ICT in Education: Raising the Bar / 58
Euro Crisis: The Hidden Advantage / 32
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Vol XXX No 4 I F����a��� ��, ����
The Business of Infotech
How Free Can Freedom of Speech be?
What’s needed is a constructive censorship debate to prevent internet misuse
‘Internet censorship is tough to deal with’
Ankit Fadia, ethical hacker 92 pages including cover
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Contents February 29, 2012
COVER STORY
How Free Can Freedom of Speech be?
12
The censorship debate going on in the courtrooms and on TV channels, should be grabbed as an opportunity to reach a solution that can ensure that the internet is not misused, manipulated and misinterpreted
18
How Free can Free Expression be?
Freedom of expression is indeed a fundamental right in every democratic country, however, drawing the line between private and public, moral and vulgar has become pertinent today in the context of the internet as well as the print media
21
24
Internet Momma in China vs India vs US
Recent reproaches of the Indian government have opened a can of worms among the content creators. India should hence come up with a policy that caters to all, without disrupting harmony and rights | February 29, 2012
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Ankit Fadia
independent computer security consultant and writer
‘Internet censorship is tough to deal with’
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
26| Visual Display: Visually LED Revolution
54| Collaboration in IT: Trouble Shared is Trouble Halved
The transition has already begun with LED fast replacing LCD monitors. And the industry expects it to be much faster in 2012
Organizations must design collaborative technologies to provide coordination across geographically distributed teams and work
30| CIO Series: Solving the Desktop Quandary
58| ICT in Higher Education: Raising the Bar
Beating the expected perceptions, the arrival of desktop virtualization does not spell the end of the road for corporate PCs
To ensure a paradigm shift in the Indian education system, ICT can play a crucial role, connecting the unconnected and transforming a stagnant system into a dynamic and interactive process of learning, accessed with ease
32| Euro Crisis: The Hidden Advantage
Euro crisis would mean bad news on many fronts, but it is the advantages that we should focus on now 40| Techpoint: The Bogies of Technology
“We of the East cannot borrow the Western mind nor the Western temperament” —Rabindranath Tagore
64| IT in Policy: One ID for All
With the mandate to provide one unified ID, the UIDAI, with a judicious blend of technologies, is creating new benchmarks in computing and biometric authentication
44| Globalized Services Delivery: INR Depriciation: Is it Here to Stay?
While the USD has now become a safe haven currency, there has been a general trend of depreciation of emerging country currencies 46|Building Management Systems: Need for Energy Efficiency
66| ICT Policy: SC Verdict Over 2G: Confusion Galore
Pandemonium has broken loose—while the industry is back to square one, the court verdict has made telcos cry, investors suffer, and subscribers watch
Prospects for the India ESCO industry via growth in adoption of intelligent building management systems 50| Outsourcing: Capitalizing on Change
Early evidence suggests great scope for BPO led business value in 5 areas of opportunity: New Markets/Emerging Economies, Mergers & Acquisitions, Adoption of New Technologies, Actionable Outcomes and Business Process Adjacencies
68|Engineering Services: Rafale Takes the Honors
With a 50% offset clause, the engineering services segment looks at the MMRCA opportunity with a lot of hope
Leisure 83| Literature: Missing: The Voice of the Desi Techie
Book lovers, particularly after recession, are waiting to read Indian techies and their dreams, desires, hopes, disappointments, et al 86| Davos 2012: Hope Around India, Role of Tech Acknowledged
Online Content....................................................6 Edit....................................................................8
At the World Economic Forum, issues pertaining to India post-telecom scandal, role of science in solving social and biological challenges, communication in the age of social networking, cybercrimes, and role of cities drew massive attention DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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EDIT
No Impact?
I Ibrahim Ahmad
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don’t think the telecom industry will believe telecom minister Kapil Sibal and his colleagues as they put up a brave face to say that the Supreme Court’s order to cancel 122 telecom licenses will have no impact. Here are some simple statistics. Big banks in India, one of the biggest lenders to telecom operators, will be badly hit. For instance, the State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank have lent money to most of the 2G operators whose licenses have been revoked. State Bank of India, India’s largest bank, whose total exposure to the telecommunication sector is over `23,000 crore, has a `1,100 crore stake in the affected telcos. Similarly, Punjab National Bank also has significant stake in the companies. Share prices of both these banks slipped significantly after the Supreme Court verdict. Experts say public sector banks owe money to the tune of `10,000 crore to these 2G operators. Suddenly telecom, which badly needs private investment from India as well as overseas, appears to be a very risky sector. Companies that loose their licenses include Uninor, Loop Telecom, Sistema Shyam, Etisalat DB, S Tel, and Videocon. Idea will also be out of action from some circles. And there is some confusion about which circles will Tata Docomo be out of. Besides the money spent on purchasing spectrum, there was a big investment which went into setting these networks. All the money, roughly `62,000 crore, according to a back-ofthe-envelope calculation, has gone down the drain. And these operators will start from scratch, if they come back. But our telecom minister says there is no impact. Beyond these investments, just imagine what will happen to thousands of people who work in these companies, or are employed with various equipment and service suppliers to these companies. According to some guesstimates, over 52,000 people will be without a job. Sibal does not think this is an impact. And, finally, perhaps the biggest impact will be on roughly 50 million plus subscribers with these operators. They will have to switch off and look for new service providers. These are mostly very price sensitive subscribers looking for best deals, and sometimes much better quality of service in a limited area. They will have lesser options to select from now. This, to my mind, is perhaps the biggest and most significant impact. Mobile penetration targets go for a toss. Affordable connectivity in far flung areas goes for a toss. If Sibal thinks all this is no impact, then I am not sure if Indian telecom is in the right hands.
Vol XXX No 4
February 29, 2012
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| February 29, 2012
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
inbox
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
market for the biometrics-related industry. With more than a billion population, India is confronting a big challenge of enabling citizens, especially those residing in remote parts and slums, with an identity card to avail benefits. Innumerable citizens are unable to avail benefits out of social programs, due to the unavailability of documents. Hence biometrics based identity cards will prove boon for many! We need such articles on a regular basis. Gurpreet, Ranchi
E-planning to Buy a Car?
This is with reference to your article ‘E-planning to Buy a Car?’ (Dataquest, February 15, 2012). The article is wonderful. Thanks for covering us. Keep revving! Rush Parekh, MD, Team-BHP via Email
CIO of the Month
This is with reference to your section ‘CIO of the Month’ (Dataquest, February 15, 2012). And I must say that it has come out really well. Thanks for sharing our views with the readers of your esteemed publication. We appreciate the initiative. Akanksha Upadhyaya, sr executive, corporate communication, Angel Broking via Email
Identify Yourself!
This is with reference to your article ‘Identify Yourself’ (Dataquest, February 15, 2012). It’s an amazing article that brings forth a very contemporary concept into focus. The process of creating biometrics based identity cards or documents will surely solve numerous challenges being faced by the society. And, I totally agree that a country like India will prove a big send your feedback FOR US to serve you better... For subscription related issues, contact us at
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The Digital Reality
This is with reference to your article ‘The Digital Reality’ (Dataquest, November 15, 2011). In today’s time content is easily available in abundance over the internet. We do not need to struggle. If there is a topic, you can bet that there is a website that covers it. The web provides a sea of opportunity to the content providers at a less cost. In fact, people have lost their interest in magazines as they don’t have time and the content is just a click away on the internet. Arun Tyagi, Mumbai
Key to the Lock
This is with reference to your article ‘Key to the Lock’ (Dataquest, February 15, 2012). The article addresses one of the key issues facing enterprises and consumers, ie, the concept of vendor lock-in. As rightly mentioned in the article, creating an option of shifting from one vendor to another requires many sacrifices. Also, it’s a wastage of time and money for many. Simultaneously, vendor lock-in system ensures stability and uniformity. Hence disrupting such a stabilized structure by introducing a new concept can challenge business and productivity. We need such articles that focus on new trends and concepts emerging in the market. Thanks for enlightening all of us! Sunayana, New Delhi
Corrigendum This is with reference to the article ‘Simplifying E-shopping’ (Dataquest, February 15, 2012). Herewith is the correct picture of Ravitej Yadalam, founder and chief executive officer, Pennyful.com. n
Advertisement Index Adv.
Pg. No.
ISACA, www.isaca.org HCL, www.hcl.in
3 7
Galgotia galgotiacollege.edu
11
Vodafone Essar www.vodafone.in
17
NEC, www.necindia.in
29
R P Infosystems www.rpchirag.com
35
Nikom, www.nikom.in
69
IBM, www.ibm.com
IBC
Microsoft India www.microsoft.com
BC
C Change www.advantage-cio.com
42,43
Technology review www.emtechindia.in
84,85
Lenovo www.lenovo.com
IFC
n This is with reference to the article ‘The 20 Who are Making a Difference’ (Dataquest, February 15, 2012). The first caption should read as Vinod Khosla, founder, Khosla Ventures; on Page 30.
Errors are regretted—Ed visit www.dqindia.com
February 29, 2012 |
ganesha
2012—More Questions than Answers! DR GANESH NATARAJAN
DR GANESH NATARAJAN
Despite Europe’s continuing economic crisis and low outlook of economy, a ray of hope exists for the emerging economies where talent has improved, attrition has dwindled, and new opportunities are knocking at their doors
The author is vice chairman & CEO of Zensar and co-chair of the National Knowledge Council of CII. He can be reached at maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
T
he end of one more results season and there are certainly many pointers to continuing prosperity for the Indian software exports sector even as the results that come through in January raised more questions than they provided answers. And these were beyond the obvious ones like when will Cognizant overtake Infosys! The first and usual issue was the eagerness of the press and financial community to hang on to every uttered word regarding the outlook for the next financial year. It was incredulous to find one CEO trashed for talking about flat budgets while another mentioning a small ‘upward bias’ was given a hero’s reception. Will Europe’s continuing economic crisis and the problems of Greece, Italy, Spain, and possibly even Germany and the UK make it easier to grab outsourcing contracts? The stock market seems to believe so, even if the equations seem a little convoluted to many of us! The second interesting puzzle was created by the repeated assertions of an industry CEO that the future lay in wresting a portion of the over $50 bn of contracts, which would come up for renegotiation. While this has always been a benefit that many of us nimble and high-quality second-tier providers have always looked at, putting this strategy under a microscope has started giving the jitters to the analysts with questions about a potential price war surfacing all over again. Why does it always have to be one strategy or the other when life is always a judicious mix of business strategies that result in the annual, if not quarterly, numbers we promise and deliver consistently? But if there was one question that got a standard and very palatable response from all industry chiefs, it was on the stability of manpower in the current context. Most of us are enjoying a period of relative calm with attrition levels hitting historic low levels. In 10 | February 29, 2012
Most of us are enjoying a period of relative calm with attrition levels hitting historic low levels, which can be attributed to the real and perceived problems in global economies and the kind of work environment provided by the industry Zensar’s case, we have lost just 3 people from a large pool of identified critical talent in the first 9 months of the year. While some of this can be attributed to the real and perceived problems in global economies, the industry can also take credit for providing the kind of work environment that is the envy of other sectors. In specific companies, there are many innovative leadership and managerial development initiatives in place that foster creativity in individuals and teams. The improved supply of talent from all over the country, thanks to the maturity of finishing schools and ‘source and train’ firms, have also eased the pressure on recruitment managers, although certain skills continue to be in short supply! Where does the industry go then in 2012? Given the continuing robustness of demand in the Western markets; the emergence of many new markets like Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and China; and the availability of new opportunities in the cloud, mobility, and social media space, there is no doubt that the top 20 or 30 companies will continue to grow at a 15%+ level through the next financial year. Add to this the opportunities in the product, gaming engineering services, and R&D space; and there is confidence that the industry too can grow at a faster clip and stay on track to reach the $200 bn export goal in 2020!
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Cover Story
How Free Can Freedom of Speech be? The censorship debate going on in the courtrooms and on TV channels, should be grabbed as an opportunity to reach a solution that can ensure that the internet is not misused, manipulated and misinterpreted Onkar Sharma
onkars@cybermedia.co.in
12 | February 29, 2012
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
W
hether it is Kapil Sibal, the Union IT and telecom minister or Justice Suresh Kait whose opinions on reining in the social media websites through censorship fired public and TV room debates, the topic is the same: the concept of freedom of speech and expression, and that it is a constitutional right. While there are a good many reasons to censor the web, there are many others why it should not be censored. Sibal’s and Justice Kait’s stance has earned a whole lot of criticism from peers, experts, people and internet users. But people who support them are also in good numbers. More than Kapil Sibal it was Justice Kait’s warning to the social media websites which evoked a lot of criticism. Entertaining a petition against Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, etc, he warned the websites: “Like China, we will block all such websites”. Though it might seem like a calculated move from the government to regulate the internet through a private petitioner, it has brought forth certain very important questions. Is everyone allowed to make comments, objectionable or otherwise, on the web against a religion, race, sex? Should the websites which allow people to network, connect and comment be penalized? Or should the people posting indecent content be brought to justice in lieu of the websites? Questions keep piling up... But the internet censorship debate took a new turn when the matter arrived in court. It is based on a petition filed by Vinay Rai, an editor of a Hindi tabloid who in his petition accused the social media companies of hosting pages replete with obscene depictions of Hindu deities, the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus Christ, among others. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
“Undoubtedly, the technology is not ready to pre-screen data before it is made public. The amount of data these websites generate is immeasurable and beyond the capacity to screen” Ankit Fadia, ethical hacker
“The very notion (China way) is laughable. We do need our traditional laws on libel and defamation to extend in a proper manner to the virtual sphere” Aditya Berlia, pro-chancellor & co-founder, Apeejay Stya University
Taking a serious note of the petition, the court sought permission from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to criminally prosecute the executives who sit in their US headquarters. To the websites’ surprise, the government did not take time to do so. The decision forced the companies to move the High Court challenging the summons issued to their executives.
When ‘China Way’ resounds in the air, the questions will surely emerge louder than is imagined
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Given everything surrounding internet censorship, Dataquest looks into the multiple aspects of censorship, possibilities, India’s readiness to deal with it, middlepath and overall impact.
It’s a Bad, Bad World Across the Himalayas
To dream about a good world out there across the Himalayas in mainland China is easy, as believe many. But to face the reality is a totally different thing. When ‘China Way’ resounds in the air, the questions will surely emerge louder than is imagined. “We are living in a democratic set-up and should refrain from raking in matters by making undue statements. Comparatives with China are not acceptable in form,” says Ankit Fadia, a 26-yearold ethical hacker. Justice Kait’s comment may have come in a context and been February 29, 2012 | 13
Cover Story “It is significant to allow social media or internet enough time to mature and people to be used to it. A hasty step might be harmful”
Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India
misunderstood. But to many, the heterogenous and thoughtless comparison does not conform with India’s democratic set-up. “First of all, India is certainly not China. We respect freedom of speech and expression of every citizen. When it comes to internet censorship, due diligence should be paid in order to secure the right to freedom of speech and expression,” says Navin Jindal, member of parliament, industrialist, chairman and MD, Jindal Steel & Power. Well, the China word entered, when the counsel for Facebook and Google pointed to their global policy of non-interference even if content posted on their services are found to be obscene or objectionable. The idea is being widely ridiculed by most. “The very notion is laughable. As Indian we are a proud democratic nation, and social media is an extension of those principles. We do need our traditional laws on libel and defamation to extend in a proper manner to the virtual sphere,” says Aditya Berlia, pro-chancellor & co-founder, Apeejay Stya University, Gurgaon. He further argues that rather than trying to ban or arbitrarily censor social media, the law makers should concentrate on extending the existing laws of free speech and libel to the online world. It is, however, a discussion in the right direction, given the life that social media has lived in In14 | February 29, 2012
dia. It is fairly a new medium when compared to TV, radio and print. But the discussion will only succeed when an absolute solution is discovered to deal with such matters. Right now both the law and the social media platfroms are at an immature stage to decide what to do. “Understanding the modalities and keeping every angle in view is far more significant than just making China Way statements. In my view, it is significant to allow social media or internet enough time to mature and people to be used to it. A hasty step might be harmful,” suggests Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India—a Nasscom initiative. The statement did not get enough backing even in the government as Shashi Tharoor, Congress
The law makers should concentrate on extending the existing laws of free speech and libel to the online world
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MP, did not favor the idea of banning the websites in India. But Sibal’s undertones were reflected in his comment on a TV channel when he favored the idea of reining on these websites. The idea of banning the internet sites is against the democratic principle of “freedom of expression”. “What’s with all the internet censorship talk, SOPA act in the US, censorship of social sites in India? This is favoring totalitarianism,” writes Dhanya Venugopal, a blogger. There is a lot more diversity in India than just the political one. “India and China are totally different countries in terms of economic policies, laws, culture and political set-up,” shares Roopesh Agarwal, director, Advertisementindia.com.
Economically and Technically, not Possible
From economic and political standpoint, it is not feasible for India to put a whole lot of money into keeping a close eye on these sites and bar them from publishing the censored content. “Countries such as China and the UAE which do this with reasonable success, are not democracies to start with, and even then have had to put billions of dollars in state funding to marginally accomplish their censorship objectives. Quite frankly, India simply does not have resources to spare to do this, and it has the hacker population with a juggad mentality to get around it easily,” argues Berlia of Apeejay Stya University. In order to keep tab on social media sites and search engines per se, China pours billions of dollars every year and has employed close to 40,000 people to oversee and review the activities. India does not have money to deploy such numbers or even of them. Secondly hardly does it make sense, because still people in China have their
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
ways to browse the banned websites through different means. Anonimizer.com is just one example through which people are able to hide their location and access the banned content on the internet. The websites which have been issued summons have argued in the court expressing helplessness to pre-screen data or remove data from their international data centers owned and operated by their parent arms in the US. Their argument that technology is not available to pre-screen data before making content public also gets expert backing. “Undoubtedly, the technology is not ready to pre-screen data before it is made public. The amount of data these websites generate is immeasurable and beyond capacity to screen. Also the data lying in servers installed in the US data centers is out of jurisdiction,” avers Fadia. But the court has thus got permission from the ministry of external affairs to prosecute the international executives of these websites and thus has issued summons to them. A school of experts also believes that if websites like YouTube can remove videos deemed indecent, pornographic, why can other websites remove content that hurts the religious sentiments of Indians? “Instead what websites can do is post-screen data as YouTube does it. But it is a manual process. The websites have to be more responsible and has to be brisk in blocking or removing data that is inappropriate and hurts sentiments of a group,” further suggests Fadia. But when it comes to prescreening data, Twitter’s action of censoring country-wise tweets directs at a solution that various websites can perhaps replicate. There has to be a mechanism, which protects both the business sentiment and the religious or moral sentiments in a country. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
“India and China are totally different countries in terms of economic policies, laws, culture and political set-up”
Roopesh Agarwal, director, Advertisementindia.com
Culture and Conflict
But there is a class of people that advocate an absolute ban on social media websites. The ban is sought on the basis that these websites have left no stone unturned in spreading evils like pornography and hatred. Well, this hardly gets any backing in the circles on various grounds. And the websites debate that they are just a medium like a courier boy and can not be held responsible for the content created by others on their platforms. Secondly, many see it in the context of the culture and class politics, just to garner publicity and emerge as heroes. In his petition, Vinay Rai has referred to several pages where, according to him,
Twitter’s action of censoring country-wise tweets directs at a solution that various websites can perhaps replicate
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defamatory content exists against Hindu deities, Prophet Mohammed and Christians, etc. “Type in ‘High School Girls’ in ‘Google’ and on the other hand, type the same ‘High School Girls’ in Bing, you will be able to see the results that both the searches have produced and while the results in Bing will be limited to the extent of being away from ‘Porn/sex’ and on the other hand, the results from Google will end up giving you a list of web addresses which are exclusively related to Porn/Sex etc,” says Anil Kumar Singh, a social activist, applauding Vinay Rai’s feat of filing a petition in the court. While his concern might be well-pointed, it would be significant to review the implications of banning these websites through different angles. Looking from a different perspective, one can easily see how social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, etc have rather united people and allowed a space to put forth their thoughts on events of national and international importance. Hence, various government agencies have resorted to social media and tried to reach out to people and peers. But is the culture a real concern? For few, it might be, whereas for other it isn’t. A large section of experts and internet users suspect something fishy and the government’s or of those in authority’s February 29, 2012 | 15
Cover Story attempt to suppress people’s voice against the trail of scams, scandals and events of national importance like anti-corruption movement. “‘Unity in Diversity’ cannot just be a token phrase but the feeling should seep into the everyday fabric of the Indian. We should toughen up and accept that we live in a varied, dichotomous society where every member has their own views that they should be given the freedom to express,” says Sreekanth Lapala, founder & director, TenXLabs.
