.

4. Romania

Romania is at the fourth position with a Internet connection speed of 5.7 Mbps. The country ranks third in terms of high broadband connectivity with 45% of the connection above 5 Mbps.

5. Sweden

Sweden is at the fifth position with a Internet connection speed of 5.6 Mbps. Sweden ranks fourth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 39 per cent of the connection above 5Mbps.

6. Switzerland

Switzerland has bagged the sixth position with an Internet connection speed of over 5 Mbps. The country however does not figure in the top ten list of countries with high broadband connectivity.

7. Netherlands

Netherlands ranks 7th with an Internet connection speed of 4.9 Mbps. The country ranks 7th in terms of high broadband connectivity with 28 per cent of the connections above 5 Mbps.

8. Belgium

Belgium is at the 8th position with an Internet connection speed of 4.7 Mbps. The country ranks sixth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 31 per cent of the connection above 5 Mbps.

9. Slovakia

Slovakia bags the ninth position with an Internet connection speed of 4.5 Mbps. The country does not figure among the top ten in terms of high broadband connectivity.

10. Norway

Norway ranks tenth with an Internet connection speed of 4.5 Mbps. The country ranks fifth in terms of high broadband connectivity with 38 per cent of the connection above 5 Mbps.

United States is at the 17th position with an Internet connection speed of 3.9 Mbps, up approximately 8 per cent from the average connection speed for the first quarter of 2008.

In terms of Internet connection speed, China is way behind leading economies with an average Internet connection speed of 833 kbps.

India has been ranked at a dismal 115th among 223 countries in terms of average Internet connection speeds. India has an average Internet connection speed of just 772 Kbps compared with the global average of 1.5 Mbps.

Wipro Infotech, the India and West Asian IT business of Wipro, aims to use its data centre platform to offer a host of services, including cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) on a pay-per-use model, Anand Sankaran, senior vice-president told Business Standard.

The company has already announced opening of one enterprise data centre in Mysore. Built over 4,000 sq ft in the first phase, it has already been sold out. The company is in the process of setting up data centres in Greater Noida and Pune. At Greater Noida, the plan is to have a data centre of 14,000 sq ft, of which 4,000 sq ft will be ready for commissioning by next month. The company is yet to decide the location in Pune.

“Wipro has been addressing the IT needs of customers for over two decades now, and we are now launching the Wipro Enterprise Data Centre (WEDC) to complete our portfolio of offerings. Enterprise customers today are seeking services beyond simple hosting and co-location. This will position us uniquely to cater to the lifecycle needs of enterprises as a single face,” said Sankaran.

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.