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Microsoft
plans 500 retail spots in 8 cities
Microsoft will set up 500 retail points in eight cities across India,
to drive revenues from the home user segment. Apart from improving
its reach, Microsoft will roll out products that are relevant to the
needs of the Indian market, improve access to its products and technologies
and focus on making its offerings more affordable. To increase affordability
of its products, Microsoft said it would partner with personal computer
manufacturers, banks and government bodies to create financing schemes.
Nasscom working on IT strategy beyond 2008
India's booming IT industry is already looking beyond 2008. Industry
body Nasscom is currently preparing a position paper outlining the
strategy for developing the country's software industry so that it
can secure a higher percentage of the global IT pie as well as increase
the industry's share in the country's GDP. The paper, outlining Nasscom's
vision, is expected to be released before February. It is expected
to dwell on a set of initiatives needed to scale up the export potential
of IT industry and also expand the domestic market, particularly in
the fields of education, training, talent-building, market-access
and infrastructure, among others.
The Nasscom-Mckinsey study released in December 1999 projected India's
software exports at US$ 50 bn and domestic market-size of US$ 37 bn
by 2008. The paper would spell out steps needed to go beyond that
so that the industry plays a bigger role in global IT market and increases
its share in GDP.
Microsoft to Invest US$1.7 billion in India
Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corp, the world's largest software
company, said that the company will invest US$ 1.7 billion in India
over the next four years to expand its operations. The amount is to
be deployed across select focus areas in line with Microsoft's strategic
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vision for India, he said
during his recent visit to India. The fund would also be spent in
making India a major hub of Microsoft's research, product and application
development, services and technical support for both global and domestic
companies.
India's highly skilled professionals, low-cost operations, a booming
economy, good telecommunications links and a rapidly growing market
have made many a foreign companies announce big investments or increase
existing investments in the country.
FDI in IT, telecom at US$ 9 billion in 2005
The pace of FDI especially into IT and Telecom sectors has reached
a record US$ 9 billion. In the last two months alone, more than US$
5 billion worth of investments have been announced for India. The
IT sector saw phenomenal growth in FDI in 2005 with $6.5 billion of
investment. The total investment in IT bypassed the India's ITeS exports
in 2004 ($5.7 billion) and was 48.3per cent of total IT exports. The
players who have committed investments are -
• Vodafone's buying a 10 percent
stake in Bharti Tele Ventures Limited for $1.5 billion.
• Ericsson announcing a $250
million manufacturing and R&D facility in Jaipur and Chennai.
• Finland based Elcoteq inaugurated
its telecom networking equipment manufacturing facility in Bangalore
with an investment of $100 million.
• Nokia's announcement of
a $200 million handset manufacturing centre in Chennai.
• Siemens announced a $100
million equipment manufacturing facility.
• Telecom giant Flextronics
signed an MoU with India to set up a $100 million hardware manufacturing
facility in Chennai.
• LG has already started
its handset manufacturing in Pune
• Korean giant Samsung is
planning its $15 million handset manufacturing facility in Haryana.
• Cisco Systems signed an
MoU with India to invest $1.1 billion over the next 4-5 years.
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• The world's second largest
chip maker AMD is to invest $3 billion in a chip making plant proposed
by a consortium of Indian techies under Semindia.
• Intel announced an investment
of $1.05 billion in India over the next five years.
• Chairman of Microsoft
Bill Gates announced an even bigger, $1.7 billion investment in
R&D and IT literacy in India over the next four years.
Indian IT exports to hit US$ 60 billion
in 5 years
According to consultancy McKinsey and India's IT association, Nasscom
India's business services and information technology exports are
expected to surge more than 25 percent a year to US$ 60 billion
by 2010. At $60 billion, India would have almost half the world's
IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) exports by 2010 and could
add an extra $15 billion-$20 billion over five to 10 years from
2005 through innovation and technological advances, the report said.
'India most Attractive destination for IT'
According to the annual ranking by consulting firm A T Kearney India
continues to be the most attractive destination for offshoring of
services such as information technology, business processes and
call centers. It remains the best offshore destination by a wide
margin even if wage inflation and the mergence of lower-cost countries
decreased its overall lead.As far as China is concerned improved
infrastructure and relevant people skills have increased its attractiveness
as a low-cost option for servicing Asian markets. The gap between
India and the second-ranked country China is larger than the gap
between the next nine countries combined.
A surprising finding in its annual rating is that the US emerged
as the 11th among the 40 countries evaluated. The survey gives wage
inflation and emergence of even lower-cost contenders such as Ghana
and Vietnam for the slight reduction in India's financial attractiveness.
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