Silicon India
Bangalore: Job-hopping these days is a frequent occurrence among engineers in India. This is limiting the scope of development of cutting-edge technology and cranks the R&D operations in the country.
"The job-hopping tendency of Indian engineers is a stumbling block in the path of gaining deeper technical knowledge," said Rick Steffens, Head of Hewlett Packard's Systems Technology and Software Division. As reported in Reuters,he also opined that the country should make it attractive for the engineers to stay within rather than shifting to tech multinationals.
The absolute value of the engineers in the country is low though the talent pool is large. "If you look at experienced talent, the people who have spent 15-25 years in product development, that bench is still thin in India," said Noshir Kaka, Director at McKinsey & Co, a global consultancy firm.
However, some researchers say that the curriculum followed by most of the engineering schools in the country is neither industry oriented nor made for R&D needs. The country's educational system does not support academic or research excellence and lacks good faculty and infrastructure. "The total output of Ph.Ds in India is probably about the same as that of a single good university in the U.S.," said Guruduth Banavar, Head of IBM's India Research Laboratory. "And the best folks who could potentially go on for Ph.Ds end up taking jobs because there are so many good jobs available," he said.
The lack of educational standards in India limits not only the scope of collaboration between the Indian counterparts of the technology companies but also higher-value R&D efforts. Vivek Mansingh,Country Manager, Dell India said, "I think in the future a lot of that interaction will move here and standards bodies will form here."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Job-hopping engineers hinder India's R&D ambitions
Chrome buildup may put GOOGLE & APPLE relations under spotlight
San Francisco
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)
As Google prepares to unveil its own operating system, based on its Chrome browser, all eyes are on its intensifying competition with the software giant, Microsoft.
But Google’s announcement on Tuesday also complicates its relationship with Apple, a longtime ally. Regulators at the Federal Trade Commission have been investigating whether Google and Apple are violating anti-trust laws by sharing two board members: Eric E Schmidt, chief executive of Google, and Arthur D Levinson, chief executive of Genentech. Under Section 8 of the Clayton Antitrust Act, companies with “interlocking directorates” face limits on sharing information through common board members.
The investigation has been going on for several months, said people with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity because they were discussing a confidential inquiry.
Google’s new operating system, which the Internet search giant said could ship in the low-cost computers called netbooks by next year, is likely to create more questions for regulators looking into Google’s relationship with Apple.
“The circle of sensitive competitive information between Apple and Google seems to be widening,” said Andrew I Gavil, an antitrust specialist and a professor at Howard University School of Law. “The more you have potential overlap in products and marketing strategy, the more the FTC might get concerned about a violation of Section 8.”
Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment on the matter.
Window's weakness is google's advantage
San Francisco
The Economic Times
If at times you’re frustrated with your PC – and who isn’t? – Google says it is working on a solution.
Many people easily lose patience with PCs that are slow to start up and prone to crashing, vulnerable to virus attacks and constantly in need of fiddly updates. Hoping to turn that irritation to its advantage, Google is developing an operating system – the underlying software that handles the most basic functions of a computer.
With the software, Google is mounting a blunt challenge to the dominance of Microsoft, whose Windows operating system runs about 95 percent of PCs. Google promises that its Chrome operating system, which will be available on computers in the second half of next year, will put an emphasis on speed, simplicity and security.
Google faces enormous hurdles. Computing giants like IBM and Sun Microsystems have spent years trying to dethrone Microsoft, with little to show for it.
But if it gains traction, Google’s plan could undermine not only Windows but also Microsoft’s other multibillion-dollar franchise, Office. Google is trying to put the Web browser at the center of people’s digital lives, relegating complicated operating systems like Windows to a secondary role.
“I’m not saying the shareholders should take their money and run, but this is the beginning of the end of Microsoft as we knew it,” said Jean-Louis Gassee, a venture capitalist who has battled Microsoft in posts at Apple and his own computer company, Be.
A spokesman for Microsoft, Frank Shaw, declined to comment on Google’s announcement or the competitive threat.
The new software’s primary mission will be to run Google’s Chrome browser, which will serve as a quick on-ramp to Web sites and online applications like Gmail and Facebook
In web advertising, old enemies become new friends
France
DNA (Mumbai edition)
Advertising agencies and Internet companies once viewed one another as foes, but are now coming together to harness the potential for online advertising. As with many other segments, online ad spending has slowed from its previous breakneck pace during the deep recession, forcing companies to devise new ways to chase fewer dollars.
