HP LAUNCHES $2.7 BILLION NOTE SALE: REPORT

New YorkThe Economic Times Hewlett-Packard on Monday launched a $2.7 billion, three-part sale of notes via Banc of America Securities, Deutsche Bank and RBS Greenwich Capital, according to IFR. The world's largest PC maker is offering $1 billion of 3-year, fixed-rate notes at a yield spread of 295 basis points over comparable U.S. Treasuries, said IFR, a Thomson Reuters service. It is also offering $1.5 billion of 5.25-year, fixed-rate notes at 295 basis points over Treasuries and a third tranche of $200 million of 2-year floating-rate...

BRICKBREAKER IS THE REASON BEHIND OBAMA’S BLACKBERRY ADDICTION

New York Hindustan Times (Delhi edition) During his first days in office, US President Barack Obama insisted on keeping his BlackBerry. But if you think his firmness has anything to do with keeping in touch with pals or work on the fly, you’re absolutely wrong. Apparently, the American leader is addicted to the cellphone game BrickBreaker. “He plays to unwind,” The New York Daily News quoted a source, as saying. “Every night before bed, he gives it a few minutes,” the source added. Despite warnings from his advisers, the president...

INTEL RESPONDS TO EU CHARGES

The Hindu Business Line Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip maker, responded to European Union charges regarding a probe into allegations that it used discounts to retailers to thwart competition. Intel said in a US regulatory filing on Monday that it submitted a response to official charges - known as a statement of objections - on February 5. The response is confidential. A European court last month rejected Intel's request to halt the investigation by the European Commission, the EUs anti-trust authority in Brussels. ...

JNTU-H, WIPRO TO TRAIN TEACHERS

Hyderabad The Hindu JNTU Hyderabad and Mission10X, a not for profit trust of Wipro Limited have come together to train senior faculty in engineering colleges so as to help students gain employability skills. A MoU was signed between the JNTU-H and Wipro in this regard and it would be in force for a period of three years. The focus of the MoU would be on conducting faculty enablement programmes empowering senior faculty members of engineering colleges to innovate in their classrooms using Mission10X learning approach, which would help...

AFRICA LOOKS TO INDIA FOR IT

Nagesh Prabhu, Bangalore The Hindu Eight African countries have shown keen interest in forging ties with information technology (IT) firms and the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) to develop IT-related skills and industries in their nations. A high-level delegation comprising senior government officials and educators from Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tanzania visited Bangalore and other cities over the past fortnight to study Indian IT, infrastructure and investment...

CII IT AWARDS PRESENTED

BhubaneswarThe Pioneer Team Balasore Alloys and Luminous Infoways have won the Best and Innovative IT initiatives. They were presented the trophy by the members of CII IT Panel in a gala ceremony organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in presence of captains of IT sector in the State. The CII Orissa has initiated IT Awards Competition since 2006, in which the State Department of Information Technology has always been a partner. This year, the participants were Balasore Alloys, Hindalco, PPL, TRL, Tata Steel, Vedanta, CSM...

KARNATAKA PLANS BIOTECH PARKS IN MAJOR CITIES

Chennai/ BangaloreBusiness Standard The Karnataka government is proposing to establish biotech parks in prominent cities to promote the biotechnology sector in the state. Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, in his Budget proposals for the year 2009-10, said the government would take steps to establish biotech parks based on the recommendations of the Biotechnology Mission. He said Rs 10 crore had been sanctioned to the state-owned Karnataka Electronics Development Corporation (Keonics) to set up an IT park in Gulbarga. To give incentives...

BOARD OF APPROVAL ALLOWS MERGER OF 3 SEZS

New DelhiThe Hindu Business Line The Board of Approval for SEZs, chaired by the Commerce Secretary, G.K. Pillai, on Monday allowed the merger of three stand-alone SEZs, promoted by the Adani Group at Mundra in Gujarat, following the nod given to such a proposal by the empowered group of Ministers (eGoM) on SEZs headed by the Union Finance and External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee. The combined SEZs with an area of 6,215 hectares exceed the maximum ceiling of 5,000 ha set by the eGoM in 2007, following protests over indiscriminate...

PATNI EXPANDS FOOTPRINT IN EUROPE

MumbaiThe Economic Times Financial Chronicle The Hindu Business Line The Times of India (Bangalore edition) Mint The Financial Express Software exporter Patni Computer Systems is expanding its presence in western Europe and beefing up its senior management there. The company has announced four appointments to expand its operations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The senior-level executives have previously worked in companies, such as T-systems, Infosys Technologies, Cognizant Technology Services and Hewlett Packard. “The...

HCL AIMS LEVERAGING JAIPUR CENTRE

JaipurThe Hindu Business Line Business Standard Financial Chronicle HCL Infosystems is planning to increase its headcount in the city-based centre, besides developing a software with bi-lingual capabilities, to strengthen its operations in the city. The company has also acquired a city-based software development firm Natural Technologies Ltd for the purpose, HCL Infosystems Executive Vice-President, George Paul. "We aim to leverage the centre to serve its clients in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment in...