Contagious Content and Censorship in India
It is not the first time that the debate over censorship has surfaced. On certain occasions, the governments have a history of blocking the web for a few sensitive things. During the Kargil war in 1999, the internet service provider (ISP), blocked the website of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. And there was no public or written instruction about it. This was the first internet censorship case in India. It happened when there was no IT Act in place. But when the Parliament passed the IT Act in 2000, it did not give outright powers to the government in order to block websites, though the Act proposed the creation of a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) which saw the light of the day in 2003 and in a first case of censorship, recommended all ISPs to block the Yahoo! Group’s webpage of Khasi militant group called the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council in the 3rd month of its functioning. But it might sound funny that ISPs ended up completely blocking Yahoo! Group websites. Similarly, there has been events from time to time. In 2007, social media network Orkut was asked to take down allegedly defamatory 16 | February 29, 2012
“We should toughen up and accept that we live in a varied, dichotomous society where every member has his own views and should be given the freedom to express”
Sreekanth Lapala, founder & director, TenXLabs
pages. Later in 2009, the government blocked a very popular cartoon porn website, SavitaBhabhi. com. Likewise in 2011, the government inflicted ban on websites like Typepad, Mobango and Clickatell, though it was later lifted. So if the government’s history of censorship is taken into account, there would be more funny instances in the absence of a proper mechanism.
Miles to Go...
Since the petition has brought into focus the issue of censoring the internet, it must not go down without finding a solution. Surely India is not a country where freedom of speech and expression is suppressed. There is need to apply more caution in making statements especially by people
Since the petition has brought into focus the issue of censoring the internet, it must not go down without finding a solution visit www.dqindia.com
who are considered custodian of law and democracy in the country. If the court and the governments are keen on the petition by Vinay Rai, they must give equal weightage to appeal by another citizen Harsha Gupta who has filed a plea to be heard in the ongoing dispute. Gupta, a resident of Bengali Market, runs a school and argues that the case affects not just the parties concerned but all the citizens using internet at large. “Google and Facebook enable and facilitate citizens to the fullest to exercise their freedom of speech and expression and the right to form associations,” he argues in his plea. Therefore, the case must not be used to demean anyone rather as an opportunity to find out a proper mechanism without hurting the interests of the people and of the companies who are also giving jobs to many in the country. Or the internet must let loose to find its own way as Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO of Data Security Council of India puts it. He thinks that the medium is fairely new and needs to achieve maturity. According to him, people just make casual and not serious statements on the social platforms which do not need much attention. Slowly, people will learn to use it properly and perhaps become used to non-serious discussions. n
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Cover Story
Perils of Free Speech Freedom of expression is indeed a fundamental right in every democratic country, however, drawing the line between private and public, moral and vulgar has become pertinent today in the context of the internet as well as the print media
T
echnology has always led to new challenges in society even as it has helped solve many of the existing problems of its times. Nuclear energy, steel plants, automobiles, and other industrialization technologies significantly address the demands of rising populations, but in the process have left the world grappling with nuclear waste, climate changes, pollution, water shortages, health hazards and numerous other challenges that can be attributed, at least in part, to new technologies. 18 | February 29, 2012
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The Social Media Movement
The ubiquitous communication technology driven by the internet has globalized the world and brought people nearer in unimaginable ways. Printing press, telegraph, and telephone seem primitive compared to email, chat, blogs, Skype and the Web. These in turn have been overtaken by instant information searches on Google, instant update messages on Facebook, and instant tweets on the Twitter. Social media provide instant connectivity to communities of friends and followers, who in turn can feed or transmit the same messages to their friends and so on. Friends, followers and bloggers can add onto the messages, and since the medium is interactive, it lends itself to multi-dimensional communications. Crowd participation and crowd sourcing are some of the terms that describe social media and their usage. Today, with the user of social media, a city, country, region and even the whole world can know an idea in no time. The Arab Spring, Jasmine Revolution in China, Occupy Wall Street, Anna Hazare Anti Corruption movement ensured that hundreds of thousands of people could be mobilized for a cause through such social media. No other mode of communication in human history has facilitated the democratization of communication as the internet (Tweets grew from 500K in 2007 to more than 4 bn in Q1 of 2010, to over 1 bn tweets every week this year with a community of 225 mn users. Facebook has 800 mn users, which are expected to reach 1 bn by August 2012). The internet started as a domain for academics and technophiles, with a complete laissez faire approach. Innovations in technology and services were the watchwords, and continue to be so. It has not been governed in the traditional DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Freedom of expression is indeed a fundamental right in every democratic country—Article 19 of our constitution guarantees this right
top-down government approach. But media like Facebook and Twitter allow everyone to post messages of any kind, upload photographs and videos of anyone. How do you view such ‘publishing’? Is it similar to the print media, like a newspaper or a magazine? Or is it similar to broadcast media like TV? Or is internet publishing in general, and social media in particular, something different and unique? This is important from the standpoint of deciding which laws to apply to questions of free speech, ethics and morality, and whether new laws are required to address these issues in this domain. Freedom of expression is indeed a fundamental right in every democratic country—Article 19 of our constitution guarantees this right.
Using Broadminded Content
It is instructive to see how this right has been affected by the use of emerging technologies of their times. Print media were seen to be invading privacy of influential persons in society in the last century, which led to the development of privacy laws. These in turn are challenged once again with the way the internet is transforming the very idea of publishing, communicating and reaching out to masses. Personal data has economic value; companies are collecting, visit www.dqindia.com
collating, and monetizing them in unconventional ways. Print media have gradually become liberal in content—what was considered pornography or harmful to children is routinely published in newspapers and magazines. Society has gradually accepted this change, almost without any protest; like a frog that does not jump out of a container that is gradually heated. Likewise, the films and broadcast media—TV and cable—also show pictures and content that would have been censored just a decade ago in our country. Recent annual film awards on a popular TV channel had some of the most vulgar dialogs uttered by a top actor, presumably as jokes, on prime time. That is part of freedom of expression, but who is to decide the limit of vulgarity? Religious debates include topics that could be regarded as blasphemy in some religious states, accusations that may be viewed as defamatory, seditious speeches and other material almost always go ‘unnoticed’ by the state; deliberately in some cases, for every action invokes counterreaction. In the UK, a case was brought against the BBC for its transmission of blasphemous views in a show, but the court ruled that theaters and broadcasters are exempt from blasphemy actions. The decision was upheld by the House of Lords in March 2008. (Lord Meghnad Desai, Faith in Freedom, Indian Express, 26 January, 2012). In our own country, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a producer to screen the Tamil movie Ore Oru Gramathile in 1989 even though its theme was perceived to be hostile to the reservation policy and hurtful to dalits. “...Freedoms can not be held to ransom by an intolerant group of people. .... freedom of expression protects not merely ideas that are accepted but those that offend, shock or disturb the state or any sector of the February 29, 2012 | 19
Cover Story population. Such are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no democratic society”. (Soli Sorabjee, Indian Express, 29 January 2012).
Social Media—Yet to Mature
Social media is a new domain in cyberspace. It is growing rapidly. Whole new communities that encourage people to discuss important issues and come up with innovative solutions to local problems are emerging. Some of the content can be objectionable in the eyes of some groups. But democratic governments should not feel threatened the way imperial governments felt when the radio was used to broadcast national uprisings and revolutionary messages against them in 1940s. This medium is used by people to discuss problems as if they are sitting together in a drawing room, college canteen, or a community center. That is why the language is so casual, and pictures are shared the same way. It is a new medium, which has yet to reach a level of maturity. This medium requires self-regulation on the part of users and media alike, and not censorship. This calls for creation of awareness on its implications, since the content created by community groups is suddenly available for millions to see. That is its strength too, which society has to leverage for positive outcomes. But the choice of viewing it rests with the individual, just as he is free to switch TV channels if he does not like the content. Since the content is uploaded by millions of people, the social media site is merely an intermediary, similar to the telephone carrier. Should the State decide whether particular content be posted on such a site? Should the media be left alone, and asked to remove content if a court orders that it 20 | February 29, 2012
In the case of social media the content is being posted from anywhere in the world. The medium has, therefore, to be viewed differently by governments
is in violation of the laws of the land? There is another question on whether technology enables removing of such content completely once it has been posted. The answer is not a definitive yes. Even the Chinese government with its vast censorship filters finds that the censored online content is somehow viewable. In the case of social media the content is being posted from anywhere in the world. The medium has, therefore, to be viewed differently by governments. Even after a century, films run into controversies that the Supreme Court has to rule on; print media can be the target of physical attacks even after two centuries of existence; a literary festival can be marred by an intolerant group of people. The Supreme Court’s judgement seems to hold little value today, giving the impression that we are in an age of intolerance. We should not let similar intolerance dominate the emerging social media to throttle its potential for good use. Through the communities that it is helping create, social media will be part of the solution landscape for several problems confronting our rural populations, and those in other countries. We should channel our energies in that direction and allow the social visit www.dqindia.com
media to develop further and reach a higher level of maturity, at par with broadcast and print media. In the meantime, government and industry should work together to create awareness on its use for good of society. Like every other issue around the internet, public-private partnership is the key to meeting this challenge.
The Indian Context
India is uniquely placed to take advantage of global data flows that are becoming the norm as a result of new applications and services that are emerging everyday. A good example is cloud computing, which holds great potential for Indian outsourcing industry. Data processing can take place anywhere in the world with the consumer being unaware of the source of the service and the laws that govern the content. India is at the threshold of being part of the next IT revolution. It aims to increase the industry revenue to $225 bn by 2020 and employ over 10 mn young people directly. We have to address the challenges of cyber security and data protection, create skills in our people to make them employable, and use IT to solve societal problems. In all these we can take the lead in developing standards, technologies, and global solutions. We have to demonstrate that India is not only a rapidly growing economy, but also mature in its approach to problems that emerge as a result of deployment of new technologies. n
Dr Kamlesh Bajaj
The author is CEO, Data Security Council of India—a Nasscom initiative. He was earlier the founder director of CERT-In, Government of India. (The views expressed here are personal.) maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
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Internet Momma in
China vs India vs US
Recent reproaches of the Indian government have opened a can of worms among the content creators. India should hence come up with a policy that caters to all, without disrupting harmony and rights
AKANKSHA PRASAD
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
I
n 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee started WWW, it was all about consuming static content, and authority of that content was in the hands of a few media corps or educational institutions. In a matter of few years, the trend changed, information was no more static. It was the world of Web 2.0 which enabled everyone to create content, followed by social networking which allowed content creators to spread their voice in almost the speed of light.
Moral Policing
Eventually, more content creation and sharing meant more strength to voice or an unrestrained strength to the voice, which called for moral policing. This is where the governments came into action. China was among the first DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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February 29, 2011 | 21
Cover Story ones to adopt a censorship policy, which is said to date back as early as 300 AD. It received worldwide criticism for it. But now with other countries like the US talking about Internet Censorship Bill already, internet censorship seems to have become reality in every country. As of today, India has more than a 100 mn internet users. Hence India has the third largest number internet users after China and the US. After a while, there shall be very little difference between China, US, or India. Hence the debate would no longer be about what but how to censor the freedom to citizen in this spree. According to a recent media report, Reporters Without Borders produced a Press Freedom Index of 179 nations, where all the 3 counties in mention fell down the ladder—US came down to 47 from 20s, India was at 131 rank against 122 last year, and China was ranked at 174. A comparison between 3 countries will be only about execution, which would largely be a political decision. While it’s difficult to arrive at a conclusion, but we should deeply look into the real scenario of 3 major countries that are practicing or looking forward to adopting this control.
Targeting the Media
Media has been the most vulnerable prey of censorship. From The New York Times, BBC, to Indian Journals, everyone has bared it all, especially during wartime. We still remember those blank pages on the cover pages of The Indian Express. As rightly mentioned in the famous lines of Armed Islamic Group (GIA): ‘Those that live by the pen shall die by the sword’, hence not only in the past but also in the recent times, Iran, China, Korea, and many other countries have reported detention of the journalists. Things haven’t changed then, except that the number of pen-hold22 | February 29, 2012
Unlike China, where punishment is as harsh as an arrest and imprisonment, US claims to be critical about internet censorship, but does practice a soft control
ers has multiplied massively. The next category of target is the social media group like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, who have been in a constant fight with governments like in China.
China’s Controlling Methods
After The Great Wall of China, the extensive structure of 8,851.8 km, another great surprise from the Republic came as the Great Firewall (The Golden Shield Project) that started in 1998. Today it has shaped up as one of the most sophisticated control systems. It’s a robust control system that can scan and censor everything—internet sites, mobile text messages, calls, social networking services, etc. Rather than following the hackneyed process of blocking domain extensions and websites, China follows Google, ie, they identify and block as per the keywords. So, an utter of a non-permissible word during a telephonic conversation can disconnect the call. The Mainland has built an infrastructure that can pass through all networks; recognize multiple speech/languages in the conversation; screen the content for objectionable content, and disable them. Hence regulating what people communicate about visit www.dqindia.com
and stand-up comedians laugh at. The matter does not always end at a call, even today the civilians are detained for uploading the pictures, videos, etc, that are inappropriate as per the government.
A Unique Quagmire
China falls into a unique quagmire, where it being among the fastest and emerging economies, needs to spread internet usage among the people, but with a caution. The communist government in Mainland is indeed going beyond just censoring to controlling what its people read, gather, and share. And this is what they chose. Around 2009, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at China tried to create an automated network called Green Dam. It’s a software that would sit in the public cafes, schools, and home PCs. Positioned as a content-filtering tool for kids using internet, was actually serving the government’s main motive of building a system to remotely access the content for all, and soon this would occupy the mobile phones as well. While the project was called off following a public debate, but the government is said to have sent a notification to all PC manufacturers to pre-install the software in their entire latest product line. Many media houses like The New York Times and BBC would report that their website had been blocked, and then surprisingly unblocked. The corporates failed to promote free speech in front of the government and those who did not accept were blocked like Facebook, Twitter, and many videos on YouTube. This is a bitter truth, and the fresh victim being Twitter, which changed its stance from ‘Tweets Must Still Flow’ to ‘If required by the laws’. It announced to follow the censorship rules as per the respective country. Twitter’s blockage in the territory might find
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its way after this announcement. Google, the search engine major, operated a separate domain as .CN for the country, but then it got into a tiff. According to reports, the search results are routed through Hong Kong. Akin to the technology companies, people are finding ways to surpass this firewall and spread their voice. In order to evade the censor obstacle, people have been using euphemisms and metaphors like a ‘Kuang Kuang’ animation series where anyone saying sunflower seeds vanishes. Another common practice is building selfowned Virtual Private Network (VPN). After all, it’s an army of a thousand against the population of a billion.
US: Critical but Softer
Unlike China, where punishment is as harsh as an arrest and imprisonment, US claims to be critical about internet censorship, but does practice a soft control. Much credit could be given to the federal nature of the government, where the head of the state like the president is more sensitive than harsh to the issues of a common man. The first amendment to the US constitution, which mentioned that ‘Congress shall not make any law abridging the Freedom of Speech or of the press’ had protected the internet users. With the onset of WikiLeaks deviations did come, since it has been posting a series of information against the US government. US, however, at present is engulfed in a different argument of copyright infringement, wherein the so-called rogue websites will be blocked, if found copying the content. At present, they have Safe Harbor under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that became a law in 1998 under Clinton’s regime. As per this law, spreading of any technology, device, or service DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Determining India’s Stand
More content creation and sharing meant more strength to voice or an unrestrained strength to the voice, which called for moral policing. Hence this is where the governments came into action
that could be marked under copyright is illegal and punishable. An extension to this is what we are hearing about as Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The bill is calling it a safeguard of American intellectual property. While a clause in Section 230 of the US constitution protects the ISPs, this new Bill would reverse the entire structure forcing the ISPs to act upon and remove the URLs of the concerned websites. However US has been contemplating on using the prototype of China’s Green Dam already. It has installed a content-control software, which also called censorware or web-filtering software in public libraries. Unique in its approach, it even proposed a bill to establish an office for building a technology to counter and cross the censorware in other countries. In the internet censorship, right now US falls on the other extreme, where it plays in the global field. It condemns internet censorship in China, but plans to censor the entire internet world, even beyond their territory in the name of copyright. visit www.dqindia.com
India, too, seems to have joined the league of internet censorship like China, US, Burma, Pakistan, North Korea, Yemen, Iran, and many of them. The country has followed a comparatively softer approach. Being the largest democratic country, India has mostly heeded to the public opinion. The Ministry of Information and Technology talks about responsible controls like banning the comic strip of Savita Bhabhi or the nude images of models trying to claim the fame. Also, it favored ban on videos, images, and other content that depicted harassment, obscenity, bloodshed, and massacre for maintaining the public harmony. In 2003, it formed Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), under the IT Act 2000. However, at the same time, it was covering up many true stories like ban of Pakistan media sites during the Kargil War. In 2006, in order to block some 17 blogs hosted, ISPs blocked TypePad, WordPress, and GeoCities. Furthermore, the Home Ministry of India asked Yahoo! for details of a few account users, in denial of which it imposed a fine of `11 lakh. Recently, around 21 sites including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and YouTube were asked to screen and clean up the anti-religious and anti-social content by February 2012. Just as the information and telecom minister Kapil Sibal shared the government’s intent to screen the internet and the social networking sites, the users went berserk blasting their viewpoints everywhere. It is an open-ended debate as to where India would fall between the extremes of China and US. While there have been cases where bloggers were asked to pull down the content. However, from a larger perspective, the government has been very tolerant about the content and information on the internet. n February 29, 2012 | 23
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‘Internet censorship is tough to deal with’ To comprehend the technical possibilities of screening and removing the objectionable data on the web, we caught up with Ankit Fadia, a 26-year-old ethical hacker, at his book launch. He unveiled his latest hacking thriller—How to Unlock Everything on the Internet—to enable people to use banned websites. Since Fadia has been instrumental in decoding several internet crimes in India and around the world, we wanted to know from him whether it’s possible to pre-screen data on the social networking websites before it’s made public, and if there are other ways to deal with the matter. We also sought his views on the concept of ‘free internet’.
Ankit Fadia
independent computer security consultant and writer
P
ornographic content is exposed to kids openly on the web, giving concerns to Indian parents today. Don’t you think you should have rather come out with a book on blocking the sites objectionable to kids? In order to block pornographic or inappropriate content, there is no technology available that allows this hundred percent today. So it’s important for parents to inculcate a value/moral system in their kids, so that they don’t access objectionable content on the internet. Although I’m not a parent, I interact with a lot of kids today and try to tell them what is not appropriate for 24 | February 29, 2012
them. But yes, I agree that the forbidden fruit always attracts. If we ask kids not to do something, they will do it or find ways to do that even after blocks. Probably, it’s difficult to control this. Five years ago, kids used to access the internet either on their desktop or laptop, now they do it on their cellphone. And 5 years from now, they will perhaps access the internet through the digital screens. Since mediums keep changing, therefore controlling the content becomes a difficult task. Since we can’t monitor kids 24 hours of the day, hence at the end of the day, it’s about educating them and telling them what’s wrong and what’s right.
