MUTHUKUMAR RAMALINGAM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DEXTRASYS TECHNOLOGIES SPEAKS

Chennai
The Hindu Business Line

Besides academic qualifications and cutting-edge skills, one must possess qualities such as honesty and raw intelligence.

Companies do an acid test to check whether the candidate has the right attitude in the first place. Since the global economy is more connected than ever before, India is also feeling the slowdown pressures, with tightening job situation as an outcome.

“However, if one possesses all these qualities, companies would not hesitate to hire that person,” Muthukumar Ramalingam, Managing Director and CEO, Dextrasys, told the management students of Saranathan College of Engineering, Panjapur, Tiruchirapalli.

While hiring, companies check for three basic things before going into other aspects — test for integrity, test for intelligence and test for maturity. People with integrity are those who tell the truth, keep their word and take responsibility for their actions.

Intelligence means having a strong dose of intellectual curiosity. People who are mature are those who enjoy success with joy as well as humility.

“These are the key qualities expected to be seen in candidates,” Ramalingam said.

Delivering a guest lecture under the aegis of Business Line Club at the college, he said positive energy with ability to thrive on action, to energise team members, to make quick decisions and execute them, are also essential qualities companies look for in candidates.

“To top it all, one must have passion for work,” he said.

LARGEST SEZ IN IT SECTOR TO COME UP IN CITY

Prakash Bhandari, Jaipur
The Times of India

The special economic zone (SEZ) of Rajasthan Industrial Investment Corporation (RIICO) and the Mahindra World City, located at Kalwara village off Ajmer Road, about 17 km from Jaipur city, could emerge as the country's biggest single location SEZ in IT sector.

Currently Bangalore boasts of the biggest IT hub, located on 510 acres, spread over different locations of the garden city. But the Jaipur's IT SEZ would be located on a 750-acre plot, which will make it the biggest of its kind in the country.

"Eight players have already signed an agreement with us and Infosys, spread on an area of 200 acres, has completed the construction of one part of their block and the second is underway. German banking giant Deutsche Bank has built its building in an area of 16 lakh square feet. After Infosys, the second biggest would be Wipro, which plans construction on an 100-acre land. The construction would start next year. Similarly, Tech Mahindra, Nagaro Software, Conexxions and True Worth Infotech would also start constructing their premises by early next year. Altogether, construction activities would start on 343.45 acres of land in the SEZ and this would bring in an investment of Rs 765 crore. The projects are expected to give employment to 75,000 youths," said B K Subbaiah, chief operating officer of the joint venture company. RIICO, which is the investment arm of the state government, has 26% stake in this public-private initiative and Mahindra World City has a stake of 74%.

"Despite the fact that we (Mahindra) have bigger stake in the company, the chairman is Sunil Arora, who heads the board in the capacity as chairman of the RIICO," said BK Subbaiah.

Subbaiah said the company has signed a lease deed in September with ICICI Bank for 11.04 acres for establishing a data centre for Domestic Tarrif Area (DTA) in the SEZ. He said that 16 units of handicrafts and light engineering, including automotive and automotive component, would come in 71 acres of land that would attract an investment of Rs 325 crore and employ 4,000 people. Out of this eight would be handicraft units and the remaining light engineering projects.

HEXAWARE REVAMPS BIZ STRUCTURE

Mumbai
The Hindu Business Line The Economic Times (Delhi edition) Business Standard

City-based IT services firm Hexaware Technologies has revamped its organisational structure and strengthened its management team by appointing new heads for its business units.

The mid tier software exporter will now focus on three distinct business units: banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), travel and transportation and emerging verticals.

The Emerging verticals unit will focus on seeding the manufacturing and healthcare domains and will also include existing non-BFSI and non-ravel and transportation under one roof for better management, according to a company press note.

Yogendra Shah who was overseeing the APAC geography for Hexaware will now head the travel and transportation vertical. The BFSI vertical will be headed by Deepak Rao, who joins Hexaware from Siemens Information Systems Ltd. Anirban Chakraborty who joins Hexaware from Tata Consultancy Services, will head the Emerging Markets vertical.

