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

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

• Storage Support – Tivoli, EMC, etc.
• Operating System support – Linux/Unix, Windows
• Application Servers Support – IIS, Apache, Tomcat, WebSphere, Glassfish, JBoss
• Database Support – Oracle, MySQL, MS-SQL Server,etc.
• ERP Support – SAP Basis Support
• e-Mail Server Support – send mail, MS-Exchange, etc.
• End-User Support – Identity Management, Active Directory, LDAP, etc.

According to top Research firms, RIMS has a lot to contribute to the countries economy. It is estimated that RIM Services can help organizations save 60% of the costs that they are incurring NOW!

• NASSCOM – Out of India RIMS Business is $ 200-300 Million.
• RIMS Business potential estimated by TOP Research firms -
  • NASSCOM:  $ 150 Billion
  • Forrestor: $ 111 Billion
  • Gartner: $ 80 Billion

There’s a very good small presentational PDF Document published by HCL on NASSCOM Website is available for reading. You can download it from NASSCOM’s Website (or Download Directly from DT: Remote Infrastructure Management Overview – HCL).

Maples ESM, a Global IT Infrastructure Co. has already come up with a course offering in RIM, Networking, UNiX Support, SOA/Middleware Training and Mainframe Training. One of the reason of Co. doing so is McKinsey India report which says that RIMS alone would create 3.25 to 3.75 Lakh job opportunities by the year 2013 capturing $ 13-15 billion worth of share. Adding to this the best of all the features is RIMS is being considered recession proof as what VM Kumar COO, Maples ESM. He say’s …

In times of slowdown in the US, it does make sense for companies to outsource the management of existing IT infrastructure rather than pay a local engineer $16,000 as salary to do it, That way, this sector is recession proof for India as companies can postpone application development to save costs but will have to manage their IT infrastructure, which can be done less expensively by outsourcing

If that’s not  enough digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians.

And the House of Elders also heard some startling facts about a country that’s still stuck with a Third World tag — 20% of gold in the world is used by Indians and nine out of 10 diamonds used in the world are made in India.

The virus had appeared there in an earlier incarnation and exported information on troop movements. The story quotes unnamed authorities who believe it came from China, though it’s not clear whether it was that government’s doing or the work of private hackers.

According to the Los Angeles Times, however, Russian hackers could be involved. It says a massive malware attack hit hard within the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan,  and it penetrated at least one highly protected classified network. It reports senior military leaders thought the incursion serious enough that they decided to brief the president about it.

Though the military is continually the target of hackers, the Times quotes one unnamed defense official saying:

This one was significant; this one got our attention.

A couple of weeks ago the military banned use of USB drives in an effort to stem the spread of viruses.

News has been about how laptops will be manufactured is what BRICK is all about. Some sources suggests Apple will build the notebook out of a single piece of carved-out aluminum—a brick.

If you’re working with one single unit of metal, you’re reducing a lot of the materials costs and also a lot of labor time on assembly,

Keller, an Analyst at market research firm iSuppli

• Using a single piece of metal would also provide the opportunity for the kind of design flourishes that distinguish Apple and its chief executive, Steve Jobs.

• Screws might be minimized or eliminated entirely. Seams joining different pieces of metal would disappear. In short, these notebooks would be unlike anything else on the market in appearance and design.

But coring out a block of aluminum, while fairly common in some products, such as types of wireless telecom gear. It is a slow process. The issue for Apple, which would presumably be doing it millions of times, would be speed. It’s very time-intensive. Presumably, Apple could bring innovation aimed at streamlining the manufacturing process.

Keller

In May 2007, it filed for a patent on a design for “enclosure parts that are structurally bonded together to form a singular composite structure…. That is particularly useful in portable computing devices such as laptop computers.”

So, if all the points are to be taken into consideration laptops MacBooks could be cheap. But I won’t expect Apple to be selling them at a the same price they would be selling in other countries (iPhone was launched in India priced thrice the price of iPhone in US).