Last week, Eric E Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, and Steven A Ballmer, his counterpart at Microsoft, for the first time attended an annual advertising industry meeting, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
With consumers spending more and more time online, analysts say Internet companies and ad agencies have no choice but to work together to develop ways to make money from digital media.
"There was an air of inevitability about it, because of the model not really working yet, and there's so much content that will be dependent on it working," said Paul Kemp-Robertson, editor of Contagious, an online magazine that tracks digital marketing trends.
Microsoft and Google, along with rivals like Yahoo and AOL, are looking for growth from new kinds of ads, including online video spots. But they need advertising agencies to persuade their clients to embrace these formats. Many companies are preferring to place ads linked to search engine results, whose effectiveness can be measured directly. Microsoft made it clear that it wanted to cooperate, announcing partnerships with two leading advertising companies, the WPP Group and the Publicis Groupe.
Growing rapidly
Mint
“Educomp has been growing fairly rapidly and we have reached the point of inflexion where we believe that with this injection of growth capital the company can actually even accelerate its pace of growth. Fifty percent of our debt is on account of the convertible bond,” Shantanu Prakash Managing director, Educomp.
Reliance infra wins five IT projects
Ravi Menon, Chennai/Bangalore
Business Standard
Infrastructure and power utilities company Reliance Infrastructure Limited (RInfra), a division of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), has won IT consultancy projects for the five electricity distribution companies in Karnataka. The projects with a duration of four years, will also mark RInfra's debut in IT consulting for power utilities.
The five distribution companies are Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom), Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (Cescom), Mangalore Electricity Supply Company (Mescom), Hubli Electricity Supply Company (Hescom) and the Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company (Gescom).Under an MoU with the five electricity boards signed on Tuesday, RInfra will develop a tech blueprint for the electricity boards and call tenders for IT support and systems integration work in the first 5-6 months. “RInfra will look at roping in empanelled IT vendors for the implementation part once the project report is submitted in 5-6 months. The report will spell out the prerequisites to be adopted while putting in place an IT implementation agency,” sources associated with the projects said.
They said that while the financial scope of the projects with these electricity boards is “not large” at present, the potential for future growth in the area is enormous. In Karnataka, the company will look at building further on its domain expertise gained from its Mumbai and Delhi electricity distribution business.
The state electricity boards (SEBs) in Karnataka are undertaking IT initiatives as a part of the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (R-APDRP).
The Union Ministry of Power is encouraging the adoption of IT initiatives by various state electricity boards by planning to disburse loans worth Rs 10,000 crore via the Power Finance Corporation (PFC). The SEBs will initially get funds out of this allocation as loans with the option of converting them into grants at a future date.
Psus seek govt support for capital expansion
Devika Banerji, New Delhi
Business Standard
State-owned enterprises are depending more on government money to fund their capital expansion in the wake of the economic downturn.
The share of government support to public sector enterprises, according to the latest Budget documents, is projected to increase sharply by 6 percentage points in the current fiscal (2009-10).
This is because profits of public sector units are hit by economic downturn, thus hampering their ability to fund future projects through internal resource generation. Also, an illiquid credit market, characterised by high cost of borrowing, is cited as another reason for the increase in seeking state support.
The major ministries which have suffered a decline in resources are rural development, mines, and communication and IT.
The resources of the ministries of rural development and mines have gone down by around 18 percent each. The Ministry of Communication and IT has registered a decline of around 17 percent. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has also suffered a marginal decrease in resources.
The companies that have registered a significant decline in resources are Hindustan Copper Ltd, under the ministry of mines, with a drop of 33 percent; Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, under the communications and IT ministry, with a decline of around 21 percent; and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development with a decline of 18 percent as against last year’s estimates.
Real estate giant IREO to invest $500 Million in India
New Delhi
The Economic Times Business Standard Hindustan Times Financial Chronicle
Global real estate giant IREO will pump in $500 million in various infrastructure projects in India over a period of seven years, the company said Thursday.
IREO, which has invested $1.5 billion in India, is already one of the largest investors in the country's real estate sector.
"Having already invested $1.5 billion, we still have another $500 million available in cash for further investments in our projects," Lalit Goyal, vice-chairman and managing director IREO, said.
The company currently has 13 projects and is in the process of constructing an IT SEZ (special economic zone) in Pune.
"We have already commenced construction of a five million square feet IT SEZ (Pune) and a three-million-square-feet housing project," Goyal said.
Added Anurag Bhargava, chairman IREO: "The Pune SEZ should be completed by next year."
The company has projects in many states including Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Delhi.