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Are you supporting hacking? The title of your book suggests this. Or is it just how you interpret it? I don’t support any kind of illegal activities or hacking per se which is punishable or confronts a country’s IT law. However I don’t support the blocking of websites which are legal and should not be blocked or banned. For example, most of the educational institutions do not allow students to access Facebook or Twitter. I’m absolutely against this method of controlling. Many people argue that accessing social networking websites is just wastage of time. But students still access these websites on their cellphones in the institution and are doing this even after the ban. So it doesn’t make sense. Many people also cite bandwidth as a reason for blocking Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. To them, I’ll suggest that they must adopt a freeium model and let students access these websites. If YouTube can remove objectionable videos from the website, why can’t the websites conform with Indian government’s concern to pre-screen data before making it public on the web? Is pre-screening possible? Does the China example make sense, where these social networks are blocked or banned? I reiterate that it’s impossible to pre-screen data for social networks, given the amount of data being generated from all sorts of people around the world. It’s not technically and economically feasible. Thus internet censorship is tough to deal with for the governments. It may be possible to regulate and ban newspapers and TV channels, but the internet cannot be controlled since anybody can post anything from anywhere instantly. I don’t think that YouTube is doing this. All it is doing is post-screening videos and removing them, if found illegal or offensive. And it is a manual process rather than a technological one. But yes, people can mark a video or image on the websites as illegal or abusive. There is a mechanism in place on Facebook and other social networking websites for users to report something as abuse or illegal or pornographic or as hate speech by clicking on a link. If enough number of users click on that link, then the content is taken down automatically. So it is rather post-screening which is possible. Also, I don’t think that a country should follow China. China has employed and engaged more than 40,000 hackers to block and censor content. Facebook, Twitter, and most of the YouTube videos are blocked in China. India is a democratic nation where these DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
things should not happen. Economically, it’s not possible for India to engage as much as 40,000 or more people to block and censor the internet. Isn’t it right to take action against websites for publishing objectionable content? In the name of freedom of expression, is it good to hurt the sentiments of people? India is a diverse country. As per me, content which is offensive in nature either towards a particular religion or race should be removed from the internet. But there has to be a right approach to do this. In the name of religion or race, it is perhaps not right to ban the websites. Because the websites are simply the media and not the content creators. Furthermore, it is difficult to put immediate brakes to the flow of information being created on these websites. But, I advocate strong postscreening measures to keep tab on objectionable activities. Twitter and Facebook should behave more responsibly before the governments get in touch with them and instruct them to do so. You said that while people read this book they should respect local laws. Won’t the book promote illegal browsing, if a person travels to a country like China or UAE where Facebook and similar websites are banned? First of all, this book is only published in India. I don’t agree to the blocking of Facebook. And, I don’t think any government should do this. I’m ready to take on governments. I’m ready to fight the war of freedom of speech over the internet. If the information is not harming anybody or hurting any sentiments, why should it be banned? I entirely support the legal stuff on the internet and will continue to equip people to use these sites even where they’re banned. But no one can decide whether the information will harm anybody’s sentiments... Information is a very powerful tool and can be interpreted in different ways by different people. But there are always 2 ways—the good way and the bad way. Take an example of a knife. A knife in the hands of a criminal can take a life, while a knife in the hands of a surgeon can save a life. How you handle an instrument or tool does matter. Risk of misusing the power of knowledge or information does not mean that it should be banned. The freedom of speech and expression has to prevail. n
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ONKAR SHARMA onkars@cybermedia.co.in February 29, 2012 | 25
Visual Display
Visually LED Revolution
The transition has already begun with LED fast replacing LCD monitors. And the industry expects it to be much faster in 2012 Sandhya Malhotra
(sandhyam@cybermedia.co.in)
T
he visual display segment has been undergoing a dramatic change with the form factor. Consumers have increasingly begun to prefer monitors that are sleek in design with slim size. The traditional monitor market has come a long way from CRT to plasma displays, LCD backlit square displays to the CCFL LCD displays, to energy-efficient LED technology and more recently OLED display and IPS panels. The underlying design direction is to move towards sleeker, more energy-efficient designs that give higher contrast ratios and true color reproduction. It has been the tendency of the market to shift to new technologies and innovative products. However in the display market, this trend is not common to see technology breakthroughs. After the slow extinction of LCD, now the latest buzzword in the display market is LED, however, the technology is not entirely new from its predecessors but is based on the already proven and matured LCD technology. The transition has already begun with LED technology taking over the erstwhile LCD monitors. The transition was moderate in 2011, however industry expects the transition to be much faster in 2012. LCDs are cheaper than LEDs, but the advantages of LED have resulted in a huge shift to the sleek and slim LED monitors in the recent times. A reduction in price of LEDs will make them the preferred choice for all customers. Even if a new technology offering new advances enters the market, it either dies mid-way (as in the case of plasma TV) or takes an extremely long time to become mainstream. LED monitors are technically a member of the LCD monitors family. The LED technology co-exists with the LCD technology. The difference between the two is mainly in the backliting techniques which changes the picture quality characteristics dramatically. According to Saurabh Grover, head, sales, AOC Monitor Business India, “LED monitors offer better color reproduction and sharp imaging compared to LCD monitors. Factors driving the growth of LED monitors are high-quality display, slim designs, and power saving. The gaming/entertainment enthusiasts would surely love LED technology because of its high-definition and sharp picture quality. Other than that, LED technology will find great use in medical diagnostics and architecture since these segments require study of minute details and close examination of the object in focus.” There are many new innovations coming up in the LED monitors space. Uniformity will be one of the key focuses in panel backlit technology. OLED will be the preferred technology in the various panel types and more monitors will see the transition from 2D to 3D.
Ready for the Shift
Most of the prominent players appear to be phasing out their LCD monitor lines, shifting their emphasis to LEDs completely by H1 2012. However players like ViewSonic is already out of the LCD game for the last one year. Companies like LG and AOC is also following suit. 26 | February 29, 2012
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As per Ajay Sharma, country manager, ViewSonic, “The display product market consists of monitors LCD and LED. While India is seeing a dramatic shift in volumes from LCD monitors to LED monitors, most Western markets have already witnessed this shift, and are slowly doing away with LCD. The transition from LCD to LED has to happen as most of the monitors manufactures have stopped the production of LCD. Whereas in India, the technology shift is happening late, but we feel 2012 will be the last year for LCD.” Grover points out, “AOC made a complete shift to LED range in Q1 2011 itself, starting from 15.6” LED to 27” LED monitors. Hence all our mainline models are LED monitors. However in order to meet certain tender requirements or for price-specific deals, we arranged small lots of one or two CCFL LCD monitors off and on. The percentage of LCD and LED units varies on monthly basis depending on special deals and corporate business. Till December, our LCD ratio was less than 12% of the total sales volume. By the end of Q1 2012, we plan to completely phase out the CCFL LCD monitors.
Similarly, Sanjoy Bhattacharya, marketing head, product group, LG India says, “LCD monitors continue to die off, hopefully by the end of H1 2012 we will be completely out of our LCD monitors range, wherein the entire industry will be shifting from LCD to LED display by Q3 2012. Having said that, we still sell 20% of LCD monitors range. In fact as per our planning, we will discontinue the production of LCD monitors by Q1, but we will keep some trade stock available until Q2 2012.” Vinay Shetty, country head, component business, ASUS India says, “Over 90% of transition has already happened from LCDs to LEDs. LCDs should be phased out in the next 2 years time. LCD monitors have been launched in the last fiscal. We plan to sell about 700 units this year for LCDs, since most of the transition will lead to LED.” “We have an ideal combination of both LED backlit LCDs and CCFL LCDs. Our portfolio consists of 60% of LED backlits LCDs and 40% of CCFL LCDs. We have a wide range of LED screens available in India at affordable prices. Today our customers have an option to choose from
Benefits of LED n LCD displays unlike CRTs cannot create their own light. To generate the light which ultimately creates the picture we see onscreen, LCD displays use a backlight unit. n Initially, LCD backlights used cold cathode fluorescent tubes (CCFL) which are similar to lighting tubes used in everyday life, to generate light. A recent technological advance is the use of light emitting diodes (LED) in the backlight to generate light. n This new technology offers several advantages over the old CCFL backlight LCD displays. LED based displays are smaller, lighter in weight, and more robust than CCFL backlight displays. Hence this allows to design slimmer and light-weight displays. n One of the other main advantages is that LED backlight displays are more energy-efficient than their CCFL based counterparts, allowing for more environmentfriendly displays. They also do not contain mercury unlike CCFL displays which is hazardous to the environment and difficult to recycle. n The white light produced by LEDs being purer than their CCFL equivalents gives better color reproduction as well end period. n As a result of the terminologies used by most brands, CCFL backlight LCDs have become synonymous to customers as LCDs and LED backlight LCD displays are popularly called LEDs.
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a display size range starting from 15.6” to 27” LED backlit LCD monitors,” highlights Saji Kumar, director, product management, Acer India.
Diminishing Price Gap
“Over the years, the price gap has been predominately diminished. Even performance has been improved. LED monitors use less energy as compared to the LCD. LEDs can save about 25% of the energy over a LCD device. Average pricing for LED is declining, allowing LEDbacklit devices to become more price competitive as compared to CCFL LCD monitors. This should allow penetration of LED monitors in tier-2 and tier-3 cities,” says Kolkata based Veenith Kala, Starcomp Infotech, a dealer for Acer, LG, and Samsung. Bhattacharya also adds, “LED is definitely the future in monitors. LED monitors—with their far better picture quality, slim design, and up to 45% power savings—are a superior value proposition for customers. With more awareness about the products and their benefits, the technology will gain wider acceptance and will slowly replace LCD. However the main challenge faced by the LED monitor is pricing. LED monitors are much more expensive as compared to LCD monitors.
Smooth Transition
It took long for the industry to migrate from CRT to LCD. In the case of LED, the transition from LCD was quite natural and smooth. Delhi based Ajaya Kumar, MD, Park Network, a regional distributor for AOC recalls, “LCD technology faced numerous challenges when it was launched, and for a long time CRT continued to challenge LCD monitors. Apart from a huge price premium, LCD picture quality was initially poor with a low contrast ratio, high response time, and high error rates. LED technology doesn’t need to go through this maturity February 29, 2012 | 27
Visual Display curve of a few years, so it is expected to be mainstream within a year. When LCDs were launched in India, they were priced more than 3 times higher than CRT monitors. That is not the case with LEDs.” Monitor as a product is in a driving position. Moreover, segmentwise, LED monitors are growing at a bullish pace and are expected to capture the entire segment by 2012. In the LED category, most popular monitors are 20” LED, and growth-wise 22”+ category is leading the pack. In addition to that, multi-function monitors are on good demand today. Within the LED space, some of the emerging categorize are O-LED, foldable display, and 3D without glass, etc. These are the areas where R&D people are working hard. Also, wireless monitors are about to come to the market.
Latest Innovation
Vendors are including many innovations and features to increase the attractiveness of LCD monitors— higher resolutions, full high-definition (HD) wider screens, and multifunctional solutions, plus computing peripherals such as speakers, iPod docks, and webcams. Consumers will look for more innovations and features in their LCD monitors. Features such as full-HD and ultra-fast response time, along with the latest interfaces like HDMI and USB, will become more common in the coming days. These advances in technology are bound to grow further, and penetrate even smaller towns and cities. Consumers are already showing interest in 3D-capable monitors. As these become more affordable, they are likely to gain wide popularity in the market. Also, the popularity of improved panel technologies such as IPS panels is expected to increase, provided the pricing becomes more affordable. A recent innovation by AOC is the USB monitor (e1649Fwu). This 28 | February 29, 2012
LED monitors are growing at a bullish pace and are expected to capture the entire segment by 2012 is an ultra-portable, energy-efficient LED based monitor (presently only in 15.6” size) which uses a single USB cable for display as well as drawing power when connected to a PC or laptop. So we can expect more variants of such displays as well. Power saving is the main feature that drives the growth of LED monitors. In addition, consumers also prefer to look at the sleek and slim designs coupled with good aesthetics. There are many new innovations coming up in the LED monitors space. Uniformity will be one of the key focuses in panel backlight technology. OLED will be the preferred technology in the various panel types and more monitors will see the transition from 2D to 3D.
No Profitability for Partners
Mumbai based Hitesh Mody of Jaydee Electronics says, “The transition to LED is also rapidly gaining momentum in the channel. Today, we do 75% of LED monitors. Moreover, the traction is more towards a mid-high-end monitor. But at the entry level, 15” and 18” monitors are predominately driven by LCD range of monitors. Hence when the price tipping point of LED comes at par with LED, the predominant shift happens on its own.” Kumar of Park Network says, “As far as vendors are concerned, most of them have been moving out of the LCD business. In the distribution, the same trend has started becoming visible. Slowly, the shipment of visit www.dqindia.com
LCD has started dying off. Moreover, in terms of technology and pricing there is not much of a change. The profitability remains at par for partners. However 3D and network monitors do offer better margins than a plain vanilla LED.”
E-waste of LCD Monitors?
The most important initiative with regards to handling the e-waste of monitors is a paradigm shift in the entire production from LCD monitors to LED monitors. ASUS supports for individual producer responsibility (IPR) and the involvement of the producer in the responsibility for a proper end-of-life management. “When ASUS directs the management of its products at end-of-life, we exclude the use of incineration as an option for all vendors managing ASUS end-of-life products in any situation and prohibit the use of incarcerated labor for processing and management of ASUS end-of-life products in any situation,” says Kumar. ASUS seeks to keep the product take-back program accessible to all customers, including consumers, small businesses, and institutions, but keep it in accordance with their unique stance in the marketplace and prohibit export of end-of-life electronics, components, and scrap to any countries in violation of the Basel Convention. On the other hand, AOC offers eco-friendly and green LED products that work on lesser energy. “Our promotion campaigns focus on creating consumer awareness about the benefits of using LED products that reduce toxic materials and waste, are mercury-free with reduced power consumption. AOC will continue to find new ways to enhance our green efforts. Consumers and businesses are giving importance to the environmental impact while making purchase decisions which will help AOC make its contribution in this regard,” concludes Grover. n
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CIO Series
Solving the Desktop Quandary Beating the expected perceptions, the arrival of desktop virtualization does not spell the end of the road for corporate PCs STUTI DAS
stutid@cybermedia.co.in
A
ccording to a study commissioned by Citrix, 91% of the respondents have implemented desktop virtualization or plan to do so before the end of 2013; and out of these, 92% are taking to desktop virtualization to improve information security. No longer the stuff of theory, desktop virtualization is here to stay for good and in the process, will transform the way Indians work and enterprises function. In fact, a survey by the erstwhile Springboard Research corroborates this thinking by noting that among all the various types of virtualization (server, storage, network, and desktop), it is the humble desktop virtualization that will offer a fully virtualized interactive set-up for the work-from-home working class. In case you still don’t seem convinced, here are some more facts. A Frost & Sullivan report has forecasted that the desktop virtualization market, including hardware, software, licensing, and management tools is estimated to have been at $79.24 mn in 2008 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.31% from 2008 to 2015. The Indian market, by virtue of it being an outsourcing hub, is clearly becoming favorite with the desktop virtualization vendors, who do not tire of mentioning the benefits of it for the BPO businesses. But the benefits clearly are huge—keeping in mind the large volumes of desktops used by most BPOs (and of course the costs incurred in procuring and maintenance), with VDI, you could easily have 1,000 people working on only 400 physical desktops.
No Longer the Pariah
Defining desktop virtualization, Indranil Guha, head, IT integration, Spencer’s Retail says, “Instead of using the computing power of a local PC/laptop/client device, when the computing power of a central computer is used and shared by multiple users having low-end local devices (to interact with the central server)—it is called desktop virtualization. Desktop virtualization, even though is a relatively recent term being thrown about in the CIO communities, yet the time is not too far when it will redefine the way Indian enterprises define access to IT and applications. In fact, the developed markets are already in the process of deploying VDI and thereby giving the much-required work flexibility, allowing employees to access the resources from anytime-anywhere without losing out on quality. The 30 | February 29, 2012
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“The desktop virtualization concept is recent and I am aware of its theoretical advantages and disadvantages but do not have any practical experience” Indranil Guha, head, IT integration, Spencer’s Retail
“When you implement VDI, you are ready for the future; desktops are passé”
Meheriar Patel, CTO and head, IT and e-commerce, Globus Stores
adoption of VDI has made the employee location immaterial. However to add here, it is also about allowing enterprises to do more with less, to accomplish more work even without incurring costs and with lean resources; it makes businesses more agile and leaner, and also keeps the employees happy. Meheriar Patel, CTO and head, IT and e-commerce, Globus Stores says, “The adoption of VDI, more or less, is dependent on the mindset of individual organization, if the CIO wants to promote it, there is no stopping him. However having said that the RoIs are great. For instance, if I want to change my PC, in the traditional scenario, I will have to change the whole PC but if it’s a virtual desktop, only certain type of apps will have to be added.”
Benefits
For the CIOs, desktop virtualization presents a win-win situation, with benefits like data security guaranteed irrespective of the device DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
can be used, in fact it is much used in the manufacturing vertical.” Guha, as the sole dissenting voice adds, “Desktop virtualization is more suitable for deployment in greenfield projects and even in verticals like education, wherein there is demand for PCs.” According to a Citrix survey, 91% of the respondents implementing desktop virtualization say it is very effective at supporting compliance requirements, while 89% also say such solutions protect against the exposure of private data and data loss. Centralized, granular policy control enabled by desktop virtualization allows IT to handle compliance proactively by allowing an organization to develop an appropriate information security strategy for its own industry, business needs, and risk profile.
Corporate PC vs VDI
from which the data is accessed, improved data security and application, and most importantly simplifying risk management. Amol Vidwans, head, IT, MARG, one of the few CIOs who have ‘been there, done that’ when it comes to VDI, is much in favor of desktop virtualization. He explains, “Desktop virtualization is an ideal solution wherein data security is of prime importance, wherein deployment and use of mission critical legacy applications is needed and you need to deploy and allocate resources on the fly and quickly.” Unlike the popular perception, that desktop virtualization is only suitable for verticals wherein there is a demand for large volumes of PCs (education and retail), most senior IT executives with the exception of Guha (from Spencers) think otherwise. Patel says, “VDI is not an acceptable model in engineering CAD environment but for a normal usage, it is much recommended. There are no prescribed verticals wherein VDI visit www.dqindia.com
The debate has been raging on for some time now. Most critics seem to be sounding the death knell for the ubiquitous corporate PC with the arrival of the mobile devices including tablets and with companies allowing these devices to be used in enterprise network. But the biggest perceived threat to the corporate PC is now coming from desktop virtualization. However this is not here to stay, feel CIOs that corporate PCs are outliving its utility. Guha echoes that the arrival of desktop virtualization does not spell the end of the road for corporate PCs. Patel says, “Organizations are ready for the future when they implement VDI, desktops therefore, are passé.” Vidwans gives a more realistic picture. Desktop virtualization does not save much cost on operating system software licensing and also the hardware is not very cheap compared to the PC desktop. But, there are cost savings on—administration, managing the infrastructure, and other related activities. n February 29, 2012 | 31
Euro crisis
The Hidden A Advantage Euro crisis would mean bad news on many fronts, but it is the advantages that we should focus on now...
