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Tata arm to develop, lease out centres to TCS
July 02, 2008
Source: Google
Mumbai, July 1 Tata Realty & Infrastructure will spend about Rs 3,000 crore in acquiring and building properties for the country’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, over the next 3- 4 years.
“There will not be any revenue sharing arrangement between the two Tata group companies. Properties developed by Tata Realty will be leased out to TCS,” Mr S. Mahalingam, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of TCS, told Business Line, shortly after the company`s annual general meeting here in Mumbai.
The company will be building infrastructure in many cities including Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur and Mangalore, Mr Mahalingam said.
Tata Realty and Infrastructure is a 100-per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons which serves as the group’s real estate and infrastructure development arm.
Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman of TCS, said that the company’s Chennai campus would seat up to 21,000 on completion, making it the largest campus in the country. The facility has 3,000 seats at present; it would have 6,000 more seats by end of the second phase in August, Mr Tata said.
TCS is expected to add 30,000 seats to further fuel its expansion plans in the country. It has already articulated that it will be adding capacity in other cities such as Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
TCS will be investing about Rs 1,467 crore for purchasing new equipment this fiscal.
TCS continues to see significant business potential in the Indian market. It would invest about $11 million this fiscal for its global branding initiatives. “Of this, about 10 per cent will be spend on branding for our India domestic operations,” the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr S Ramadorai said.
Responding to a shareholder’s question, Mr Tata said that a one per cent movement in the rupee impacts TCS by 35 basis points. Since April this year, the rupee has depreciated by more than 10 per cent to touch 43.47 on Tuesday.
PTI reports: A slowdown of the economy in US, the main market for Indian IT companies, would have an adverse impact on TCS, Mr Tata said.
“There will be some impact if there is a slowdown in the US. We are trying to minimise and mitigate it by adding new clients and increasing the growth of the company.”
To a query on Japanese market, Mr Tata said the company is growing its business in the Asia’s largest economy and it is headed by a Japanese national.
The company pays between 9 and 10 per cent as taxes and it would go up by 3 per cent by 2010-11 when the Software Technology Park scheme comes to an end, he said.
Having a centre in a Special Economic Zone gives the company 100 per cent tax exemption for five years, he said.
The attrition rate at TCS is 12.6 per cent, which is less than the industry’s average, Mr Tata said.
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EDB to fund SPAN's centre
 July
02, 2008
Source: BL
Norwegian information technology company EDB, which acquired 50.1 per cent stake in Bangalorebased SPAN Infotech, said it would invest $5-6 million to fund the latter's new development centre in Mysore. The new centre would be operational within a year, the company said. SPAN would focus on large application development and management as well as IT operations projects from the Scandinavian markets, it added. SPAN said it expects a turnover of Rs 106 crore by 2010, compared with Rs 50 crore last fiscal. It also plans to increase its headcount to 2,000 by 2010 from the present 650. Span said 30 per cent of its revenue would come from Europe. At present, Europe contributes to about 20 per cent of total revenue, while the rest comes from the US.- Our Bureau |
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XP end may not lift Vista
July 02, 2008
SOURCE: TNN
MUMBAI: After Bill Gates’ exit from Microsoft, it is now the turn of Windows XP to sign out.
Windows XP (professional) is officially off the shelves, finally, with effect from June 30.
Microsoft has been planning this phase out for a long time now, ever since Windows Vista hit the market in January 2007.
But Vista has so far failed to create the same buzz and hype that the XP had. Analysts attribute this to a melange of things.
“Hardware requirements for Vista is higher, you need a 2GB RAM to operate Vista smoothly,” says Gartner’s principal analyst Diptarup Chakraborti.
Windows XP requires 256MB to 512MB, which all Mini notebooks and older PCs have. Microsoft is playing it safe by retaining the Windows XP (home) in the market as it can be used as an operating system (OS) for the mini notebooks.
“Intel is pushing these mini notebooks and Microsoft does not want Linux to enter the market, so they have decided to delay the phase out of Windows XP (home) to 2010.” says Chakraborti.
However, the XP (home) has its limitations. It does not encourage management control and restricts a user to log onto any domain.
Since its launch in January 2007, Vista has sold 140 million worldwide till date and 2 million in India. Microsoft claims most enterprises like Infosys, L&T, TCS, Satyam and other enterprises have already migrated a large number of their desktops to Vista.
Chakraborti, however, says many enterprises are willing to use XP and not Vista until windows 7, which is to be launched in early 2010, is on the shelves.
“There was a marketing hiccup, where many manufacturers branded their systems as Vista capable, while they could only run the most basic version (Windows Vista Basic). This made users feel cheated, when they bought Vista systems which didn’t really have the power to run Vista in its full glory. For laptop owners, another concern has been battery life. The extra features in Vista tend to drain the battery much faster than almost any other operating system on the same system,” says an analyst who did not want to be named.
“Consumers would prefer to buy Vista as it looks better than XP, but at what cost is the question. Your favourite applications may not run as they do not have drivers for them. Additionally, enterprise system engineers will have to be re-trained and software re-written for Vista,” says Frost and Sullivan Technical (insights) analyst Prithvi Raj.
So, even after it’s done away with XP may stay ahead of Vista as most users look forward to Windows 7.
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