The company said it would develop an eight-million-square-feet housing project in the next 12 months.
AP expects Rs 16,000-cr investment in IT sector
Amit Mitra, Hyderabad
The Hindu Business Line
Despite recessionary trends, the Andhra Pradesh Government is bullish on investments in the IT& ITES sectors in the State.
The Government expects the IT-related SEZs and Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in the State to receive about Rs 16,000 crore investments in the next five years.
It has so far received investments worth Rs 3,739 crore, with the State exporting IT products worth Rs 32,509 crore last fiscal, recording a 24.5 percent growth.
An area of 65,32,044 square metres is proposed to be built up in the State IT-related SEZs and STPI, with the built-up area being 4,47,747 sq metres. Out of this, the allotted area so far is 1,91,734 sq metres and the balance area of 2,56,013 sq metres is ready for allotment, a senior State Government official said.
Last fiscal, 69 new IT/ITES companies registered as STP units in the State. The major companies that got registered include Patni Computer, Mediatex India and Mphasis Ltd. As of now, there are about 350 new formal approvals, out of which 39 have already been notified.
Visakhapatnam is emerging as the next IT hub, with IT exports from the city being Rs 502 crore last fiscal, followed by Vijaywada and Tirupathi, which clocked Rs 62 crore and Rs 2.74 crore respectively.
An interesting feature in the exports has been the efforts by the software exporters to scout for new global markets, managing to reduce their dependence on the recession-hit US market from 61 percent in 2007-08 to 52 percent in 2008-09, at the same time increasing its share in the European market from 20 percent to 26 percent during this period.
Geeks sign up for Bharti's software network
Joji Thomas Philip & Deepshikha Monga, New Delhi
The Economic Times
India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel has taken a leaf out of the book of global technology majors such as Apple, Google and Nokia.
Recognising that the future of mobile technologies lies in the hands of independent developers, Airtel has become the first telco in India to have an independent developers community. Close to 1,000 developers have already signed up for the Airtel Open Developers Community (AODC) that will develop applications and services for its 110-million plus subscriber base, including its mobile, landline, Internet, IPTV and DTH customers.
Bharti provides a software development kit, the main set of tools needed to write applications, to AODC members, as well as, training to build applications across the three screens — PC, mobile and TV, Bharti Airtel’s consumer services and technology director Jai Menon said. “Applications need not be device-bound. As a service provider, we are aiming to provide different applications to consumers, regardless of the device they own,” he added.
Global tech firms are actively tapping independent developers to offer more applications and services to their consumers. Players such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and RIM (makers of BlackBerry) have their claws deep into potential mobile developers, analyst Tony Cripps at Ovum said in a note recently. Apple’s iPhone, in particular, has shown how vital applications can become to the success of a device.
Over 50,000 applications, such as those for working out and managing finances, have been developed for the iPhone and these have been downloaded more than a billion times by users.
In comparison, applications for handset maker Palm’s new smartphone Pre, touted as an iPhone-killer, have been downloaded over a million times. “Developer support, as much as an ingenious user experience, will make or break these high-end device offerings going forward,” Cripps said in his note.
Google’s mobile phone operating system Android is an open source platform designed to allow independent developers to write their own programmes for devices using it. Microsoft has Windows Marketplace for mobile where independent software developers can monetise applications built for its Windows Mobile operating system for mobile phones.
Among telecom operators, Bharti Airtel has a precedent in Vodafone, the world’s largest private telecoms company, that has a developer community called Betavine to make applications for the telco, as well as, for handset makers such as Nokia and Samsung. India is home to one of the largest developer communities in the world. For instance, open source major Sun Microsystems has about 8 lakh independent software developers in India, while Nokia has over 1.5 lakh developers.
“As our numbers grow, we will definitely look at roadshows and conferences and may also consider branding our developers community,” Menon said.
Cognizant’s new ideation platform
Financial Chronicle
Cognizant Technology has launched a virtual ideation platform for its software testing practice
Orissa records 39 percent growth in software exports
Kolkata/Bhubaneswar
Business Standard The Pioneer The Hindu
Orissa has recoded a 39.04 percent growth in software exports in 2008-09. In value terms the software exports from the state reached Rs 1168 crore as against Rs 840 crore in 2007-08.
This growth is achieved in the backdrop of global economic meltdown which began from the second half of 2008-09 and had impacted the operations of the software service providers. The state’s growth rate of 39.04 percent in software exports is higher than the national average of 21 percent.