32 | February 29, 2012
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SHILPA SHANBHAG
shilpas@cybermedia.co.in
recent note titled ‘A Slowdown in Europe and China, and Sluggish Exports Moderate AsiaPacific Credit Outlook in 2012’ by S&P, expecting a weak US growth and mild Eurozone recession during the first half of 2012, forced a shudder in the backdrop of the 2008-09 recession. The note mentioned that while emerging markets are expected to adopt an apprehensive approach, they are not expected to remain untouched by the rough weather that looms large over the advanced economies. While the US seems to be recovering from the recession of 2008-09, though very slowly, Europe is in the grip of the sovereign debt crisis. The European angle of the story can be attributed to the fact that European banks have massive exposure to the sovereign debts of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. This exposure will weigh large on banks around the world in a globalized economy apart. Even the UK is exposed to the Eurozone crisis. Amid all this chaos, the political crisis in the Middle East is expected to pressurize oil prices. “There are no signs to worry as the emerging markets would offer respite but are small in relation to revenue generation. Telecom, BFSI, and manufacturing would be affected the most. With the government pushing PSU companies to increase investments, it would provide a boost to the IT segment. In other words, spending from the government segment is expected to be on the upside,” informs Arup Roy, principal research analyst, Gartner. In an open economy, as much as one enjoys the prosperity of the global trends, one also has to take the adverse hit. “There are clear indications of a slowdown in China, India,
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“To attract FDI and FII, India has to hold on to its charm and sustain a steady growth”
Sujata Dev, co-chairperson, entertainment committee, Assocham and joint managing director, Third Generation Mobile
“The big bang approach of buying would dip, however there will be incremental IT spending with justifications on business benefits”
Subramanya C CTO, HGS
and other emerging markets. The EU, as a whole, is our second largest trading partner after the GCC. We were able to weather the 2008-09 recession better than most countries because of better regulations in our financial system and the growth momentum in our economy. In the present environment, while the first factor is still relevant, economic growth is slowing down because of rising input costs, a high interest rate regime, and the almost free fall of the rupee,” says Rajeev Gupta, president, Fujitsu Consulting India.
Infusing Support
There seems to be a mixed reaction among stalwarts of the industry on the movement of the Indian sensex. While some expect it to witness a temporary setback with a wait for tangible results expected to be long as the second half of 2012. “The stock market sentiments would continue to give negative vibes because of uncertainties around the world market and the ongoing crisis around corruption and political inDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
stability in India. I presume that the market sentiments would become stable in the near future as even the Indian government is committed to take steps to stabilize the growth and market sentiments. Considering the election year, I am personally of the view that the market sentiments and political instability would move in a positive direction towards the later half of 2012,” adds Rajeev Kachhal, CFO, Fiserv India. “Eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis looks like a long-term issue and will have its impact on the global economy. India Inc, as a whole, has 18% export exposure to Europe and 10% to the US. So, the Indian companies have to re-strategize their global marketing and also look for Asian markets to sustain their export volume and earning. However we must keep in mind that economic progress can only happen when there is long-term tranquility and stability. To attract FDI and FII, India has to hold on to its charm and sustain a steady growth,” feels Sujata Dev, co-chairperson, envisit www.dqindia.com
tertainment committee, Assocham and joint managing director, Third Generation Mobile. “The current state of flux is likely to remain few years. But it is great opportunity for the emerging economies like India, especially for mid-segment companies,” feels Rajagopalan Babu, founder and CEO, Enteg. Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin is the school of thought, which is of the view that with the recent upgradation of India’s rating to investment grade by Moody’s, would help in attracting FIIs. “Euro demands immediate attention. The present crisis is not as much due to fundamental problems as it is due to lack of confidence in the ability of the governments to sort out the problems. It is difficult to predict when the crisis can end. But we should see some improvement from March,” feels Subramanya C, CTO, HGS. In a falling market, things may look gloomy for traders, but someone’s loss is somebody’s profit. In a fast-growing economy like India’s, everyone wants to be a part of the story. Thus, FIIs will target India as the Indian economy is much more growth oriented. However right government policies and political stability will also be critical in determining the risk rating and FDI flow. If Indian IT industry can sustain innovation then there should be no dearth of funds flowing, reciprocated with growth. On an inspirational note, Kamesh Ramamoorthy, COO, Ramco Systems reminds, “The current economic scenario is quite dull, but we expect this scenario to be a short-term effect and hopeful that the market will stabilize soon. It may be, world over, there is a preference for deposits as opposed to equity—a clear preference of investors who favor steady returns. Equity markets will continue as always to reward innovation. Business efficiencies February 29, 2012 | 33
Euro crisis “The current economic scenario is quite dull, but we expect this scenario to be a short-term effect and hopeful that the market will stabilize soon” Kamesh Ramamoorthy COO, Ramco Systems
“The exposure of the IT industry to the Eurozone is between 20-30% of its revenues”
P Venkatesh director and co-founder, Maveric Systems
captured by exploiting the cloud will definitely not go unnoticed.”
Magnetic Charm
With funds drying up there is a bigger question that staring at the face—the fundamentals remain strong as ever, but has India lost its shimmery shine? Though India isn’t growing at 9%, even 7.5% can be rated as one of the best GDP growth rates. The temporary flight of foreign investors can be associated with insecurity about the future than with the present reality. Depreciation of rupee against dollar is one factor which has made FII equity investment temporarily unattractive. Even the Indian companies are investing abroad and have become bearish on domestic investment opportunities. “Currency devaluation, end of the tax holiday period, and uncertainties around tax regime (likely introduction of new direct tax code, etc) are acting as a deterrent towards infusion of fresh investments in India. However the Indian 34 | February 29, 2012
government is taking steps to promote FDI in India (such as allowing 100% single brand retails FDI proposal, etc),” feels Kachhal. “India is still a favored destination, especially from a talent standpoint, and we will continue to see the expansion of captives. Very often the same investors also have an eye on the domestic IT market, making it a synergistic relationship. India also serves as a test ground for products/business models being developed for the fast-growing emerging markets worldwide,” feels Daisy Chittilapilly, VP, ITS sales, Cisco India and Saarc. On the domestic front, if the country is able to kick-start the stalled reform process in retail, insurance, etc, attract FIIs back to India, ease up on interest rates to reinvigorate manufacturing, and entrepreneurial activity, things could look positive by the Q3FY12. Globally, a lot depends on how the Eurozone countries handle the impending crisis in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland. visit www.dqindia.com
IT Affected?
Historically, a tough economy has always been a hotbed for ideas and over the last generation, IT has become integral to the adoption of a breakthrough idea. In the emerging economies, IT is viewed as process enabler and adoption of these process enablers has been quicker because these economies are nimble and can avoid the pitfalls of larger, stodgier countries. Eurozone crisis and protectionist tendencies of the developed world are expected to have a negative impact on India’s growth graph across all the sectors. India’s export which recorded a growth of over 82% in July, slowed down to a mere 10.8% during October, reflecting the impact of the Eurozone crisis. It can also not be refuted that the 27-nation EU is India’s largest trade partner and export market. Most feel that the impact would weigh directly on exports and this trend is expected to continue for months in a row. With a trade deficit of close to $150 bn, a depreciated rupee will add more pressure on the import bill and increase the cost of living. Overseas companies are also expected to press the caution button in respect to spending. “Of course there will be some impact of the prevailing depressed economic conditions on the emerging markets. The big bang approach of buying would dip, however there will be incremental IT spending with justifications on business benefits. Generally, large third-party service providers, including HGS, would have minimal impact, as IT is an enabler for the business. Our experience in the last few years, ie, during the times of slowdown, the average contract time and size has seen an increase. The clients now look at BPO as a long-term option to contain costs and add value. As majority of the organizations are moving towards cloud usage; the IT
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Euro crisis Key Metrics from December 2011 Quarter Results n Currency benefits helped expand margins by 60-265 bps QoQ for the tier-I firms. Rupee depreciation provides Indian IT with a windfall, which can be reinvested to accelerate market share gain. Midcap names had a windfall and allowed all of it to pass through the P&L n Improved QoQ for Infosys and TCS. More important, commentary of stable or marginal pressure on pricing is encouraging and shall ensure little margin headwind for FY13E n Verticals like BFSI, manufacturing, and retail showed good growth across players, while strong revenue growth in Europe came as a positive surprise amid the ongoing concerns of the Eurozone crisis affecting IT spends n Infosys revised its FY2012 USD revenue growth guidance down to 16.4% from 17-19%, indicating flat revenue growth for Q4FY12 n Wipro’s guidance was of 1-3% growth in Q4FY12 n Attrition for all key players came down even as lateral hiring numbers remained strong * Note: These views are gathered from Kotak Institutional Equities Technology India Report.
The Euro crisis is putting pressure on all economies. This would have an effect on IT budgets. Customers will spend on missioncritical solutions, that would start paying back within a year suppliers need to explore alternate business models to meet market expectations,” says Subramanya. When the general health of the economy is anemic then the IT industry also feels the weakness. IT industry in India is likely to be affected in a variety of ways by the world’s economic problems as organizations endeavor to increase efficiencies in IT delivery. While a fall in rupee definitely means good news for export-oriented sectors like IT services, textiles, and services sector in general. But on the other hand, it would spell a bad news for product exports and worse still for the IT and industrial products segment. In the long run, weak rupee is not a good sign, as it may curtail R&D and employment in non-services segment. BPOs that are back-end service providers for European countries, basking in 36 | February 29, 2012
the Euro glory, are now feeling the heat as their bottom lines are on fire. The export-oriented units located in SEZ and STP can be accounted for as the worst affected, depending on their dependency on the European markets. These companies will face problems in fulfilling their export obligations. “The profitability of the top Indian IT companies will dip over the next 3 years, as buyers in large corporations are able to clearly visualize the premium they are paying. This would bring the profitability down. The buyers are looking for alternatives. This may be a great opportunity for niche mid-sized companies focusing in specialized areas. Current contracts are largely ‘time and material’. The Indian IT companies should consider proposing alternative billing models such as ‘pay-peruse’, ‘result based billing’, ‘pay-pervisit www.dqindia.com
ticket’ models, which would enable the service providers to optimize the resource usage and customers to get the cost benefit,” says Babu. “The exposure of the IT industry to the Eurozone is between 20% and 30% of its revenues. In the shortterm, it is likely to impact the IT industry since there could be delays in decision making for the projects in pipeline. Among the top Indian IT companies, Infosys and CTS have expressed their desire to increase the contribution from this segment,” informs P Venkatesh, director and co-founder, Maveric Systems. IT industry is no exception and the slow down is evident. India’s short-term growth prospects have been impeded and has distinctly slowed down. If the Eurozone crisis prolongs, growth in exports will be further impacted. With cost pressure building up in advanced economies, the Indian IT companies need to focus on delivering value to customers. As a whole, India is lucky to have a self-consuming market and the impact compared to developed market is going to be much lesser in the long-term. In a man versus machine (automation/service) scenario, the process can always be bettered. But surely the companies need to gather inspiration from the recent words of Narayana Murthy, chairman emeritus, Infosys, ‘Eurozone crisis will make business more competitive’. One needs to adopt a wait and watch policy of how the Indian IT industry can keep itself afloat if we were to face the same parameters of 2008 meltdown.
Budget Beating
Euro crisis will have an impact on the IT budget of companies. While Sridharan Mani, director and CEO, American Megatrends India refutes, “Not very likely as the Indian exports to affect Euro Countries (Spain, Greece, and Italy) is less than 3%.” Seconding this stand,
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“There are expected to be slashes in budgets which will require CIOs to become partners of the business, a bigger role indeed”
Rajeev Batra CIO, MTS India
“The stock market sentiments would continue to give negative vibes because of uncertainties around the world market and the ongoing crisis around corruption and political instability in India”
Dealing with Cuts
Rajeev Kachhal CFO, Fiserv India
Gupta feels, “I don’t see budget cuts in IT spending in the near future, especially in strategic IT spending, but there will be greater caution and sales cycle could get longer. IT vendors will face more margin pressures as clients look to improve efficiency and keep costs low in their outsourcing models.” The impact would mainly be due to uncertainties around growth, exchange fluctuation, uncertainties around the future tax regime, and political instability in India. But, it will also drive companies to look for innovative technologies like cloud computing. The impact will be felt more on new projects than on the existing ones. New initiatives will be put on hold till there is sufficient clarity on the health of the global economy. IT is the very backbone of national growth. Most companies consider IT as a necessity than a luxury. Companies in the growing phase will continue to invest in IT to keep pace with growth. Euro crisis is imposing pressure in all economies. This would have effect on IT DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
get impacted. The organizations who have already invested into IT, will have to continue to get it managed effectively without losing the quality of services. Since the challenge is of cost optimization, they will have to explore the possibilities of outsourced activities mainly into 3 areas—managed services, infrastructure, and application management,” feels Atul Hemani, MD & CEO, Omnitech InfoSolutions.
budgets. The customers will spend on mission-critical solutions, that would start paying back within a year. Cautiousness around spending is expected in the short-term for companies with significant exposure to European markets. However a severe cut in IT spending is not anticipated because this will have negative repercussions on competitiveness, especially in terms of agility, ability to deliver services, etc. “This is a scenario that is being witnessed for the second time and this time a lot of organizations have become wiser and also not facing a pessimistic flavor as in 2008. CIOs need to ensure that they renegotiate deals and make smart procurements,” adds Devendra Parulekar, partner, advisory services, technology, communications and entertainment, Ernst & Young. “In the advanced economies, industry growth would be very marginal say about 1-2% or would remain flat, this impacts the new project spend and thus IT services related to new projects would also visit www.dqindia.com
There are new year mantras that CIOs could adhere to better deals with slashed IT budgets. First, convert capex into opex, stay at a safe distance from monster hardware, consider virtualization, etc. It is easy to add computing capacity after one year. Then comes stability, adaptation, and training cost on the agenda. It is advisable to allocate budgets to activities like training, enhancements in existing technology, etc. Investments in ERP like SAP, would help to better manage profitability and arrest leakage and while companies need to stay at a safe distance from large bundled software, which would have hidden costs attached. Investments need to be made for requirements for the next 2 years. Most components of the bundled software would remain as shelfware. “Alternative IT service providers need to be considered as big companies do not necessarily deliver great results. After all they outsource work to mid-sized companies. So, consider niche mid-tier companies and engage them directly. Several SaaS based solutions are available for non-critical applications. Pay smartly and maintain good internal IT team,” informs Babu. “If IT budgets are slashed (at all) then CIOs will have to prioritize their business necessities. May be they will take refuge to installing more IT devices to cut down on the February 29, 2012 | 37
Euro crisis At a Glance n India Inc, as a whole, has 18% export exposure to Europe and 10% to the US n Depreciation of rupee against dollar is one factor which has made FII equity investment temporarily unattractive n IT industry in India is likely to be affected in a variety of ways by the world’s economic problems as organizations endeavor to increase efficiencies in IT delivery n New technologies like social media, automated self-service engines, and cloud offerings will find a prominent place during 2012
The outlook for the year seems to be quite clear in terms that the IT and BPO providers should be sufficiently diversified to reduce their dependence on a single currency or geography budgets. For example Skype may replace international calls. In 2008, we saw companies going for video conferencing to cut down on travel cost,” says Dev. “IT is an investment for growth. Due to the prevailing depressed economic conditions, especially in the US and Europe, IT spends have been subdued. The view generally becomes short-term in such a scenario. However with the global slowdown stepping in its third year, the outlook will slowly change and efficiency will be a key determinant of success. As IT is the biggest efficiency enabler, the existing IT budget has to be used with some creativity. The cloud is becoming denser by the day, and a lot many CIOs are now aiming for it,” feels Subramanya. “There are expected to be slashes in budgets which will require CIOs to become the partners of the business, a bigger role awaiting indeed. There will be a need to simplify processes and require38 | February 29, 2012
ment to achieve targets to meet the customer needs through innovation, with RoI also hogging the limelight. During budget cuts there will be a need to achieve operational excellence,” informs Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS India. “Domestic and some emerging markets will get a heads up for newer opportunities. Plus, given the merging scenario of unified communications and IT being seen as a process enabler, we are looking beyond traditional buyers of our services and are optimistic of finding larger opportunities. Enlarge the scope of automation of business processes and improve greater efficiencies in service delivery across the organization,” says MP Vijay Kumar, chief financial officer, Sify Technologies.
On a Final Note
The outlook for the year seems to be quite clear in that the IT and BPO providers should be sufficiently diversified to reduce their visit www.dqindia.com
dependence on a single currency or geography. Those interested in inorganic growth should look at this as an opportunity to add to their list of competencies. “Instead of following an all-out approach, we are strategically focusing on strong verticals for Ramco like banking, manufacturing, aviation, energy and utilities, logistics, government, real estate, and infrastructure among others. In terms of geographical focus, we are increasing our penetration in the emerging markets like the Middle East and Africa,” informs Ramamoorthy. “HGS has completed 3 successful acquisitions in the last 18 months and has also expanded its onshore presence in Europe. We now have HRO as a new offering and Canada as a new market, both with huge growth potential. Our topline has grown by more than 40% in the last 3 years,” informs Subramanya. Typically, in a slowdown, decision making also slows down. There is also a level of unpredictability and it’s important to factor that into operational plans. During the 2008-09 recession, attrition in IT companies dropped to single digits. The same phenomenon is expected to be witnessed again. Cloud has become a regular part of the lexicon of every IT manager, and the slowdown of 2008 is in many ways responsible for it. Companies are looking at becoming agile now. New technologies like social media, automated self-service engines, and cloud offerings will find a prominent place during 2012. There are certain factors that need to be borne in mind namely, more focus on cost optimization, develop requisite skill sets to combat newer technologies, and target the emerging markets. On a final note, Dev says, “Overdose of debt exposure kills! Be it a nation or a household.” n
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Techpoint
The Bogies of Technology “We of the East cannot borrow the Western mind nor the Western temperament”–Rabindranath Tagore
T
here has been outrage against the Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal’s attempt to monitor or pre-censor content posted online—social networking sites, blogs and e-groups. While it is physically impossible to monitor what millions wish to post, it is laughable that he wishes to pre-censor it; he actually wants companies to get into the minds of people and detect the inception of an idea, so they don’t post it online. The debate calls into question if right to speech and expression in the Indian constitution can be violated by the government. It is not possible to physically attack someone via the internet, so the cliché “Your freedom ends where my nose begins” is rendered useless. But it is possible to defame, ruin reputations, and cause mental agony by posting and spreading lies about an individual, institution, or a country. How do we deal with this?