MICROSOFT UNVEILS NEW ONLINE EMPLOYMENT RESOURCE

Washington, February 23, 2009 The Economic Times Microsoft Corp on Sunday announced the creation of a website, Elevate America, aimed at improving access to job training tools. The site, http://www.microsoft.com/ElevateAmerica, provides resources to help individuals gain the technical skills needed for acquiring jobs, the world's largest software company said. The economy has shed 3.6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007 with about half of the decline occurring in the past three months, recent Labor Department data...

8 TECH TIPS FOR JOB SEEKERS

February 22, 2009The Times of India Richest technology companies Even as many US companies struggle to stay solvent in one of the worst financial crises in decades, some technology companies are bursting with cash, with the only question being how they plan to use it. Fitch estimates that the US tech industry is carrying a cash balance of around $260 billion, one of the largest among all sectors. "There's a strong emphasis on the preservation of liquidity, but we think the larger players will use their balance sheets and use their...

NEW MEASURE OF FDI

February 23, 2009The Hindu Business Line It is just as well that the Government has decided to do away with its convoluted method of determining the extent of foreign investment in a domestic enterprise. An enterprise was deemed to be half owned by foreign interests if 50 percent of the total capital invested in that enterprise came, in equal measure, from two entities with respective foreign ownership stakes of 75 and 25 percent. While such an approach looks elegant in theory, in practice it ignored the fundamental reality of management...

INDIAN GEEK INVENTS ‘SIXTH SENSE’ GIZMO

Dinesh C. Sharma, Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 23, 2009Mail Today Pranav Mistry is no ordinary geek. He can just wave his fingers in air to draw a figure on any surface just as you use a computer mouse and a screen to do so. He can simply frame a scene with his hands, snap its picture and project it anywhere he likes. Not only that, he can also check his email on his palm, draw a watch on his wrist to check the time and use his palm as keypad of his mobile phone. This is no science fiction or virtual reality. You may call it...

GOVT TO CONSIDER DLF-TIDCO PROPOSAL FOR SEZ

New Delhi, February 22, 2009Financial Chronicle Mint DNA In the midst of a tough going for real estate players, the government will consider tomorrow the proposal of DLF for joining an SEZ project of the Tamil Nadu state agency TIDCO in Chennai for IT/ITeS. The Board of Approval (BoA) in the Commerce Ministry will consider the DLF proposal along with 15 others this week, official sources said. DLF is joining the TIDCO project for which the formal central approval has already been obtained. Under the SEZ law, any change in ownership...

STATE CLOCKS HIGHEST ITES GROWTH RATE: VS

Alappuzha, February 23, 2009The Hindu The information technology (IT) sector will be the State’s largest employment generator and revenue source in five years, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has said. Two lakh direct job opportunities and over five lakh indirect ones would be created in the sector in that time. He was speaking after laying the foundations for the Cherthala Infopark at Pallipuram here on Sunday. Achuthanandan said the State was recording the highest growth rate in IT-enabled-services (ITeS) in the country. Software...

USUALLY WORTH RS 15 TO 45 LAKH, NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE AT RS 250 TO 2,500

Arun Jayan, Pune, February 23, 2009The Indian Express A city-based firm has set out to ease the troubles of small and medium companies who need but cannot afford sophisticated software, not only because of the huge cost but also for the time-consuming process involved in installation as well as training of employees. Uberall Solution Ltd has offered its software at a cost several times less than its usual cost. Software like Alert Force, comprising readymade enterprise research planning (ERP) software and available online, normally costs...

COMPUTING MADE EASY

Shivani Mody, February 23, 2009 Times of India (Bangalore edition) In government offices in Karnataka, you have clerks typing in Kannada using a keyboard having the local language alphabet. But now the state government is in the process of loading software onto the computers that will allow users to input text in English but which will output words in the local language using predictive transliteration technology. The first pilots are being carried out in Bangalore and if successfully completed, it will be implemented across Karnataka....

THE BILLION DOLLAR IDEA- STORY OF YAHOO

David FiloThe Economic Times Back in 1993 when Jerry (Yang) and I were at Stanford, the web was non-commercial and was mainly used by universities and research labs. It was a totally different world all together. That is until we experienced the web using Mosaic, which had the capability to render rich graphics and support data and forms. This inspired me and Jerry to think, “Wow! there are a lot of possibilities here!”. As we started to use the web more and more, we realised how difficult it was to find the stuff we were looking for....

GOOGLE RAISED AD RATES OF SMALL RIVAL, SUIT SAYS

San FranciscoFinancial Chronicle A small Web site operator has filed an antitrust suit accusing Google of unfairly manipulating its advertising system to harm a potential competitor. TradeComet.com, which operates a site called SourceTool.com, a vertical search engine for those seeking business products and services, accused Google on Tuesday of raising the advertising rates it charged the company after it realized that SourceTool was a potential competitor. TradeComet also said Google had entered into an anti-competitive agreement...

RELATING TO OUR PEOPLE

GaneshaThe Asian Age On a weekend getaway in Mahabaleshwar to get away from the heat of May, an interesting conversation happened with Dr Kiran Datar, veteran Delhi academic administrator and an advisor to the National Knowledge Commission. When she was the Principal of Miranda House in the nineties, she was faced with the problem of young first year students coming to class in dishevelled clothing and inappropriate jewellery because of some ragging experiences with their seniors. Reluctant to come down with a heavy hand and risk getting...