Addressing media persons here, Pradipta K Mohapatra, the state IT secretary said, “Despite the economic slowdown and its significant impact on the IT sector, Orissa has achieved software exports worth Rs 1168 crore in 2008-09. Apart from Orissa, Kerala and Gujarat are the other two states which have crossed Rs 1,000 crore in terms of software exports.”
The software exports from the state are projected at $1 billion (around Rs 5,000 crore) by the end of 2012-13.
While Infosys Technologies was the biggest software exporter from the state accounting for more than 70 percent of the total exports in 2008-09, Mahindra Satyam (formerly Satyam Computer Services) was the second largest exporter at Rs 191 crore.
Manas R Panda, joint director, STPI-Bhubaneswar said, “Software exports from Orissa which started with Rs 5 crore in 1997-98 have reached Rs 1,168 crore in 2008-09. Similarly, the number of IT units in the state registered under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme has gone up from 29 in 2001-02 to 112 in 2008-09.”
Orissa has got approvals for four IT SEZs (Special Economic Zones) out of which two have been notified- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Kalinga Park spread over 45 acres and the DLF Infopark on a 54-acre plot. Out of the two notified IT SEZs in Orissa, the TCS Kalinga Park has been operational and the software major, which started operations from January this year, has exported software services worth Rs 6 core by the end of 2008-09. The other IT SEZ being developed by DLF is on the verge of being de-notified. DLF had sought de-notification of the IT SEZ and it has got in-principle approval from the Centre for the de-notification.
“DLF would now develop the Infopark project under the STPI scheme. While 50 percent of the total land area of 54 acres would be devoted to the IT park, the remaining 50 percent would be earmarked for commercial real estate like malls, hotels and service apartments”, said Mohapatra. The Orissa government was also going ahead with the Infocity-II project which is being developed on over 600 acres of land at Janla, about 15 km from the city.
“The Infocity-II project is expected to be fully operational within four years. The state government has made a budgetary allocation of Rs 150 crore for developing external infrastructure for the project like roads, water and electricity, added Mohapatra. Asked on the status of the other IT projects in the state, he said, “The IT investors like MindTree Consulting, Genpact Limited and Zensar Technologies were going slow on the construction work due to the prevailing economic downturn. The IT industry is in a recovery phase and we expect these IT players to resume construction work soon.”
Cordys launches new cloud tech platform
Chennai/Hyderabad
Business Standard The Hindu Business Line
Cordys, a Netherlands-headquartered business processes management software provider, on Thursday launched Business Operations Platform (BOP-4), a cloud technology platform that enables companies to make their business operations more customer-centric.
Cordys chief executive officer and chairman Jan Baan said the new platform would be compatible with the existing enterprise software and legacy systems of its customers. Using it, the companies can isolate their IT assets, build new processes and continuously monitor the entire enterprise. They can achieve change and innovation faster and cheaper, he said.
BOP has components for business management, activity monitoring and allows the organisations to mix and match enterprise software with web-based applications and reduce the time-to-market. This also automates all the processes across the organisation and could be used across domains.
Companies including SOS International, US Xpress and Tata Motors are already implementing the Cordys platform, he said, adding that Tata Motors had used this for randomly selecting 1,00,000 applications including 60,000 priority customers from the over 2,50,000 applications that it received for Nano bookings. The entire process included sending confirmation e-mail to the prospective Nano buyers in a matter of few minutes, he added.
Hexaware Technologies and Soasta partner to deliver cloud-testing services
Mumbai
The Financial Express
Hexaware Technologies, a leading provider of IT & BPO services and consulting, announced a strategic partnership with SOASTA, Inc., the leader in cloud testing. The partnership is a key component in Hexaware’s strategy to expand its premiere testing services with a new cloud-based solution. Hexaware will integrate SOASTA’s CloudTest On-Demand service into their existing offering to provide its customers with a turnkey cloud testing service to achieve and maintain highly reliable web sites and applications.
Cloud testing offers vast savings in testing infrastructure, provides complete flexibility and the most accurate representation of real world web traffic, without the worry of significant upfront hardware, software and human resource costs. Hexaware Technologies’ customers can purchase the SOASTA CloudTest service on a pay-per-use basis directly from Hexaware.
Cloud testing is of particular benefit to Hexaware’s clients in the travel, transportation, hospitality and leisure industries who experience high and unpredictable amounts of global traffic. SOASTA CloudTest offers a broad range of rich analytics, allowing Hexaware to tune clients’ systems for optimal performance and throughput while fostering a positive customer experience.