The Real Issue
We have to verify before we believe or forward it. So forwarding something without checking is extremely important. Another thing that makes this whole issue curious is why texting is out of the loop. While experts for and against argue this to be fair or unfair, detrimental or positive, right or wrong, let us look at the real issue that we are already facing but fail to agree we are facing! One thing most people, especially Indians, fail to understand is we bring our own behavioral patterns on to the internet. But a technological environment is vastly different from a technical environment. As Dr Radhika Gajjala defines it, “A technological environment is any social environment shaped around use of any type of technology.” So, when we try to ape the West in our localities by just buying the technology we experience a disconnect as there are other factors that come into the picture—culture, behavior, availability, maintenance, practice, and use. Culture: A kitchen in Chennai is a technological environment as much as a kitchen in California as both spaces use technical equipment albeit different—grinders and gas stoves in Chennai and coffee makers and toasters in California. But when technology designed in Frisco keeping the local culture in mind is transported mindlessly into Chennai, it creates problems. The architectural and spatial properties of the kitchen differ in Chennai and California. So is food and ingredients available in each place. While in Chennai, it will be filter coffee and idlis for breakfast made by women in cotton saris, in California it will be sandwiches by men in T-shirts and shorts. So just transporting the coffee maker and electric cooker from LA to Chennai won’t make the technological environment the same unless you wish to Americanize the Indian food by making the South Indian breakfast—sandwiches and black coffee. So, we run into a danger of culture colonization by replicating technologies from abroad in our own spaces. 40 | February 29, 2012
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Design: Let us take an office space in London and an office in Mumbai. Both are technological environments as both use technical equipment—phones, computers, copy machines, etc. However, if you examine the work in the London office closely, the design of the office is suited to the weather and sociocultural behavior of the people there for maximum productivity. This won’t suit the office in Mumbai as the socio-economic behavior and location of the office and conditions faced by the people once they leave office is vastly different. So in this case too, replication of technological environments is not possible and design of office space to suit local conditions, culture and use is important. Availability: There are fundamental requirements like electricity, connectivity for technological environments to function. So even if your home or office technological environment is filled with latest technology, if you have unannounced power cuts or disruption of connectivity, then the technological environment won’t function. Weather: With heavy rains and gutted roads, getting to the office or home is increasingly becoming a problem and leading to a breakdown in technological environments where one uses equipments run by electricity wires—landline phones or fiber optic cable, which help run TV channels. Then there is the breakdown of the public technological systems like trains, buses, and flights or by private technological environment namely, automobiles due to disruption due to local weather conditions. Replicating technological environments of developed countries without taking into account the local weather conditions leads to public outrage at maintenance bodies. Maintenance: Mindless replication of technological environments in India without taking into account design, availability, pollution, popuDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Before monitoring social networking sites and email providers, Mr Sibal, please make sure our servers are not hacked and our private information stolen by the cyber armies of China lation density, weather, displacement, and other factors have led to severe problems in South India, which has tried to ape developed countries in design by recreation of numerous SEZs and apartment housing complexes that in turn, has displaced numerous people from their ancestral homelands which have been turned into highways and service lanes, destruction of fertile agricultural land into real estate plots, changing the course of rivers which have been bottled by mineral water companies and sand mafia, that some rivers already run dry. The speed of change is so fast and many a times illegal—the maintenance bodies are perplexed as to what they are supposed to do—that maintenance bodies have begun to maintain a distance as they don’t wish to get embroiled in the politics between ministries of the government or politics between parties. Use: One has to understand the history of technology before its use. During the British era, traditional Indian systems of technology and knowledge were suddenly deemed “backward and useless” by the British who installed mass reproduction machines, so that the British could have low-cost production that provided them an advantage. This was why Mahatma Gandhi took to weaving his own clothes and the khaki movement took place as people understood that as long as they accepted the technological envivisit www.dqindia.com
ronment of the British, they would never achieve independence. Same goes for the way we use technology today, by accepting technological environments of America and European cultures. This will only lead to neo-colonization of our country and culture evident in the changing workplace culture, expectations, and inflation that only seek to distance the gap between Indians instead of closing it. So, it is obvious we cannot go on as before.
The Way Forward
The way forward would be to be to have a comprehensive dialog among ourselves—people, corporate, and government—as to how we can design technological environment taking into account the culture, weather, availability of resources, traditional knowledge, population, and environment to help and aid ourselves rather than mouth platitudes like e-governance, telemedicine, and SEZ as some magic wand that can be waved to solve basic problems. As for Sibal’s recent statement, we can only attribute it to the technological environment of our government and he is nothing but a product of his environment. Before monitoring social networking sites and email providers, Mr Sibal, please make sure our servers are not hacked and our private information stolen by the cyber armies of China. If the PMO’s office can be hacked and information on the computer stolen, then how safe are we in terms of defense? You are wasting your energy by trying to monitor Indian behavior while you should be guarding sensitive information related to the Indian government and defense from the Chinese and Americans. n Deepa Kandaswamy The author is the foundermoderator of the IndianWISE e-group maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in February 29, 2012 | 41
Globalized Services Delivery
INR Depreciation:
Is it Here to Stay? While the USD has now become a safe haven currency, there has been a general trend of depreciation of emerging country currencies
S
overeign debt issues in Europe have again made investors risk averse the world over. The USD has now become a safe haven currency. The impact is being felt in emerging economies as funds are being pulled out of these markets. There has been a general trend of depreciation of emerging country currencies. In so far as Australia is concerned, Indian Rupee (INR) and Philippine Pesos (PHP) are two important currencies from a globalized services delivery perspective—INR as India has a dominant position in services globalization, and PHP as Philippines is now also an important services delivery center, especially for BPO. How these currencies move has an impact on the cost of a globalized service delivery model.
Depreciating Trend
Since August 02, 2011, against the USD, the INR has depreciated 20% and the PHP 5.14%. Against the Australian dollar (AUD), since August 01, 2011, the INR has depreciated by 13.29% and the PHP has actually 44 | February 29, 2012
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appreciated by 0.08%. It’s obvious, the INR has depreciated significantly more than the PHP against both the USD and AUD in the last five months. All things being equal and looking at only currency exchange rates, in USD and AUD terms, the cost of delivering services from India should have become significantly cheaper in the last 5 months. In case of the Philippines, the cost of delivering services in AUD terms would have increased marginally (0.08%) and in USD terms decreased slightly (5.14%). Whether customers actually got the benefits of a depreciating INR depends on a number of factors including the hedging strategy of the customers, their vendors, and offshoring contract provisions with regard to currency movements.
India vis-à-vis the Phillipines
Coming back to exchange rates, while exchange rates between two currencies are determined by interest rate differential, inflation differential, current account deficits/ surplus, public debt, terms of trade, general economic performance, etc, it’s interesting to see how people of Indian and Philippines origin living overseas (outside of India and Philippines, respectively) are impacting their currency movements. India is currently estimated to have a ‘stock’ of around 25 mn+ people living overseas. These people are commonly referred to as Non Resident Indians (NRIs) and account for 2.1% of India’s population. In comparison, Philippines is estimated to have a ‘stock’ of around 9.5+ mn living overseas. These people commonly referred to Overseas Filipinos (OFs) account for 9.4% of the Philippines population. These people living overseas maintain strong links with their parent countries (India and Philippines in this case) and remit a significant DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Philippines
India
9.5 mn+
25 mn+
9.4%
2.1%
Estimated Inward Remittance
$21 bn
$55 bn
Ratio of Inward Remittance/Gross Exports of Goods and Services
32.25
14.38
Surplus
Deficit
Number of overseas people Overseas people as a percentage of total population
Whether Current Account is in Surplus or Deficit
amount of money. As per the World Bank figures, remittances by NRIs to India were around $55 bn in 2011 and India was the highest remittance recipient country in the world. India’s gross export of goods and services in FY11 was $382.5 bn, giving it a ratio of Inward Remittances/Export of goods and services of 14.38. In comparison, OFs remittances to Philippines were around $21 bn in 2010 and Philippines was the fourth highest remittance recipient country in the world. Philippines gross export of goods and services was $65.10 bn in FY10, giving it a ratio of Inward Remittance/Export of goods and services of 32.25. While there could be minor differences to the above numbers due to different data sources, the trends are quite clear–Inward Remittances
Whether customers actually got the benefits of a depreciating INR depends on a number of factors including the hedging strategy of the customers, their vendors, and offshoring contract provisions with regard to currency movements visit www.dqindia.com
play an important role in the economy and currency movements of both these countries—the impact is much higher in case of Philippines as compared to India (See Table). Both India and Philippines have well-defined policies to cater to this overseas resident segment—more so as this is a steady and growing stream of inward remittances. No wonder India recently (in December 2011) decontrolled interest rates on NRI deposits resulting in a sharp rise in some NRI deposit rates. Also realizing there may be hesitancy in investing in a depreciating currency, India also recently allowed NRIs to hedge currency risk. So, will it stem the INR exchange rate slide? Financial analysts believe the fall in INR exchange rate has been more sentimental than fundamental. Of course, structural issues being faced by the Indian economy, slower GDP growth (India’s GDP growth is now forecast to grow at around 7% as per India’s PM statement on January 09, 2012) and relatively high inflation rates have also impacted the INR exchange rate in addition to global risk aversion. Interesting to note, how in a flatter world, the cost of delivering services for Australia could potentially be impacted to some extent by people of Indian and Philippines origin living outside their home countries. n (Extracts from services globalization insight by GLOBAL MINDSET) maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in February 29, 2012 | 45
Building Management Systems
Need for Energy Efficiency What are the prospects for the India ESCO industry via growth in adoption of intelligent building management systems?
D
uring the last couple of years, the global economy has been dealing with the impact of the ‘great recession’, which also affected India. As the Indian economy shows signs of slowing GDP growth rate, the Indian real estate industry faces its own share of concerns. Real estate developers are reeling under high debt and FDI inflows to the sector have slowed down. However the business of constructing energy-efficient buildings has continued to grow. Mainly because of the need to improve the energy performance of buildings for cost savings and to achieve green building certification—Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA), Indian Green Building Council (IGBCLEED) rating system, Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), star labeling program for BPO facilities, shopping malls, office buildings, etc.
Major Trends
Some key trends that are certain to have a major impact on the energy-efficient buildings sector in 2012 and beyond are: 46 | February 29, 2012
Demand of retrofits will increase to improve building infrastructure: It also involves major equipment upgrades to reduce energy demand and maintenance costs. The majority of office buildings in India’s Central Business Districts (CBDs) are at least 3 decades old with structures that are worn out due to poor maintenance. With a severely limited supply of new office space, tenants located in India’s CBDs have traditionally been forced to occupy buildings that are low on quality and high on operating costs. The recent global economic downturn has increased pressure on all businesses to reduce costs. The Indian businesses that are now growing again find it difficult to implement expansion plans in CBDs. In such a business climate, the attractiveness of high-rent, low-quality space in CBDs across India is diminishing relative to that found in neighboring micro-markets. Retrofitting is usually the preferred option for quality improvement (as compared with redevelopment) to increase the attractiveness and economic life of existing older buildings. The threat of sustained high-vacancy rates should serve as a wake-up call for the property owners who are considering retrofit-
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ting as a means to improve their competitive positioning. As per Cushman & Wakefield, recovery in office space demand in India started in 2010 and is expected to strengthen further in 2012 and beyond. According to a Bureau of Energy Efficiency/National Productivity Council study of 2009, there exists an average energy-saving potential of between 30-50% with most commercial buildings in India. The BEE star rating program provides public recognition to energyefficient buildings, and creates a ‘demand side’ pull for such buildings. Various categories of buildings such as office buildings (day use and BPO facilities), shopping malls, hotels, hospitals, and IT parks in the 5 climatic zones across India have been identified under the scheme and 123 buildings have been labeled up to September 2011. The India ESCO Market Will Witness Rapid Growth: According to the Planning Commission of India, total primary commercial energy requirement (in terms of million tonnes of oil equivalent) is projected to grow at 6.5% per year between 2010-11 and 2016-17 from a level of 522.81 MTOE to 738.07 MTOE. Increased energy efficiency is the only way to contain energy demand without jeopardizing growth and it must therefore receive high priority in the twelfth Five Year Plan. Thus, India government and the industry leaders are highly focused on creating a more sustainable and energy-efficient economy, and these goals have intensified their attention on industry, agriculture, and buildings sectors which are the primary sources of energy consumption. Driven by this macro trend, energy-efficiency solutions have
become an increasingly larger priority for enterprise decision makers. Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) provide energy-saving systems and developing performance contracting (PC) business models to assist building owners and energy managers optimize energy use in existing infrastructure as well as greenfield projects. The India ESCO industry is relatively young but has grown steadily and significantly over the years. Increasing energy demand and rising energy cost would be lead drivers for the growth of the ESCO business in India. In June 2010, the Union Cabinet approved the implementation framework of the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE), which seeks to unlock the India energy efficiency investment potential of `74,000 crore. However despite the fact that the potential for application of performance contracting in both the public and private sectors in India is enormous, the size of the ESCO industry has been particularly small as compared to the opportunity. This is mainly because of reasons like—lack of the most current technology, poor energy monitoring and verification infrastructure, a dearth of skilled human resources, low awareness levels, lack of confidence in the ESCO business model amongst governments and private customers, lack of access to project/institutional finance, etc. Going forward, these issues are being addressed rapidly, which is likely to lead to a high rate of growth for the India ESCO industry. Important growth drivers for the India ESCO industry may be summed up as below:
Increasing Technological Maturity
Figure 1: India IBMS Market—Past Trends
Integration of Building Service Systems
2007 Onwards
n Growing interest in integrating various service systems in buildings
Energy Efficient Buildings
2005 Onwards
n Focus on energy efficiency due to increasing cost of power as well as increasing awareness of energy conservation as as an eco friendly measure
Focus on securing Buildings
Late 90s Onwards
n In addition to Fire Protection and Lift Management Systems, Security Systems started finding adoption in buildings
n Emergence of intelligent Building Systems in India
n Standalone systems for Fire Protection and Lift Management Silo Systems
Till Late 90s
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n Rudimentary systems were put in place as per guidelines of the municipality bodies n HVAC systems were put in place to control the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in buildings
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February 29, 2012 | 47
Building Management Systems Figure 2: India IBMS Market—Future Trends
Increasing Technological Maturity
Consolidation of Control Centers
n Consolidation of control centers... Large control centers may manage buildings of a single enterprise or entity at various locations n Centralized Control Centers in building dusters, towers, business parks etc
Centralization of Control
n Control centers may start offering services on a remote basis n Increased focus on the usage of structured cabling instead of normal cabling
Technological Shift
n Increased usage and preference for open protocols n Possibility of wireless systems in lieu of cabled systems
Migration to a Single Platform
2011 onwards
n Migration of all building services systems on to a single platform
#1 Financial institutions such as SIDBI, IREDA, Tata Capital, IndiaCo Ventures, HSBC, and others are showing more inclination towards financing energy efficiency projects and have announced separate funds specifically meant to address the ESCO opportunity. #2 Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) initiatives such as Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC)— that sets minimum energy performance standards for new commercial buildings, star ratings for office and BPO buildings. #3 Agricultural and municipal Demand Side Management (DSM) schemes—targeting replacement of inefficient pumpsets, street lighting, etc, to achieve energy saving from end-users. #4 Energy efficiency schemes in small and medium enterprises targeting SME clusters—to adopt energy savings schemes and to cover large SME sector units; National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE) program—targeting 9 energy-intensive industrial sectors including railways to reduce their energy consumption levels by 5% and providing the perform, achieve and trade (PAT) framework would be key market drivers for the growth of the ESCO business. Most of ESCOs are currently focusing on the key potential customer segments such as commercial buildings, government buildings, municipalities, and agriculture sector. Majority of projects are getting executed around energy-efficient lighting, pumping, and HVAC solutions. These energy-efficient technologies are likely to get more traction in the period 2012-15. Intelligent Building Management Systems Will Gain Traction: In India, the market for IBMS has been steadily evolving from simple integration of disparate systems such as fire safety, security, HVAC, and other 48 | February 29, 2012
utilities, to fully integrated and intelligent systems that incorporate the latest technology, applications, and features. The demand for IBMS has emerged due to the increasing need to reduce operational and maintenance costs by creating energy efficient, centrally monitored, and controlled systems; giving organizations the much needed flexibility, scalability, security, convenience, comfort, and of course good RoI. The market is being shaped by changing needs of the end-users, the competitive and performance-focused business environment, and the advent of innovative technologies whose catalytic effects offer new growth opportunities. However a few challenges and issues remain that need to be addressed to enable the end-users and industry to unlock the true potential of IBMS. Some regulatory policies such as Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC), LEED, green building rating system, and GRIHA building rating system are helping to define efficiency targets and norms. These efforts are increasing the adoption of technologies such as automation systems and IBMS. Key growth drivers for the India Intelligent Building Management Systems (IBMS) market may be summed up as: n Push from tenants/clients n Need for greater energy conservation and higher efficiency n Enhanced building security, safety, and fire protection preparedness n Reduction in operating costs n Increased productivity. n
VIVEK MISHRA
The author is lead analyst, energy and power utilities practice, CyberMedia Research maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
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Outsourcing
Capitalizing on Change Early evidence suggests great scope for BPO led business value in 5 areas of opportunity: New Markets/Emerging Economies, Mergers & Acquisitions, Adoption of New Technologies, Actionable Outcomes and Business Process Adjacencies
B
usiness process outsourcing has evolved, and so have buyer expectations. There are two categories of mature buyers: Large global corporations headquartered in G8 nations with a presence in multiple markets; and organizations which serve only one or two markets—not global in nature, but increasingly looking to be more global as growth in their traditional markets dries up. For both, BPO perceptions and expectations have changed—they are the ones driving new engagement models and conversations on greater value realization. Another key influencer in this shift is the fact that many mature buyers primarily operate in markets where economic growth sinks and stalls, as compared to emerging economies, which are growing at a much faster pace. In such an environment, cutting down costs can only take their businesses so far. What they really need is new efficiencies and accelerated growth, which certain BPO providers can deliver with a mix of global footprint, technology competence, and operational strengths. If fueling optimization and growth is the call to action, then mature buyers can look to capitalize on 5 unexplored areas that are rapidly growing in influence. These sizeable areas of opportunity have moved from trend to traction, and early evidence suggests great scope for BPO led business value—in New Markets/Emerging Economies, Mergers & Acquisitions, Adoption of New Technologies, Actionable Outcomes, and Business Process Adjacencies.
New Markets/Emerging Economies
For many mature buyers, the next growth engines are emerging economies. Spearheading global economic growth, countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China (collectively 50 | February 29, 2012
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BRIC) present exciting opportunities to further growth momentum. The call of “Go East or Go South” is increasingly reverberating in corporate boardrooms. Two common scenarios are: n The buyer wants to enter a new market, where the provider already has a presence n The buyer wants to enter a new market, where the provider does not operate. If a buyer and provider share a good working relationship, and the buyer wants to enter a new market, trust emerges as a tangible factor. In addition to being well-versed in the complexities of the new market, the BPO provider is a player who understands the buyer’s values, needs and strategies—as opposed to a new player, who is unfamiliar with the market, the buyer, or both. Strategies that worked in primary markets may not be effective in emerging economies because of diverse consumer segments and different regulatory needs—which makes access to local knowledge all the more critical. BPO providers can use their local knowledge and local network to help facilitate interactions between the buyer and clients in the same sector. Not just that, providers can also advise buyers on how to set up operations in this market. In some instances, the provider can expedite the setup of operations by establishing a back office that takes care of transactional and operational aspects. The buyer then has the power to simply focus on hiring product and sales personnel—their core competencies— while the back office is already up and running. Conversely, the case can be made for when a buyer and provider have already established synergies and reaped the benefits of standardized processes in certain markets, but when they do not work together DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
BPO providers can use their local knowledge and local network to help facilitate interactions between the buyer and clients in the same sector
in others. This can be a challenge for the buyer from a cost, value and process standpoint. However, if the provider is willing to make an investment in the region where the buyer operates but the provider does not, it can be a win-win for both. For the provider, it strengthens their ability to drive growth in the region. The buyer benefits from the professional focus that the provider brings to their processes, and can focus on driving new sales and service innovation.
Mergers & Acquisitions
The creation of a larger, unified enterprise following a merger or acquisition creates the need for rationalization and consolidation of processes and technologies after the deal is complete. Historically, this is where IT and BPO service providers have had a role to play. However, an evolved BPO provider can do much more at different stages of the M&A lifecycle. And with an industry-leading BPO provider, the conversation shifts from “what” to “when”—how quickly can business impact be created? Even before a buyer is considering an acquisition, a BPO provider can help from an operational due diligence standpoint and identify the potential opportunity in terms of how the acquired organization visit www.dqindia.com
can be considered from an outsourcing perspective. A provider can help ascertain whether the buyer will actually be able to realize the synergies that are desired from the acquired organization. A provider’s analysis of the organization to be acquired can be quite telling from an operational standpoint—not just in terms of which functions and processes can be outsourced, but also by determining what kind of cost benefits can be realized, and by outlining a future operating state. Today, one of the biggest challenges surrounding organizations as they merge and acquire is the fact that they end up running multiple processes as well as multiple, fragmented and disparate technology systems, often because of a desire to consummate the deal as fast as possible. But, by working with their provider to standardize their infrastructure and processes from the get-go, a buyer can realize significant savings in effort and synergy.
