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Day: January 29, 2007

TCS sees $1b from e-gov biz by 2010

India’s largest software exporter $2.97-billion TCS plans to achieve over 10% of its revenue from its e-governance vertical by 2010. Overall, the company has set itself a target of $10 billion by 2010. This translates into e-governance revenues of over $1 billion.

“We project at least 10% contribution to TCS’ overall revenues through e-governance by fiscal year ending 2009-10,” says Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice-president (global government industry group), TCS.

Last year TCS earned less than $200 million through its e-governance practice. According to estimates, the global e-governance pie is over 180 billion, of which Indian companies share at present is minuscule, less than 1%.

TCS rivals such as Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and HCL have lesser share of e-governance in their overall pie. Surprisingly, TCS’ biggest rival Infosys doesn’t have a government vertical.

Read More @ Economic Times (27 Jan ‘ 07)

Nasscom hails Bush comment on HI-B visas

US President George W Bush’s reported comments on the US looking at the possibility of increasing the number of HI-B visas — granted to Indian professionals to work in the US — has received an enthusiastic response from Nasscom.

The Nasscom President, Mr Kiran Karnik, told Business Line, ” We welcome such an initiative. This step would be mutually beneficial to both the countries.” He said that last year the senate immigration Bill that dealt with the issue could not be converted into legislation due to problems of illegal immigrants.

Read More @ The Hindu Business Line January 27, 2007

LIC to go paperless, digital by 2010

Shedding its image of a brick-and-mortar organisation, the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is all set venture into the digital era.

The corporation is close to signing a Rs 1100 crore Electronic Data Management System (EDMS) contract with a consortium-led by global IT major Hewlett-Packard (HP) that will transfer it to the paperless world by 2010.

HP will lead a consortium of IT firms, including Mumbai-based Vakrangee Softwares for three-and-a-half year that would entail digitalization of its 20 crore policies. The global IT major would also have to rollout LIC’s EDMS initiative and computerize all its 2,048 branches.

The technical and commercial evaluation process has been completed, and a formal announcement would be made sometime later sources close to development said.

IT majors Wipro, Electronic Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and hardware major CMS Computers were the other bidders for the project.

Read More @ Business Standard (26 Jan ’07)

TCS to set up largest offshore centre in Karnataka

India’s top IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is planning to set up an offshore development centre in South Karnataka. The company will invest nearly Rs 1,000 crore to set up the centre, which will house close to 2,000 people, sources close to the development told HT.

This would be one of the largest centres of TCS in the country, which currently employs 83,000 people across the world.

This offshore development centre would be undertaking high-margin work such as writing codes for ERP and other package implementation along with some application development and maintenance work.
Read More @ Hindustan Times (25 Jan ’07)

Why we need hackers

Life would be easier if we didn’t have to patch our operating systems and apps. Patrick Gray explores the real reasons why updating is important.

It would be easier if hackers, who say they’re acting in the public interest by releasing information on the vulnerabilities they find, would just get real jobs and stop pointing out the weaknesses in our software, right? Wrong. …

Read More @ SC Magazine (29 Jan 2007)