“The planned structure will facilitate aggressive account mining, enable us to define and penetrate target accounts better and provide greater value to our customers,” said P.R. Chandrasekar, CEO and Vice-Chairman, Hexaware.

R.V. Ramanan will continue to head the global delivery organisation, which will now be divided into three definite horizontals of business technology optimisation, enterprise resources planning and business intelligence and delivery centres.

4 CHIP COS READY FOR EXPORTS

Appaji Reddem, Hyderabad
The Economic Times (Hyderabad edition)

Even as chip maker SemIndia has shelved its plan to set up $3-billion chip manufacturing facility due to the ongoing credit crunch, four other chip makers are on course to export their products, according to government officials.

Four firms — Solar Semiconductor, XL Telecom Energy, KSK Energy and TF Solar — will export their products from next month, said BP Acharya, chairman and managing director of Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure (APIIC). The combined investment of these companies, housed in the Fab City, is over Rs 9,000 crore. Of this Solar Semiconductor is investing Rs 7,300 crore. The combined investment of the other three firms is over 1,800 crore.

APIIC had allotted land for the firms in the 150-acre Fab City on the outskirts of Hyderabad for setting up these units. Around 16 companies are investing in the Fab City. These firms have the machinery ready to manufacture solar photovoltaic cells and modules.

“The units of all the four companies have reached financial closure. Solar Semiconductor will start its exports from January and the other three will follow in the coming two months. By March, all the four will be up and running and exporting the products from Fab City,” said Acharya. Solar Semiconductor vice-president Ravi Surapaneni was unavailable for comment. Besides this, SemIndia, an integrated semi-conductor company, is set to start its assembly, testing, marking and packing (ATMP) facility in the second quarter of 2009.

But the company has shelved its proposed plan to set up $3-billion chip manufacturing facility due to lack of funds and technical expertise. Its ATMP facility, which was expected to come up by the end of 2008, is delayed by almost a year. SemIndia’s technological agreement with AMD expired late last year, making it tough for the company to enter into chip manufacturing.

Earlier Nanotech Silicon India, the first consortium to announce setting up a fab in the city, shelved its plan. Instead of an investment intensive fab, the consortium led by South Korean professional Jun Min decided to set up Rs 1,200 crore solar cell manufacturing facility in the city along with Jusung Engineering

PORTABLES GIVE CLOUD THE CLOUT

Boston, December 22, 2008
Deccan Chronicle (Chennai edition)

Chances are the mobile phone tucked in your pocket, the lightweight laptop in your backpack, or the navigation system in your car are under a cloud.

That means much of your vital data is not just at your home, at the office or in your wallet, but can easily be accessed by hooking up to the huge memory of the Internet ‘cloud’ with portable devices.

“There’s a lot of buzz about this. Everybody wants to be connected to every thing everywhere,” said Laura DiDio, an analyst with Information Technology Intelligence Corp.

Cloud computing for mobile devices is taking off with the expansion of highspeed wireless networks around the world.

“You’re in a car driving someplace. Not only do you want directions, you want weather reports. You want know what are the best hotels around, where are the restaurants,” DiDio said.

That kind of information is available in cars — and most other places — via mobile phones, “netbook” laptops hooked up to wireless air cards and even highend navigation systems.

The cloud has been around since the mid-1990s when Web pioneers such as Hotmail, Yahoo Inc and Amazon.com Inc started letting consumers manage communications, appointments and shopping via the Internet.

Expansion came after companies such as Google offered free programs similar to Microsoft’s Word and PowerPoint, using an ordinary PC hooked up to the Internet, or a wireless handheld computer, or phone such as Apple Inc’s iPhone.

Nowadays you can shoot a photo with your mobile phone and email it to a free photo-editing site.

The Internet cloud, which also stores photos, music and documents that could be lost if a mobile device or PC were damaged, also supports huge social networks such as Facebook and MySpace