Adoption of New Technologies
The future lies in the convergence of operations and technology, with cloud computing, mobility and social media fast emerging as technologies to harness. Cloud Computing: Cloud computing has the potential to create new business models, where providers take end-to-end ownership—including process, application and infrastructure—and offer it on the cloud, with a pay-as-youuse pricing model. This not only helps move from a capex to an opex environment, but also ensures a single provider with single point of accountability. For example, in a lot of instances, there is not enough focus on the HR process and the HR function in most cases is under invested. Most of the time, the HR function spends their time on identical responses February 29, 2012 | 51
Outsourcing to routine queries, as opposed to actual strategic talent management. In such a situation, where an HR organization runs multiple disparate processes, with multiple technology systems and a lack of self-service, there is an opportunity for BPO providers to offer an end-to-end managed service offering on the cloud, where the organization pays per-employee per-month. Social Media: With bundled IT and BPO offerings, buyers can listen, learn and leverage information from social media—by understanding consumer needs, tailoring services and products to these needs, and creating social media campaigns. Mobility: Increasingly, organizations are grappling with how best to deal with the digital consumer who reaches out through a vast array of devices whether it be a computer, a mobile phone, handheld or PDA device. These have become the chosen medium for every transaction, from social networking to sharing information to shopping and entertainment. Digital media is redefining consumer mind sets, patterns of purchase and decision making. Convergence of Operations and Technology: With Lean and Six Sigma now passé, and the current macroeconomic environment making top-line growth elusive, the convergence of operations and technology serves not only to drive down costs with managed service offerings, but also enables a competitive advantage.
Actionable Outcomes
BPO providers have access to a lot of data through the processes they support. Is it possible to monetize this data? Is it possible to use this data to help mature buyers benchmark their processes and functions within their sector, and across industries? These are some of the questions that BPO providers need 52 | February 29, 2012
BPO offerings span various critical business functions, and in recent years, evolved providers have augmented these offerings with a deep understanding of these functions across industries
to start asking if they are to deliver business value to their clients. BPO offerings span various critical business functions, and in recent years, evolved providers have augmented these offerings with a deep understanding of these functions across industries. Key to this understanding is business metrics and process metrics— defined for a specific function. A logical progression then, is to create benchmarks based on these metrics, which can be used to evaluate a buyer’s function. Another way of monetizing data is ‘going from information to intelligence’. For instance, BPO providers for telecommunication service providers have access to dynamic data. In an industry where network and customer data keeps changing constantly, this dynamic data can help in meaningful decision making based on shifts in the market environment. With data analysis and tools, BPO providers can suggest promotional campaigns which telecommunications enterprises can tailor for their customers or understand who in their customer base are most likely to attrite or how they can increase ARPU—and this makes way for outcomes when they execute the campaign. The same principle also applies to the finanvisit www.dqindia.com
cial sector, where churn is equally relevant and important in a fiercely competitive market environment.
Business Process Adjacencies
Business Process Adjacencies represent a shift in thinking from just looking at a conventional function in the value chain to looking for adjacencies—upstream and downstream—paving the way for incremental benefits and increased operational efficiencies. Business Process Adjacencies are areas that logically augment a mature buyer’s contracted service offering with a BPO provider. For a mature buyer, this is a way to go beyond a conventional, stand-alone, back-office function and explore areas of higher value. Mature buyers in industries like high-technology, consumer packaged goods, financial services and telecommunications can gain significant business value by exploring Business Process Adjacencies.
The Way Forward
If mature buyers are to realize greater business value from business process outsourcing, they need to work with their providers to identify untapped frontiers of productivity and growth. The relationship needs to be more strategic than ever, with BPO assuming a more central role in business models. Whether or not the prevailing economic conditions stay the way they are, the conversation between buyers and providers, of unexplored areas to fuel optimization and growth, is a significant one which can deliver tangible business outcomes. As they say, the best is yet to come.
Ritesh Idnani
The author is senior vice president & COO, Infosys BPO maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
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Corporate Datacenter
Agriculture
Municipal lighting
Industry
Commercial Buildings
Business Opportunity Assessment for the India Energy Service Company (ESCO) Industry February 2012 India ESCO Market Dynamics, Performance Contracting, Government Role, Project Financing Scenario, Technologies, Competition Landscape, Market Analysis and Forecasts, Market Issues and Customer Segment Analysis
A ‘must read’ for ÂŹÂŹ %NERGYÂŹ3ERVICEÂŹ#OMPANIESÂŹ %3#/S ÂŹ)NDEPENDENTÂŹ %NERGYÂŹ#ONSULTANTSÂŹ ÂŹ!UDITORS ÂŹ-ANAGEMENTÂŹ #ONSULTINGÂŹ&IRMS ÂŹÂŹ %NERGYÂŹ%FlCIENCYÂŹ ÂŹ%NTERPRISEÂŹ!PPLICATIONSÂŹVENDORS ÂŹ SOLUTIONÂŹPROVIDERSÂŹANDÂŹSYSTEMÂŹINTEGRATORSÂŹ 3)S ÂŹ LOOKINGÂŹATÂŹTHEÂŹ)NDIAÂŹ%NERGYÂŹ%FlCIENCYÂŹOPPORTUNITY ÂŹÂŹ 'OVERNMENTÂŹ!GENCIES ÂŹÂŹ )NFRASTRUCTUREÂŹ&INANCEÂŹINSTITUTIONSÂŹ ÂŹBANKS ÂŹÂŹ #OMMERCIALÂŹBUILDINGÂŹOWNERS ÂŹ#%/S ÂŹ#&/S ÂŹ (EADSÂŹOFÂŹ0RODUCTIONÂŹ ÂŹ/PERATIONS ÂŹ#)/SÂŹ ÂŹ#4/S ÂŹ #ORPORATEÂŹ%NERGYÂŹ ÂŹ3USTAINABILITYÂŹ-ANAGERSÂŹOFÂŹ LARGEÂŹENTERPRISESÂŹRESPONSIBLEÂŹFORÂŹENERGYÂŹEFlCIENCYÂŹ PROJECTÂŹIMPLEMENTATION ÂŹEQUIPMENTÂŹUPGRADE ÂŹCOSTÂŹ MANAGEMENTÂŹANDÂŹOVERALLÂŹBUSINESSÂŹPRODUCTIVITYÂŹ ENHANCEMENT
Background According to the Planning Commission, India’s total primary commercial energy requirement (in terms of million tonnes of oil equivalent) is projected to grow at 6.5 percent per year between 2010-11 and 2016-17 from a level of 522.81 MTOE to 738.07 MTOE. The India government and corporate sectors are highly focused on creating a more sustainable and energy-efficient economy, and these goals have intensified the attention on industry, agriculture, buildings and public utility sectors, which are the primary sources of energy consumption. Increasing energy demand and rising energy cost are lead drivers for the growth of the ESCO business in India. In June 2010, the Union Cabinet approved the implementation framework of the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE) which seeks to unlock the India energy efficiency investment potential of Rs. 74,000 crore. However, despite the fact that the potential for application of performance contracting in both the public and private sectors in India is enormous, the size of the ESCO industry has been particularly small as compared to the opportunity.
Five key questions answered in the report
How this report will help
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Collaboration in IT
Trouble Shared is Trouble Halved Organizations must design collaborative technologies to provide coordination across geographically distributed teams and work
Collaborative technologies provide a powerful support to promote collaboration and coordination across geographically distributed teams in such distributed work environments. It has also been shown that satisfying coordination results in significant improvements on productivity as well as a significant reduction in the failure proneness of work 54 | February 29, 2012
O
rganizations in general and IT organizations in particular are distributed globally. This creates a need for collaboration and sharing between individuals and groups spread across sites for managing organization tasks, enterprise transactions, and projects. ERP systems and other network applications enable enterprise transactions to be done anywhere, anytime using common databases for synchronization and also facilitate generation of up-to-date reports. However there are still a wide variety of activities that are done in organizations that need collaboration and sharing. These include gathering information such as project status/views/reports, collaboratively developing content, participating and sharing in discussion forums and knowledge repositories, etc.
Coordination: The Call of the Day
A globally distributed project work requires substantial amount of coordination, since the work is carried out simultaneously by many individuals and teams across geographically distributed locations and then integrated. Work schedules need to be synchronized, creating dependencies across tasks and people. A global project work is also a social process involving stakeholders from multiple organizational units. It’s widely recognized that collaborative technologies provide a powerful support to promote collaboration and coordination across geographically distributed teams in such distributed work environments. It has also been shown that satisfying coordination needs results in significant improvements on productivity as well as a significant reduction in the failure proneness of the work products. This is particularly true of software projects and development. Globally distributed organizations do have their senior management teams (viz., heads of sales, heads of delivery sites) distributed across different locations; and there is a similar visit www.dqindia.com
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
collaboration need for these teams to collaborate within themselves and with the rest of the organization. Also, as there is a lot of knowledge and information with people who may join and leave organizations/ project teams, the same is to be captured and shared for the benefit of other existing and new members.
Enabling Collaboration through Interworking
A variety of choices exist to enable the need for collaboration and sharing in such organizations. As organizations grow a variety of collaboration tools, which are project-specific, or function-specific, or site-specific, come into existence. This requires special efforts to make them interoperable and in some cases impose constraints for collaboration and sharing. The solution for the organization should be interworking with the organization’s ERP system, the various off-the-shelf and in-house MIS applications, commonly and widely used email platforms, and other productivity applications. A unified collaboration and sharing system across any globally distributed organization encompassing various functions, projects, geographical sites, and specific work groups is the need of the hour. This article specifies the experience of architecting and implementing such a Unified Collaboration & Sharing Platform (UCSP) and the organizational impact of the same.
Unified Collaboration and Sharing Platform
In architecting UCSP, the functional requirements to cover various groups, types of contents, and the access management were important considerations. In choosing a platform, factors such as global accessibility, web-enabled, easy to learn and use, and ability to interface with the existing systems and tools were considered important. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Functional Project Geographical Repositories Repositories Repositories
Workgroup Repositories
Organizationwide Repositories
HR
Project 1
Site 1
Management Review Groups
Policies, Processes
Facilities
Project 2
Site 2
Taskforces
Best Practices, Templates
Sales
Project 3
Site 3
,,
,,
,,
UCSP was structured as shown below: Depending on the needs of the users, contents of UCSP varied from files and reports to wikis, blogs, discussion forums, and task lists.
Interwork with Existing System
The interactions of UCSP with other systems in the organization are given below: A collaboration platform, which was off-the-shelf and configurable at the user level, was chosen to enable this interworking. The collaboration platform chosen enabled bi-directional interworking with documents in widely used formats (viz., Excel files). As indicated, the UCSP is integrated with the enterprise email and calendaring systems, the ERP system, as well as select MIS applications. It enabled easier adoption by the users, as they could do most of their transactions from their often used applications such as email client. The tasks assigned in UCSP could be accessed and status updated through an email client.
Implementation and Impact
The Information Systems (IS) team devised the implementation strategy for gradual adoption of the systems and tools in UCSP while the other systems were still operational, so that there will be a total ‘buy-in’ from the users. Thus while the system was well thought of in the beginning of the journey, it was visit www.dqindia.com
,,
,,
allowed to grow and get used rather than a top-down push in one go. As an example, one of the sites which had a dedicated platform for policies and processes was linked from within the UCSP to provide seamless access. Flexibility was provided to the owners of the respective collaboration sites for individual projects/function groups to organize their sites in the manner best suited for their activities. The best practices and learning from each of the groups were reused in the creation of other sub-sites within UCSP. The access restrictions and access policies were carefully set up by the IS team, so that there was no chance of any breach of confidentiality, integrity, and privacy. To enable distributed maintenance of the access controls, the permissions to configure these controls were distributed at different levels in UCSP structure. This reduced the dependency on the IS/IT teams, typically located at the headquarters, for routine maintenance and upkeeping.
Project Management Portal
The project teams use Excel spreadsheets and word documents for documenting various project artifacts such as details of meetings, action items assigned to different project members, statement of work documents, financial evaluations of the projects, technology component sheets, and project risk details. These are stored in a variety of configuration manFebruary 29, 2012 | 55
Collaboration in IT agement tools or in an individual’s laptop/PC, and then circulated within the team using an email. Tracing of an event and resolution of it was cumbersome. The unified platform provided a web based interface and a server based repository for storing all the above project artifacts. The team members could be given shared access with access rights ranging from read, write, and modify access as appropriate to different documents, folders, issue lists, in the project site. The system was chosen for its ease of use and flexibility of online access. Even the icons in the system were familiar to the users. Hence only a quick introduction to the platform was sufficient to enable users to get started and explore further as they use. Users could continue to use Excel templates and word documents for storing their project artifacts. However they are shared through UCSP rather than through emails. The project managers used the platform to assign and track tasks. The members could post the progress on each of their activities. Hence the collaboration platform provided a one-stop solution for storing and sharing the project artifacts during the entire life cycle, starting from the first stage till the last stages. This gave a complete visibility of the project to all in the project team, thus enhancing the effectiveness of the team as well empowering the team members. Since most of the R&D projects that Sasken does come with its own related Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), the access and security control is meticulously configured and monitored for each project site to prevent any possible involuntary errors and omissions.
Management Review Portal
This portal allowed functional heads to share their reviews and progress reports with their managers and Sasken leadership team. The data 56 | February 29, 2012
for some of these reports MIS Applications are derived from the granular data present in Enterprise the various projects and Unified Collaboration Resource collaboration sites. For and Sharing Platform Planning System example, the engineering delivery flash reports indicate the overall Email and Office Productivity Applications project status within one Figure 2 The Interworking of UCSP click. It minimizes the coordination required work groups, the number of users across hundreds of project managaccessing the platform has grown ers, eliminating data redundancy substantially. Being easily configand improving data integrity. The urable, this platform is enabling the head of delivery function is able to set up of collaboration project sites present a comprehensive picture to quickly, solely by the user groups the top management about metrics themselves with minimal support such as project utilization levels from IS teams. UCSP also enables and project schedule adherence. the quicker conceptualization and Currently, all functions in Sasken, piloting of new systems and procincluding corporate functions such esses in the organization, without as human resources and facilities the need for creating specific management, use this portal to submit and review management reports. implementation tools that have long gestation periods. It also gives the Different functional teams and cross-functional teams have adopted flexibility to relevant user groups to do changes to the system and proca similar portal for their collaborative activities. The quick search and esses during the pilot exercise with ease, thus enabling them to attain configurable views enable an easy maturity before implementing them access to the specified reports from organization wide. the thousands of stored artifacts. In a fast changing technical and business environment, collaboraKnowledge Sharing Portal This portal hosts a variety of forums tion and sharing are keys to promote innovation, dexterous planning, and for collaboration and knowledge execution excellence. Thus, a caresharing. It includes discussion fully chosen and implemented UCSP forums, knowledge base for sharwill provide the required network ing articles, blog sites for each externality effects much similar to individual, a common company some of the successful social netglossary, and a platform for sharing organization policies and processes. working platforms to bring tremendous value to the organization. n An innovation promotion initiative was easily implemented on this platform with minimal support from IT teams. Globally, technical and project management trainings are being done on this platform. Also, sharing course content and conductRAVINDRA HS, SELVARAJ V, ing online assessments. AND DR V SRIDHAR
The first two authors are associate vice presidents and the third author is research fellow, Sasken Communication Technologies, respectively maildq@cybermedia.co.in
Impact of the UCSP
Since the introduction to span across geographies, functions, and visit www.dqindia.com
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
ICT in Higher Education
Raising the Bar To ensure a paradigm shift in the Indian education system, ICT can play a crucial role, connecting the unconnected and transforming a stagnant system into a dynamic and interactive process of learning, accessed with ease STUTI DAS
stutid@cybermedia.co.in
A
classroom at any Indian university since ages (barring of course the IIMs and IITs and other private institutions) constitutes of a blackboard, teacher, and a classroom full of students, pursuing the course in the hope of landing a job since most jobs today demand a graduate degree. Sadly, the situation hasn’t improved since most of us graduated. The scenario, however, is on the verge of change with the Indian government’s focus on bringing in ICT to improve the state of higher education in our country—the National Mission on Education is emphasizing on the role 58 | February 29, 2012
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“With total dependability on IT, the university has been able to cut down cost and improve quality of instructional delivery and administration” Dr MK Soni, executive director & dean, faculty of engineering & technology, Manav Rachna International University
“Using the best of technology for online content, teacherstudent collaboration, we can improve the student experience and bring it closer to the world’s best” Akhlesh Agarwal, VP, learning technologies, NIIT University
of ICT in increasing the enrolment ratio in higher education. “IT, specifically the internet, has become a driving force for advancement of education. With IT in vogue, students have access to processed information and raw data about everything they think about. They can learn skills and attain knowledge without even a teacher,” says Dr MK Soni, executive director & dean, faculty of engineering & technology, Manav Rachna International University (MRIU). In fact, ICT can relegate the teacher to the background—from being a knowledge provider to a facilitator. Not just that, Soni adds that IT has made the life of administrators and managers much easier; because of tools like MS Office and equivalent application packages, tedious works can be completed easily. Hence educational institutions have adapted IT, because this has enhanced their productivity and efficiency. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Overcoming Barriers
Overall, it has been widely accepted that technology, irrespective of domains, has proved to be a vital asset when it comes to increasing productivity, efficiency, and business prospects. And since the benefits were there for all to see, the adoption of ICT was quick, including by the education sector.
ICT is the answer to the ills plaguing the Indian education system, by making it easier, interactive, and thought-provoking
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As per Ashok Mittal, chancellor, Lovely Professional University (LPU), “The implementation of IT in back-end processes was motivated by a multitude of factors, the major ones being as follows: Bringing transparency in the system, accelerating the pace of task execution, efficient monitoring and control, ushering an element of convenience and ease, systematic record keeping, and, of course, environmental conservation.” Some unique challenges that most of the education institutions are facing include equity, accessibility, quality of delivery, and most importantly cost (to achieve all of these without raising the cost). However MRIU somewhat has been able to address most of these issues. Furthermore, Soni corroborates, “ With the implementation of ERP, the system has become transparent, allowing access to attendance records, examination records, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, and research and development programs. Moreover, parents through the Parent Self Service module can also check the growth and progress of their wards by logging in the university website; and they also get alerts about shortage of attendance, payment of fees, and important events, as the case may be.”
The Virtual World
Also, the university allows the admission seekers to submit admission applications online (24x7) during the admission days, without physically visiting the campus. MRIU has an active online presence with the entire information related to the university in terms of infrastructure created, facilities provided, faculty, eligibility criteria for admission, criteria for preparation of a merit list, fee structure, etc, is available on its website. Prof Rajeshwar Shanmugham, faculty, Loyola Institute of Business Administration further gives an insight into why educational institutions went February 29, 2012 | 59
ICT in Higher Education “We take pride in the fact that all departments are leveraging the might of IT in pursuance of excellence as far as the accomplishment of departmental objectives is concerned”
It’s important to understand that the rising number of enrollments in institutes, gives rise to an increase in the number of transactions per student, and the significance of ICT is only going to see an upward trend and this will be true irrespective of departments
Ashok Mittal, chancellor, Lovely Professional University
the ICT way. “Academic Information system enables communication between all the stakeholders (students, faculty, etc) about all the relevant information, including the schedule, course outline/syllabus, reading materials, PPTs used in classrooms, submission of assignments/projects, attendance, and publication of grades, to help faster communication, cut down on paper use, and facilitate easy and faster access to data,” he says.