BENGALURU IS BEST JOB ADDRESS

Sangeetha Chengappa, Bengaluru The Asian Age Namma Bengaluru has scored high once again, with Gen Y from 156 locations around the country choosing the IT city as the most preferred workplace. Company reputation, size and management credibility matter most to them when they evaluate potential employers, followed by formal training/learning opportunities that companies provide which will help their careers blossom. This is in consonance with global studies of Gen Y preferences, which show that they particularly like companies that are...

FOUNDATION STONE LAID FOR MYSORE IT PARK

Chennai/MysoreBusiness Standard The downturn, which has made its impact on the IT industry too, has not deterred the Karnataka government from venturing into a new IT Park in Mysore. The state government has kick started a Rs 15.18 crore IT Park in the Hebbal Industrial area. The first phase of the project will be on one acre where one lakh square feet building is expected to be completed in about 15 months. According to IT and BT Minister Katta Subramanya Naidu, who spoke at the function, 20,000 people are likely to get jobs here. ...

LAHARI TO INVEST RS 1,500CR SEZ

Chennai/HyderabadBusiness Standard Lahari Infrastructures Limited, a subsidiary of city-based Lahari Group, will be investing about Rs 1,500 crore in a multi-services special economic zone (SEZ) in Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh in phases. The company has entered into a joint development agreement with the Mumbai-based Hiranandani Group for executing the project, wherein Lahari will own 30 percent of the built-up space while the rest will be held by the latter, Lahari Group chairman G Hari Babu told mediapersons. Christened...

THE IDEA THAT CREATED BILLION DOLLAR IDEAS- JAVA

Moinak MitraThe Economic Times If Java were not a geek intervention, it could well have stood for coffee, or even a primeval Indonesian island. But as the recent punchline of James Gosling an advert cackles, ‘a lot can happen over coffee’. Well, the Bay Area geeks seem to know their beans and love them too. So it came as no surprise when San Franciscan James Gosling took off his gloves to unveil the Java programming language in 1991. The 53-year-old VP & Sun Fellow at Sun Microsystems is credited to be the father of Java, a programming...

NASSCOM LOBBIES WITH EC ON VISAS

Sumali Moitra, KolkataThe Times of India (Kolkata edition) Software industry body Nasscom is in talks with the European Commission about evolving a single work permit norm for Indian IT professionals so that techies don’t have to apply for separate permissions when moving from one place to the other within Europe. The Indian IT organisation has offered to collaborate in finetuning the mechanism through which this can happen keeping in mind the concerns various European countries have about immigration issues while emphasising the benefits...

IBM EYES STIMULUS FUNDS FOR BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES

New YorkThe Economic Times IBM plans to take advantage of the US economic stimulus package signed earlier on Tuesday by offering Internet services over power lines to more rural consumers. IBM said its venture with International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC), a company that provides broadband over power line (BPL) services, had begun to sign up Internet customers in rural parts of Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and Virginia and that it hoped to access more government funds. The economic stimulus law signed by President Barack...

ABOUT-FACE FOR FACEBOOK: CHANGE IN TERMS REVERSED

Financial Chronicle After a wave of protests from its users, the Facebook social-networking site said Wednesday that it would withdraw changes to its terms of service concerning the data supplied by the tens of millions of people who use it. The about-face was made known to many users in a message posted on their Facebook homepage saying: ‘‘Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve...

INDIAN-AMERICAN NAMED SATELLITE EXECUTIVE OF 2008

HoustonThe Economic Times Indian-American Pradman Kaul, Chairman and CEO of Hughes Network Systems (HNS), has been named 'Via Satellite' Magazine's Satellite Executive of the Year for 2008. Kaul has been a director as well as Chief Executive Officer and President since February 3, 2006, and has been HNS' CEO and President since 2000. Kaul was appointed to HNS' Board of Managers on April 22, 2005, and serves as its Chairman. Previously, Kaul served as President and Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President and Director of Engineering...

STATES IN SEARCH OF INVESTORS

Jyotsna BhatnagarThe Financial Express Corporate India no longer symbolises only corporates. It now encompasses most states of the country too with each vying for Numero Uno status on the investment sweepstakes. Selling themselves to investors as the ultimate investment destinations in a bid to attract big-ticket projects has become a major business for state governments with chief ministers donning the mantle of the CEO. And in this new marketing arena, Gujarat is emerging as a major gladiator. Armed with deft media management and high-decibel...

NINE TRENDS FOR IT IN 2009—I

Chandra RanganathanThe Economic Times By most counts, 2008 was a bad year for IT companies, mostly due to the credit-induced economic crisis in the US, their biggest technology market. ET spoke to IT company officials, analysts and industry experts to get a sense of the trends to watch out for next year in IT services, on the demand and the supply side. Geography: India offers a spring of hopeWhile company officials and analysts say much of the business would continue to happen out of the US, they also see an up swell of demand in Asia...