“Our CloudTest service delivers flexibility, unlimited scale and the most comprehensive, real-time analytics available today,” said Tom Lounibos, CEO, SOASTA. “Hexaware Technologies’ experts now have the ability to quickly and regularly deliver testing services that overcome former limits imposed by hardware and software constraints.”
“Hexaware delivers leading edge and innovating services to global clients leveraging leading technologies and skilled professional services teams,” said R.V. Ramanan, President of Global Delivery, Hexaware Technologies. “SOASTA’s leadership position in cloud testing enables us to expand and enhance our testing services with their proven platform, delivering a scope and scale for performance and reliability services not possible prior to cloud computing.”
Roamware launches next generation SIM box detector
San Jose
The Financial Express
Roamware Inc, the global leader in mobile roaming solutions and software, announced the launch of SIM Box Detector, a next generation fraud detection solution.
SIM Boxes, or GSM Gateways, were designed originally, for a variety of legal applications but fraudsters quickly hit on their potential to terminate international inbound calls and intercept revenue rightly due to network operators. Fraudulent SIM Boxes are also responsible for a range of service issues including call set up delays, poor voice quality, network congestions and spectrum management issues. SIM Box fraud can potentially result in Roaming revenue losses of between five and seven percent for network operators.
Bobby Srinivasan, President and CEO of Roamware said: “SIM Box fraud costs the telecom operator community hundreds of millions of dollars in lost termination revenues every year. With SIM Box Detector for the first time, operators can now not just detect SIM Box fraud, but on the fly eliminate fraudulent SIM Boxes round the clock.”
Traditional SIM Box fraud identification solutions based on testing through probe based calls across different countries using real SIM’s entails severe limitations. SIM Box Detector is a non-intrusive solution installed in the core network, offering global reach with no limitations on footprint unlike probe-based solutions. It utilises a virtual range of SIM’s reducing risk of manipulation by fraudsters. The solution offers enhanced control on the detection process by providing for completely customisable testing schedules and frequency. Coupled with automatic deactivation of detected fraudulent SIM Boxes, SIM Box Detector is the only end-to-end solution for SIM box fraud management.
Roamware today provides roaming software solutions to over 375 mobile operators in 140 countries, and the company confirmed that they are in discussions with dozens of existing customers to integrate the SIM Box Detector into their existing Roamware platforms installed in their networks. Srinivasan said “given the potential of saving millions of dollars for an operator in the current financial climate “, we are seeing tremendous interest from our customers to integrate this next generation revenue protection solution into their existing Roamware platforms. In the current climate, every dollar saved is a dollar earned, and operators understand the value of optimizing revenue and service quality to maximize margins and customer satisfaction.
Allure of R&D draws tech giants to India
Bangalore
The Economic Times
As the world prepared for the launch of Intel's server processor Xeon 7400 last September, engineers in Bangalore - dubbed the Silicon Valley of India - were putting the finishing touches on what would become the company's best-performing server chip yet. The chip was designed end-to-end by Intel Corp's digital enterprise group in Bangalore.
Increasingly, the Indian arms of multinational tech giants are working on global brands such as Microsoft Corp's search engine Bing, its upcoming Windows 7 operating system and Google Inc's Map Maker.
The country, perceived as a necessary low-cost option only a few years ago, is fast becoming a destination for higher-end R&D work, with skilled engineering talent and India's own rising economic might adding to the appeal.
While India may not yet have shrugged off its "cheap labor" tag and is periodically the target of populist rhetoric from Western politicians, for technology firms the country has new connotations.
Faced with maturing home markets and aging workforces in the United States and Europe, companies are looking at India for a growing supplier base and young, agile workers.
"Today if you were to ask any of the product companies if they could do without their India-based hubs, I think the answer would be no," said Noshir Kaka, director at McKinsey & Co, a global consultancy firm.
Hewlett-Packard, which set up its India R&D center in 1989, started out with cost efficiencies in mind, said Rick Steffens, who heads its systems technology and software division.
"As those teams started to get some experience and do more development, what we started noticing was that they were also capable of making changes to and enhancing the product."
German software company SAP's plan to pump $1 billion into India between 2006 and 2010 is on track, said Kush Desai, managing director of SAP Labs India.
"Germany's confidence in India has constantly risen, along with the experience that people have gained in their work over the years," Desai said.
In 2006, Cisco established its Globalisation Centre East in Bangalore for, among other reasons, "its proximity to 70 percent of the world's population within a five-hour flight," said Chief Globalization Officer Wim Elfrink.