IT Across Departments
It’s important to understand that the rising number of enrolments in institutes, gives rise to an increase in the number of transactions per student, and the significance of ICT is only going to see an upward trend and this will be true irrespective of departments. This implies that the adoption of IT will not just be limited to departments like admissions or examinations, but even for maintaining general administration or otherwise. Substantiating this view, adds Akhlesh Agarwal, vice president, learning technologies, NIIT University, “With the increasing number of students and transactions, the main challenges that we have to address are responsiveness, data integrity, and transparency. Using the appropriate technologies, that include work flow management, data audit trails, and communication tools, we are able to achieve 60 | February 29, 2012
best possible results vis-à-vis these challenges.” Most universities, irrespective of departments, actively use ICT whether it is in a classroom, admission departments (right from submitting forms online to accessing institute-specific information regarding admissions, courses, and faculty), intranet (for accessing course material, assignments, class schedules, and test results), or even for maintaining an online library. As per Agarwal, at NIIT University, “While the main focus is to use technology in the teaching and learning process to increase the effectiveness of learning delivery, we plan to increase technology usage in every operation at university, viz., admissions, registration, academic records, library, hostel management, HR, and payroll & finance.” At LPU, the scenario is somewhat different from NIIT. Here the university’s departments are leveraging IT—right from the security guards at the entrance to transportation department; from a receptionist to the dak boy from the communication department; from the HR department, examination department, vendor department, accounts department, dean, to faculty, etc,—almost all in the university work with IT as the lynchpin. Mittal further shares, “We have a Wi-Fi-enabled campus spanning 600 acres, which hooks 25,000 students to internet round the clock, enabling visit www.dqindia.com
them to cash its power for knowledge enhancement. In fact, we had aimed for a ‘paperless university’ which now seems achievable. Hence plans are afoot to record all the lectures by prominent professors of the university and make them available online for the convenience and betterment of the students. Hopefully, this will materialize in 2 years time, and then we will acquire the status of being a ‘paperless university’ in India.” In fact, MRIU has gone a step further and has even implemented ERP developed by Tata Consultancy Services, consisting of 30 modules for automation of all aspects of education, including academics, admissions, fee management, transport management, hostel management, infrastructure/ facilities management, learning management system, training and placement, alumni, etc.
Private Online Presence
Unfortunately, most private institutions are taking the lead when it
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
ICT in Higher Education
No Distance too Far ...distance learning makes inroads As per Partho Banerjee, managing director, Hughes Communications India, with the advent of technology in education, the first and foremost issue of lack of infrastructure in education has been taken care of. One can reach out to the geographicallydispersed masses without really compromising the quality of education, especially with Interactive On-site Learning (IOL) methodology or Virtual Classroom, wherein the students are taught by the same faculty who is teaching the regular students in that institute. In distance learning, one may be getting the course material from the institute, but when it comes to the teaching, they are dependent on the local faculties, who may or may not be trained enough. And there they lack quality of education. But with the IOL platform this issue has been really taken care of, wherein the same faculty teaches all these widely dispersed students and the sessions are also interactive as they would be in any normal classroom. Presently, we are connecting close to 7,000+ rural centers through VSAT, which gives the same experience as it would do in any other city. It purely depends on the kind of programs students are enroling themselves for. When it comes to K-12 segment, there are programs which are live as well as recorded. In case if somebody had even missed any session, they can have the archives of the same lecture/session. Even while traveling, if somebody wishes to attend the class from any other center, he can do that—it’s quite flexible. Though challenging, India has gained a larger footprint in delivering education virtually. The main challenge is the culture of physical contact classes, but with technology playing a critical role in almost every aspect of Indian society, it will not take much time for this paradigm shift. Like the first stage of every change management has been really tough, but after that it becomes a habit and later on a necessity, same is the stage that is going on in case of virtual classroom. More and more students are getting attracted and using the benefits of virtual classrooms in terms of quality education, ease, and convenience, the trends are changing quite fast.
comes to having an active online presence, although this does not translate into implying that government academic institutions lack an online presence. One of the plausible reasons why most private institutes make a beeline to update their virtual presence is most of them are commercial establishments, out for profits, and are compelled to attract as many students as possible for generating revenues. “NIIT University has a strong online presence, which includes 62 | February 29, 2012
our website, our Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube channel, blogs, and facility of live video streaming of campus events to the outside world. Students can download and fill online forms for admission. Also, NIIT University has a full-featured online learning portal where students can access digital content used by faculty in the classroom, they can submit online assignments, and take online quizzes. We plan to constantly increase the content available to students via the portal, visit www.dqindia.com
including some chosen lecture recordings,” says Agarwal. In the case of LPU, its website not just offers the usual mundane services but also offers career counseling, psychological support, interaction with alumni, anti-ragging helpline, etc. Apart from posting their results online, most universities also encourage prospective students to also use the online channel for form submission. For instance at MRIU, 100% students apply through their website, as it’s the only option for submitting an application for admission. “Even the payment of application fee and academic fee is facilitated through internet banking and credit/debit cards, although other options for depositing fees are also available. In the last 3 years, more than 15,000 students have submitted their applications online for admission in various courses,” informed Soni. Even in the case of NIIT University, more than 60% of students apply using the online facility on the website.
Reaching the Unreached
It would have been foolish if the Indian education system was bereft of the benefits of ICT, keeping in mind the mind-boggling student-teacher ratio here and what IT can do to transform the education system. Add to it the problem of students coming from remote areas where education, leave alone quality education, is lacking. Therefore ICT is the answer to the ills plaguing the Indian education system, by making it more easier, interactive, and thought-provoking. The benefits of IT will reach the unreached, giving them the benefits of education to this large section of society which until now remained deprived of the gains of education, in a cost-effective manner. So, it won’t be a hyperbole, if it is said that powered by IT, we can compete with the world’s best—if not today, certainly in 15-20 years’ time. n
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IT in Policy
One ID for All
With the mandate to provide one unified ID, the UIDAI, with a judicious blend of technologies, is creating new benchmarks in computing and biometric authentication
SHRIKANTH G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in
A
s we navigate through the dusty roads of India’s Silicon Valley—Bengaluru—we hit the rather inhospitable stretch, the outer ring road that connects to Marathahalli-Sarjapur, which takes a whopping 2 hours drive during the morning peak hours. Despite being in the city fringes, a drive on this road will ultimately stress the patience of even the most seasoned drivers, due to extreme bad traffic and also the road conditions. But that does not deter the global IT giants which have captives across the stretch doing cutting edge IT outsourcing. And as we pass one unmarked white building, which might be mistaken for any commercial complex, but as we step inside the gate it becomes clear that it’s a High Security Zone (HSZ). It is in this very building that a revolution of sorts is happening under the able leadership of Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI. This nondescript building is the UIDAI technology center that processes thousands of UID applications on any given day and a data center, not far away, houses all the confidential data of the UID holders; no wonder this is called the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). What has made the impossible possible is the creation of technology framework and the architecture needed to capture about 121 crore data of the citizens and issuance of one common ID card. But it is the innovative and the judicious blend of technology that is enabling this mammoth exercise. Also, UIDAI typifies a shining example of how government can adopt technology in such a professional and seamless manner and all through its evolution, so far, it has created outstanding benchmarks for the world to follow. The technology center of UIDAI runs the world’s largest biometric authentication project. The Network Operations Center (NOC) which processes in real time all the UID registration, is the brain or the nerve center of the whole UID exercise alongside the state-of-the-art data center. 64 | February 29, 2012
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UIDAI Technology Center
This center plays a pivotal role in enabling the whole delivery of UID cards because the basic idea behind Aadhaar is to create an universal, unique, national digital online identity, not tied to a specific scheme or department, that can be used by several agencies at the center, state, and local levels for service delivery. This requires a clean database in a structured format with certain mandatory fields filled out. In order to ensure uniqueness, biometrics is needed so that no person can get 2 identity numbers, no matter where in the country they reside. Reflecting on this Dr Ashok Dalwai, deputy director general, technology center, UIDAI says,“Inclusion and over inclusion are big problems in this part of the world. Some have identities and others do not have. When we talk about UID, it is not for the exclusive, it is for every Indian. The ultimate aim is to extend it to 121 crore people of India.” The need for UID is that the existing IDs do not prove the uniqueness nor are they universal. Conventional IDs like the passport (less than 10% of India’s population have access to passports), voter ID, etc, have their limitations in terms of coverage and eligibility, and hence UID is the vital element in providing universal ID for every citizen irrespective of his social and economical stature. “UIDAI’s approach is to solve the problem of unique identification and
Dr Ashok Dalwai, deputy director general, technology center, UIDAI
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI
to go digital and online. UIDAI’s IT solution was designed after studying the world’s best national identity systems and other large-scale computing projects, while innovating and adapting for India’s specific context and requirements,” says Dalwai. Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI quips, “This is the first ID that travels across India and this national mobility and portability makes it indeed a unique one. Our idea with UID is to open the gateway for services and it will act as Know Your Customer (KYC) for many services, from insurance to mobile phone connections, by enabling a one-stop ID proof.” The 2 key technology pillars from the infrastructure side are data center and NOC. In the recent hand-holding exercise with media, the NOC was showcased and the kind of mission critical role it plays. The NOC has been built by using commodity x86 blade servers that enable easier scaling up of computing power as the enrolments grow. The NOC keeps the tab of enrolments in real time and does the complicated task of screening the applications by weeding out fake and duplicate registrations. The solution for Aadhaar is the adoption of an open scale-out design for technology along with an ecosystem based approach to the field operations while collecting multimodal biometrics. Sources say that the solution balances speed, scale, quality, and cost while adhering to the country’s democratic princivisit www.dqindia.com
ples, constitutional framework, and government’s process. The solution which involved several innovations and adaptations to suit India’s context is now proven with 18+ crore enrolments across 32+ states and UTs. Dalwai says, “The technology is now being acknowledged as among the largest and the best identification system in the world.”
Biometrics
One of the hallmarks of the UIDAI technology backbone is the extensive use of biometrics. Probably, this is the world’s biggest deployment and usage of biometrics involving 121 crore people, once the entire population comes in the ambit of the UIDAI. The UIDAI biometric system architects have studied the best global practices and adapted them to the Indian context and requirements. In designing the biometric system, UIDAI reviewed the existing stateof-the-art, consulted with the world’s top biometric experts, conducted a PoC study across the states, and built a biometric system that is currently considered to be the world’s best. The uniqueness of the UIDAI’s biometric system is its multi-modal approach. The UID biometric committee chose fingerprint, iris, and face photograph as it is necessary to de-duplicate 121 crore residents. Since the large portion of the rural population in India works on agriculture or other manual labor, it becomes important not to rely on fingerprints (which may have worn out ridges) but to also capture the 2 iris images. According to the government sources, the UID project is the latest among the sequence of progressive transformative technologies that India has executed in the last 3 decades. And once the entire screening process of all the citizens gets completed, it will create new benchmarks in IT management using a combination of best practices. n February 29, 2012 | 65
ICT Policy
SC Verdict on 2G: Confusion Galore Pandemonium has broken loose—while the industry is back to square one, the court verdict has made telcos cry, investors suffer and subscribers watch Inder Kumar
inderk@cybermedia.co.in
W
ith the Supreme Court scrapping 122 unified access service licenses, granted in the year 2008, the judgement has spelled trouble for those 8 telecom companies (most affected were Uninor, Sistema Shyam, and Loop Telecom) who have lost the licenses. The order has cornered the UPA government and the landmark judgement would also be affecting more than 70 mn subscribers (excluding Tata’s subscribers in 3 circles), who have no option but to wait and watch how the game unfolds. While the government managers (including telecom minister Kapil Sibal) immediately rushed to Shastri Bhawan calling the media and sounding an optimist view on the judgement, the rosy picture is not being shared by many.
Telcos Cry Foul
According to global research firm, Crisil, the decision will hit an industry, which is already grappling with multiple uncertainties regarding spectrum allocation and pricing, mergers and acquisition norms, and other regulatory procedures. “Idea Cellular has unnecessarily been caught in this situation of cancelled licences,” says the Aditya Birla Group company, in a press statement released after the Supreme Court order. It also adds that it is unfortunate that a serious incumbent operator like Idea Cellular has been made to suffer due to this cancellation of licences, despite being fully compliant at each state of the licence allocation process. “The Telenor Group wants to be clear that Uninor operations are continuing. Our intention is to fight to protect our lawful investments in the country. We are look66 | February 29, 2012
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ing to the government to arrive at a fair solution. We expect that the intention remains of bringing new competition to India,” says a statement issued by Telenor group.
Murky Situation
It’s not only the telcos that have suffered huge losses; while the government was in an image-building-mode for polls in Uttar Pradesh, the UPA II has also lost much of its credibility which claims itself to be committed towards eradicating corruption. Moreover, the government has collected `10,500 crore by selling licences, it is still unclear if it will have to refund. Having hung up on the mobile phone industry, Manmohan Singh’s government is now hoping that voters will still take their call. While cornering the government on the issue, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said that there was corruption and scam in the allocation of licenses and that will rightly cost the government. In a reaction to the judgement, Prasad commented, “In 2001 there were only 4 mn subscribers and in 2007-08 there were 350 mn. The entire policy was manipulated and massive irregularity committed which costs heavy loss to the public revenue. No license granted in the NDA regime has been cancelled”. It’s not only the rights of operators that have been messed with, millions of subscribers, numbers of investors and lenders are also going to suffer. The order will also jeopardize `30,000-40,000 crore that the companies including Telenor, Sistema and Etisalat have invested.
Investor Sentiment Bruised
The order, on one hand, sets an example of a landmark judgement, but on the other has also opened up a new round of scepticism about India as a destination for foreign investment. First, there were foreign playDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
The order will also jeopardize `30,000-40,000 crore that the companies including Telenor, Sistema and Etisalat have invested ers who were frustrated with India’s rules regarding foreign ownership of companies, imports, exports, and taxes remain extremely complex, now it is the investor also who would begin to believe that a formal official letter is not enough to remain complacent for its investment security. According to a media report titled India Hangs Up on the Mobile Phone Industry - and Investor Confidence (featured in the TIME blog), “The outcome may be the worst case possible for those worried about wobbly investor confidence in India. First, it sends a signal to companies dealing with India’s powerful ministries and bureaucrats that following the letter of India’s regulations is not enough. The companies involved in the 2G allocation followed the rules set by the sitting Telecom Minister—however arbitrary that process might have seemed.” Commenting on whether investor may suffer any major damage, DS Rawat, general secretary of Assocham says, “The judgement will have a cascading impact on investors’ sentiments, as unless the government comes transparent on the allocation of licences, how would the investor will come forward to invest?” He adds, “Without going into the merits and demerits of the case, I would say that the sudden changes in the allocation policy visit www.dqindia.com
would definitely the sentiments of the investors.” The order would not impact investments in the telecom sectors but the others including aviation, coal, energy and insurance where a series of regulations are in place. But with the regulatory mechanism not adding to the security of an investment, it has rather grown the fear into investors’ sentiments that any corruption scam could put their funds into dark.
Some Good Prevails
However telecom regulatory expert Mahesh Uppal seems somewhat optimistic, saying, “Of course, we have lost money but we should look at the larger aspect, there is also washing away of corrupt mechanism that was involved during the allocation.” Welcoming the judgement, he says that the fresh auctioning of the licenses may not result in hike in tariffs at a very large extent. “There is a possibility of hike in the rates but the hike would be at an affordable level,” says Uppal, who is also director, Com First (India). There is always a market mechanism which won’t allow the rates to go beyond an unaffordable level, thus the subscribers won’t be hit badly, he adds. A winning situation seems apparent for incumbents including Bharti airtel and Vodafone. As many would be switching their operators, the 2 cellular giants could gain at the cost of new licencees. However, with the losing telecom companies left with the only single option of applying for a review petition, requesting the apex court for permission to argue their case before a larger bench of the court; the only good news-amid all this messis that the fresh auctions, of course, are going to leg up the government funds and indeed, to aid fiscal budgeting for the year 2012-13. n February 29, 2012 | 67
Engineering Services
Rafale takes the Honors With a 50% offset clause, the engineering services segment looks at the MMRCA opportunity with a lot of hope A Dataquest Report
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
MoUs with these forms. Not much has been heard about the MoUs of late. Some of the Indian firms, off the record, admit that not much has happened after the announcements. However, with the IAF close to announcing the final winner after France’s Dassault Aviation emerged as the lowest bidder, there is again excitement about the prospects that it may bring for the engineering services firms.
What’s the Deal?
I
n the 2008 DQ Top 20, the analysis on engineering services segment was headlined, Of Nano and Fighter Jets. These two factors, at that time, were perceived to be the most important ones that would shape how the engineering services industry evolves in India. Nano was the symbol of India’s ability to do low-cost engineering—subsequently popularized by Carlos Ghosn as Frugal Engineering. The planned purchase of 126 combat aircrafts by the Indian Air Force (IAF), with a 50% offset clause (50% of the total value awarded to the winner would have to be reinvested locally) made the engineering services sector hopeful that some of the offset spending would come its way, as India’s capability to do engineering design is far more proven than manufacturing. What strengthened the belief is soon after, some of the hopefuls such as EADS (one of the partners in EuroFighter consortium) and Dassault Aviation of France, signed MoUs with Indian engineering services firms such as CADES, Infosys, Tata Technologies, an Infotech Enterprise to jointly ‘explore’ opportunities—moves many interpreted as aimed at impressing the Indian government. At the same time, the government-owned manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), which is expected to manufacture most of it in India, too signed 68 | February 29, 2012
In June 2007, the government gave its nod to IAF to go ahead with its plans to buy 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA)s, valued at $10.4 bn. There were 6 initial contenders. After months of field testing and technical evaluation, in April 2011, 2 contenders—Eurocopter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale—were shortlisted for commercial evaluation. In October 2011, the offset proposals of the shortlisted vendors were separately approved as per the plan. On 31st January, 2012, IAF announced that Dassault Aviation has emerged as the lowest bidder and negotiations would begin with the company. Unlike many government tenders, being L1 does not mean the contract has been won. The government can go to the L2 for strategic reasons. The UK government has already started lobbying on behalf of BAE.