Lacking depth
But all is not rosy. As these companies spread their roots they face challenges, some of which are unique to the developing world.
Some companies looking to do high-end research in India say there is a shortage of Ph.D. scholars and workers with deep technical knowledge.
"If 10 companies of Microsoft's type of global product engineering want to do real core R&D work here, then do we have enough talent on the (university) campuses? Maybe not," said Srini Koppolu, managing director of the Microsoft India Development Center in Hyderabad.
HP's Steffens said engineers who frequently change companies hamper their chances of developing niche technical knowledge.
The difference between what was done offshore and what was done onshore is changing, said Vikas Saggi, an R&D expert at Bain & Co. "The gap is decreasing, but the gap is still there."
And India, with an R&D market worth $6.5 billion, according to Saggi, has competition for those dollars.
What's next?
IBM said recently it would invest $100 million in global mobile services research over the next five years. The majority of the research for the project is driven out of India.
Accenture, through its Indian R&D lab, is seeking to drive down the cost of systems delivery by 30 percent to 50 percent over the next five years, while maintaining overall quality, an ambitious goal, said Vishwa Kiran, director of Accenture Technology Labs in Bangalore.
Accenture's India R&D center, its fourth such lab after two U.S. centers and one in France, opened in November.
HP plans to invest almost $20 billion in R&D globally over the next five years.
Faster param to take on US Supercomputer
Michael Gonsalves, Pune
Financial Chronicle
Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is developing the advanced high-speed Param super-computer, to be unveiled by 2012, according to a top official.
“Over 150 top scientists are working on this project. This would be a major achievement for India,” Rajan T Joseph, director general, C-DAC, told Financial Chronicle, on the sidelines of a conference. The new supercomputer will have one pita flop (equivalent to 1,000 tera flops) speed for various computing performances. Only the US has developed such an advanced pita flop super-speed computer before.
“We will compete with the Americans in this supercomputing technology and offer it at a cheaper rate to the world market,” said scientist SP Dixit, director of C-DAC and principal investigator of high-performance computing centre.
In 1991, C-DAC, had for the first time unveiled Param 8000 supercomputer, which had a speed of one giga flop (1,000 giga flop is equivalent to one tera flop). While a super computer with one giga flop performs one billion mathematical operations per second, one pita flop super computer performs 1,000 trillion mathematical operations per second.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh will unveil C-DAC’s latest Param Yuva supercomputer, with a speed of 54 tera flops, soon, according to officials. “After 21 years of supercomputing research (C-DAC est.1988), and producing a series of supercomputers, the senior scientist team built the Param Yuva supercomputer,” Dixit said. It will carry a price tag of Rs 25 crore, while the same model made in the US is priced at Rs 50 crore, he added.
Dixit said the yet-to-be-named super speed supercomputer would cost around Rs 500 crore. “But we are not here to make money and, therefore, we may price it around Rs 150 crore since C-DAC’s mission is to help in capacity building of developing countries,” Dixit said.
Now, Magic Pens transfer handwritten notes
Shyamala Seetharamanan, Chennai
Financial Chronicle
Speech Bridge Technology (SBT) and South Africa-based Xcallibre have tied up to launch the world’s first digital pen technology called the Magic Pen in India. The device, which closely resembles a pen, has the ability to transfer handwritten notes from paper forms directly to back-office databases. The technology enables digitisation of the form-filling process in businesses with several customer touch points such as banks.
Xcallibre pens are used like ordinary pens — only that they are embedded with electronics capable of storing and transmitting data. The forms can be printed on any laser printer and the data capture elements can be customised to suit an individual organisation’s needs. The pen has an infrared camera and processor. While users write on the specially designed forms, the strokes are read and the data is directly transferred to the database through wireless technology.
“According to our internal research, the whole manual form filling cycle takes between three and five days. This technology completes the process in 20 seconds and in poorest network conditions, it takes three minutes,” said Willy Govendar, chief executive officer of the SDH group, South Africa.
Xcallibre, an SDH’s group company, has about 35 customers in South Africa, including DHL, Deloitte and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, he added.
Companies such as Logitech manufacture such pens and they cost about €250 a unit.
However, Xcallibre offers the technology on a pay-per-use model and the overall expenditure is about 40 percent less compared with the manual process, said A Chandrasekaran, director of SBT. The pens are tamper-proof and can be blocked if stolen, Govendar said. Without the digital papers, the pens become irrelevant because the back-end server will identify which data comes from what form. The technology has applications in sectors including telecom, banking, insurance and education, he added.