Opportunity for Engineering Services
After the initial 18 aircrafts supplied by Dassault, Hindustan Aeronautics would manufacture it in collaboration with the vendor. It will not be surprising that much of the design, simulation, and testing work could be subcontracted to services firms. Dassault itself had signed MoUs with Infotech Enterprise and Tata Technologies in 2008. One of its major suppliers, GECI too has a JV with Punj Lloyd to offer engineering services. HAL too has a JV with Infotech and an MoU with Tata Technologies. The major players providing engineering services to the aerospace segment include Infotech, Quest Global, Infosys, Axis Aerospace (Axis IT&T), TCS, and HCL. Others include Tata Technologies, L&T Integrated Engineering Services, and Mahindra Aerospace (with group company Mahindra Engineering Services). For the segment, it is time for jet, set, go. n
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‘A multi-generational workforce will employ technology to truly embrace a borderless workstyle’ Describe the role of social media and videoenabled solutions in the future? Going forward, the already web-centric enterprises will become even more social, and the ability to tap intelligence at all levels of the organization will become the new norm. In fact, with the right tools such as a high-definition video for a richer collaboration and intelligent ‘crowdsourcing’ enterprises can produce, detect, and convey information with much less effort, greater velocity, and efficacy than ever before. This will foster innovation and enhance productivity with exponential benefits. A multi-generational workforce will employ technology to truly embrace a borderless workstyle, where work is an activity and not a location. Given its popularity with users and the ease with which it can be accessed on today’s tablets, mobile phones, and laptops, in 2012 video will be termed as the new ‘black’. Owing to ultra-highbandwidth capabilities, the combination of global IP networks, 4G LTE wireless over the world, and 3G in India, video will fast become the pervasive and preferred communication vehicle for many enterprise activities, from team meetings to quarterly 72 | February 29, 2012
—John Samuel, area vice president, Verizon India
employee communications to on-demand information about the key projects. With video-enabled contact centers being the latest business-to-consumer application, this business trend is here to stay. With regulations on compliance and energy efficiency getting tighter, what recommendations do you have for the organizations? With increasing evidence that the companies are less likely to be data breach victims if they comply with security standards, such as those promoted by the Payment Card Industry (PCI), compliance will become prerequisite for good business practice in 2012. In a difficult economic environment and with increasing stringent government regulations, the need to take complete advantage of business
opportunities will increase interest in prudent, holistic security approaches. The organizations and governments will change how they interact with their extended partner networks, increasingly choosing to do business with those that can demonstrate a comprehensive multiyear and standard based approach to security. When it comes to energy efficiency, especially a reduction in CO2 emissions, will be a key imperative for many companies. In 2012, we will witness organizations taking advantage of public-private partnerships to invest in varied interests ranging from efficient lighting to energyefficient heating ventilation and air conditioning systems to installing energyefficient technologies. They will also investigate flexible computing models that leverage on-demand capacity for peak loads, while powering down during periods of lesser demand. What trends do you foresee that will impact the Indian business landscape? We see a number of remarkable IT trends coming to the fore. For example, we will see the emergence of a high IQ network. With each new smart device or software application added to a
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network, all endpoints and devices will become inherently smarter—each benefiting from additional connections. So, whether the connections are people-to-people, machineto-people, or machine-tomachine, we will witness new opportunities being created to solve societal challenges such as employing IT to address the rising cost of healthcare or delivering smart energy solutions. Because of the network’s importance, any interruption of service will have a profound impact. As a result, there will be a greater demand for carefully designed and well-managed services at the core of the global IP backbone and high-speed wireless networks. Another key trend will be machine-to-machine communications that will change the way people manage their world. But the human factor—people—will continue to play a significant role in harnessing digital intelligence, inspiring innovation, and creating the next big thing. For example, while portable monitors may keep roundthe-clock tabs on a patient’s vital signs, healthcare providers will ultimately use that information to assess patients and provide treatment. SHILPA SHANBHAG
shilpas@cybermedia.co.in
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
‘Retail will be very exciting in the next 4-5 years’ How would you describe IT in relation to the retail segment? FDI or no FDI, the retail segment is expected to undergo a major transformation drive in the next 4-5 years. With consumption having increased, there has been information bombardment on the customer on an increased level and at the same time ensuring a seamless and good customer experience is the bone of contention. Retail environment is undergoing a wave of transformation where the customer expects intimation to be provided, a scenario where technology can play the lead role. Another problem is associated with the issue of kirana
—Vinay Awasthi, senior director, product category, personal systems group, Hewlett-Packard India
stores not being able to stay glued to its mould of a family engagement affair. Hence training the employees on a regular basis is becoming a costly affair. This issue can be tackled with the aid of technology. IT by helping storekeepers manage issues like inventory
management, pricing models, pricing strategy, etc, will help the units to become a profitable business. Going ahead, technology will enable retail sector to serve customers in an efficient manner. These are the few reasons for IT in retail to receive a boost. What is the trend that you are witnessing in the sector? The general trend is to jump in the digital bandwagon and there are varied needs from mid- to small-size customers. But the overall trend is that the stores want to adopt dedicated/customized retail products rather than using technology that is standardized.
Would FDI in the retail sector prove to be a boon? The IT sector is not missing out on anything as currently all activities thrive despite the absence of FDI. Major brands have already made the right choice in IT usage and the point is how the medium and small retailers follow the example. If FDI is allowed then it can probably accelerate the process but there is no major loss. Technology is everyone’s friend and suddenly the entry of FDI will not change the mindsets. We are very excited for the next 4-5 years. SHILPA SHANBHAG
shilpas@cybermedia.co.in
People BlackBerry Witnesses Change in Leadership
Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, two co-chief executive officers of Research in Motion (RIM), have stepped down from the top job and Thorsten Heins has taken over the responsibility of chief executive officer. Lazaridis and Balsillie will continue to be the board of directors, whereas Lazaridis will head the recently created committee to foster innovation in the organization.
Dr Gopichand Katragadda Joins GE India as MD
Dr Gopichand Katragadda, alias Gopi, has been appointed as the managing director of GE’s India Technology Center. Katragadda joined the Bengaluru facility immediately and has the responsibility of developing technology of this integrated multi-disciplinary research and development center. He has succeeded Sanjay Correa, who has been assigned a new task in the US.
Canon India Appoints Kazutada Kobayashi as President and CEO
Canon India has appointed Kazutada Kobayashi as its new president and CEO. Kobayashi will succeed Kensaku Konishi, who further has been promoted as the CEO of Canon, Singapore. Kobayashi is expected to foster the development of innovative products and solutions for the Indian market. Prior to this new role, he was serving Canon Hong Kong as the president and CEO. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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February 29, 2012 | 73
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‘Allied Telesis to triple its size by the end of FY12’ As a networking solutions company, what are the new products that you have come up with? We have launched a suite of products in the Fast Ethernet to the 10G platform, offering the best kind of flexibility and scalability for midto large-sized enterprises and also for telcograde customers. In the broad sense, what is your perspective on the Indian networking market? As markets mature, there is a certain element of business that gets commoditized. The same has happened to some extent in the
we are a well-established networking brand in India, featuring among the top 5.
—Subhasish Gupta, country manager, Allied Telesis India and Saarc
Indian networking industry too. In the past 5 years, Allied Telesis has seen phenomenal consolidation and addition of customers from various verticals. It has been consuming but very satisfying experience in the past 5 years to be a part of Allied Telesis; and I firmly believe that
What are your plans to tap the Indian market? In the next 2 months, we will be almost 3 times the strength in India. We have already been able to build a strong base of strategic partners. As a strong initiative, we would be enhancing the partner base to close to 250 focused partners in the next one year. We have enlarged our vertical and horizontal market focus and today we have customers spread out in education, government, transport, defense, media, manufacturing, power, and steel. In the coming years, healthcare is a
vertical that we want to get aggressively into in India. What is your marketing strategy in India? We will focus on specific verticals in the heavy engineering and will also continue with the design. We are working with our counterparts in the US and Europe to bring in our much-appreciated certifications into the country to tap the education space. Also, building a stronger ecosystem by getting into complimentary vendor associations to address verticals that are now moving from a non-IP to an IP based environment would be another area of interest. AVISHEK RAKSHIT
avishekr@cybermedia.co.in
People Google’s Shailesh Rao Quits as MD to Join Twitter
A Google India spokeswoman has confirmed that Shailesh Rao, who was the managing director of its Asia Pacific region has resigned from his current work profile. He plans to establish Twitter’s international business as its vice president. Rao was with Google California headquarters from March 2005 as director, local search.
Infosys Rolls Out Shuffle Plans
Infosys has made a formal announcement of its additional leadership transformational rollout plans to be effective from April 2012. To start with BG Srinivas, global head, manufacturing & engineering business will now handle the company’s financial services and insurance arm; whereas Ashok Vemuri, global head, financial services & insurance business will shoulder the responsibility of manufacturing & engineering arm. Vemuri and Srinivas, presently members of the company’s board of directors, will extend their regional leadership roles in US and Europe, respectively. 74 | February 29, 2012
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BG Srinivas
Ashok Vemuri
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‘We have partnered with 4,500 schools’ What’s Mexus Education all about? The company believes in the premise of optimizing learning and knowledge retention through developing personalized instruction techniques that relate to every student’s intellectual orientation and interactive-entertaining forms of dissemination. The company believes that 21st century education goes beyond school text books and classrooms. It engages a student in a captivating process of exploration, experience, and extrapolation. This experience is enhanced with specially designed products, which facilitate active participation and bring back the joy of learning. The various
—Anil Goyal, director, strategy and business development, Mexus Education
content forms used are films, graphic novels, games, and hands-on kits that bring out a fusion of entertainment with education. How do they address the current educational challenges? With didactic mode of instruction, we emphasize on strengthening memorization among
students. The foremost challenge of the schools presently is inculcating the capability of learning more than the learning itself. With application based case studies, relating concepts with real-life scenarios, high levels of student engagement, and interesting representation of curricular concepts in media formats, students not only learn but also orient themselves to exploration and continuous learning. Who all are your customers? Today, at present, Mexus is serving more than 16 lakh students and 75,000 educators across continents and aims to pioneer many more education-changing
innovations. Presently, we have partnered with 4,500 schools including schools of national repute like St Xavier’s Group of Schools—UP, Delhi Public School—over North India, City International School (of the CMS Group), etc. What kind of role can the technology play in taking school education to the grassroot level? There exists a wide disparity in the standards of education which is primarily on 3 accounts— limited infrastructure and facilities, gap in enrolment and attendance ratios, and attitude towards education. Technology is the easiest medium for addressing all these concerns. ONKAR SHARMA
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People HP Promotes Bill Veghte as CSO Hewlett-Packard has announced the promotion of Bill Veghte as its chief strategy officer. Veghte will continue to serve HP Software as executive vice president in addition to this new responsibility. Veghte has succeeded Shane Robinson. Prior to joining HP, he served Microsoft for 2 decades.
HP Names Jim Merritt as Senior Vice President & GM HP has appointed Jim Merritt as its senior vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) sales. Merritt will be responsible to drive sales in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) and will work under Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager of ESSN and Technology Services. Prior to this, he was serving Dell as president, global sales. 76 | February 29, 2012
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‘We want to enable and empower the customers’ An ex-Microsoft executive, founder of a technology company, author of an international best seller—One Book for Life Success, and now the founder of MyDeals247. How do you look at your new stint? What moved you to start an e-commerce company? I started MyDeals247 around June 2011, and have touched a million users already. It has been a very difference experience. Having used the e-commerce and deal sites before, I realized that despite the multiple categories available, the customers were locked in them. I wanted to bring more personalization in the offering for the customers. Therefore MyDeals247 sits on 3 business models—buy/
—Venu G Somineni, founder & CEO, MyDeals247
sell model, volume based discounts, and city talks. How does the concept of personalization work here? How is it different from other platforms? A lot of thought has gone behind building these models. The first model— buy/sell model—starts from the consumer interest. In 24 hours, the customer can raise the query for the products they are interested to buy and get to choose the 5 best deals
based on their choice. The best deals are updated real-time. The second model is to offer volume based discounts. We focus on general household items, entertainment, local events, premium restaurants, and professional training companies. Lastly, the city talks, which is to bring the current promotions within the city based on the hot topics in the area. This is how we bring personalization to our customers in offers, deals, and even through advertisements. How big is your presence in India and globally? What are the growth plans? At present, in India, we have covered all the major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Ahmedabad. We
also have operations in the US, Canada, Singapore, and Australia. Currently, US is our largest market. However we plan to cover around 14 countries by the end of this year. As an entrepreneur, what would be your suggestion to the budding start-ups? My first suggestion is to ensure the capital. It is the primary element required to start a company. Idea validation is another important aspect. One has to do a market survey, run the idea with 20 friends to understand its viability. Another important factor is building the right team that understands the company’s vision and lives it. Apart from this, the companies should also look at patenting. AKANKSHA PRASAD
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
People Dixon CEO Joins Apple to Lead Global Retail
Apple Inc has announced the appointment of John Browett to handle the global retail business of the organization. Prior to this role, Browett was serving Dixon as its CEO since 2007, where he has been credited for deploying innovative marketing in the organization. He will succeed Johnson, who had left Apple in November 2011 and joined JC Penney as its CEO.
Sony Appoints Kazuo Hirai as CEO
Sony has announced the appointment of Kazuo Hirai as its new CEO. His role will be effective from April 2012, when he will succeed Howard Stringer, the current CEO. Hirai has played a leading role in the revival of PlayStation gaming arm of Sony. Hirai is expected to play a crucial role in turning around the ailing business of the organization at the moment. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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February 29, 2012 | 77
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Industry Medigrity Innovations Launches DocLynk.com
Medigrity Innovations, a Hyderabad based healthcare solutions provider, has launched the beta version of DocLynk.com, a web portal. This free health portal has been designed as a professional and exclusive private network targeting medical practitioners including physicians, dentists, and medical students in India and abroad. DocLynk will aid physicians in finding and making new contacts with experts and colleagues in various medical specialities and subspecialities across the globe. Credibility of all the members in DocLynk is verified with the medical practitioners’ registry of India and abroad. This portal has a strong association with eMedWorld.com, an online portal, which will bridge the gap between medical experts and patients.
HCL Technologies Voices the Need for Creating Jobs
HCL Technologies has made a call and has asked all its Indian IT peers to create more jobs in foreign soil. Recently, HCL Tech made an announcement at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting that it will create 10,000 jobs in the US and Europe over the next 5 years.
AT&T Announces the Launch of Unified Communications Services
AT&T has announced the launch of Unified Communications (UC) services. With this cloud based services, the company targets to offer the full kitty of its cloud computing, mobility, and voice and IP networking services to its customers. AT&T UC services claims that it will be able to help its end consumers by unifying communications over the AT&T-managed network and can be accessed from any device and from anywhere.
Digital Waves Launches `11,990 TabPlus Rio
Digital Waves, a Bengaluru based organization, has announced the launch of TabPlus Rio as a latest entry in an increasingly dynamic tablet market. This Android based tablet is priced at `11,990 and is equipped with 1 GHz Cortex A9 processor, 7 inch screen with storage up to 32 GB via Micro SD. An attractive offering of this new tab in the market is that it will be delivered free of cost across India and has a 1-year warranty. 78 | February 29, 2012
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Aakash Tablet Continues to Make News for Good Reasons
Indigenously developed, Aakash tablet, has received an overwhelming response from the students of Mumbai University, where 25,000 requests have been made in the first phase. Therefore the university plans to carry out a second phase for placing requests despite the fact that many complaints have been made to make corrections/modifications in this low-cost tablet to suit more users. DataWind has formally announced that UbiSlate, the enhanced Android version of Aakash, will be available in market from March 2012. The company has already received 1.5 lakh online pre-orders for this new Gingerbread OS based tablet, which will be priced at `2,999 and will be enabled with Cortex A8-700 MHz processor.
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Industry SpringPeople Software Launches Open House Trainings SpringPeople Software, a corporate IT training provider, has made an announcement about the launch of its corporate open house trainings in India. These training programs will cater to the learning requirements of IT professionals like programmers, senior programmers, leads and architects, etc. The enterprises or individual customers are provided initial offer trainings on Android, iPhone/iOS, cloud computing, Spring Framework, Hibernate, Tomcat, Apache, Groovy & Grails, testing, databases, OS, Microsoft technologies, web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, and more.
Ruckus Opens Fifth R&D Center in Bengaluru Ruckus Wireless, a wireless networking provider, has opened its first R&D center in Bengaluru, India. Ruckus’s 4 other R&D facilities are in Taiwan (Taipei), China (Shenzhen), Israel (Tel Aviv), and California (Sunnyvale). This new R&D center is expected to foster Ruckus’ potential to devise new technologies and to cater more efficiently to the global mobile internet infrastructure market. This new 23,000 sq ft facility is expected to handle employee strength of 100, which Ruckus plans to achieve by the end of this year.
Free of Cost Health Information Available on Medico.com Medico.com Inc, an online organization with primary focus on health issues, has announced the launch of Medico.in. This online platform will act as a source for any health-related information. This interactive portal will provide health reference information, community features, and a question and answer platform. Medico.in is available for free for all the users to exchange information and to ask and answer queries.
NTT Com Plans to Acquire 74% Netmagic Solutions NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) and Netmagic Solutions, datacenter provider, have made an announcement about the 74% acquisition of Nemagic Solutions by NTT Com. The acquisition is dependent on the approval from concerned authorities in India. Through this deal, NTT Com will benefit from the Netmagic Solutions’ additional datacenter services and sites as it will offer more valuable seamless cloud services globally via enhanced ICT infrastructure Asia-wide. 80 | February 29, 2012
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QwikCilver Solutions Announces 2 Major Initiatives
QwikCilver Solutions, a stored value card solutions provider, has announced the launch of electronically-managed employee benefit programs and a tie-up with a global prepaid exchange program on ‘Voices of Prepaid India’. Through these 2 initiatives, QwikCilver aims to offer a flexible technological platform to enterprise customers to use these benefit/ discount programs for the workforce.
Apple Plans to Capture 90% Digital Textbooks Market
Apple Inc has volunteered in the digital textbooks market as it has announced the launch of iBooks 2 software in the US. With this software, Apple plans to revolutionize the US education market and speed up the mass scale use of its iPad. It has also started collaborating with publishers like Pearson PLC, McGraw-Hill Companies, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for digital textbooks to form a trio to capture the 90% market of textbooks in the US.
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Industry TCS Inaugurates Its Silicon Valley Collaboration Center
Tata Consultancy Services has made an announcement about the formal opening of its Silicon Valley Customer Collaboration Center in Santa Clara, California. This collaboration center will be the global headquarter of TCS’ Mobility Solutions and plans to offer an open, innovative, and collaborative workspace, which will embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and best practices used by the global leading start-up ventures in the valley.
CA Tech Claims to Have Launched NGN’s Application Performance Management
CA Technologies has announced the launch of CA Application Performance Management (CA APM), which the company claims to be the next-generation network (NGN) of application performance management. CA Technologies also claims that this hybrid-cloud infrastructure based solution is the industry’s first and only unified application, infrastructure, and network performance solution. CA APM enables its consumers with better control of the end-user experience by offering an improvised visibility.
Elixir Web Solutions Launches www.toygully.com
Elixir Web Solutions, a digital media agency, has announced the launch of www.toygully.com, an online toy shop. Apart from offering toy brands like Fisher Price, Chicco, Hot Wheels, Barbie, Disney, Mattel, and Dr Woods, this online toy portal claims to ensure a memorable experience to would-be parents, new parents, and kids. This portal will house products range as per age, brands, and price.
Steria and Microsoft Announce Workplace On Command
Steria and Microsoft have announced the launch of Workplace On Command, which is a centrally-managed aggregated services solution. This solution will facilitate the end-users with easy and secure access to their enterprise applications, data and cloud services, irrespective of location, and device used for the access. All the enterprise customers will be completely aided by Steria and Microsoft for this service offering. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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SC Orders Revocation of 122 Telecom Licenses
The Supreme Court has announced its order to revoke all the telecom licenses granted under a scandal-tainted 2008 sale. As per this order, 122 telecom licenses of 8 telecom players will be canceled, including controversial Telenor. Other license holders to get affected are Loop Telecom; Videocon Telecommunications, part of India’s Videocon group; S Tel, partly owned by Batelco; Etisalat DB, the joint venture between Abu Dhabi’s Etisalat and India’s DB group; 13 licenses of Idea Cellular, of which 7 are in use; and 3 by Tata Teleservices. Although the telecom operators are going to get more affected by this ruling in comparison to less than 5% of subscribers. February 29, 2012 | 81
news
Deals and Partnerships HP Joins Hands with Government of Karnataka and IIIT-B
HP has announced an agreement with the Government of Karnataka (GoK) and International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) to carry out a test project. Through this agreement, the GoK plans to facilitate a smooth transition of the organizations in the state to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) from IPv4.
ELCINA and VIC Will Jointly Establish Electronics Manufacturing Clusters
Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) and Vittal Innovation City (VIC) have announced their plans to jointly establish electronic manufacturing clusters in India. The major highlights of this announcement include: n ELCINA members and VIC have signed MoU to establish a joint venture for the promotion of clusters for electronics component and equipment manufacturing across the country. The first cluster of such kind will come up near NCR in North India in 2012. n Each electronic cluster will have 100+ acres of land to bring an investment of `1,000 crore and thus create 15,000 jobs. n ELCINA will also facilitate in establishing manufacturing facilities at the cluster to bring in international electronics component manufacturers to invest in India. n These clusters plan to house study facilities for manpower development, R&D facilities for intellectual property development, testing laboratories, incubation centers, general office infrastructure, and packaging and supply chain support to offer a comprehensive ecosystem. n ELCINA and VIC will jointly handle the tasks of these clusters as per their respective strengths.
Warid Telecom Collaborates with Obopay Obopay, a mobile banking and payment solution provider, has collaborated with Warid Telecom, an Abu Dhabi based firm. With this deal, both plan to launch Warid Pesa, a mobile banking and payment service in Uganda. This service is based on Obopay’s open and interoperable mobile money solutions and will enable people in Uganda to carry out e-money transactions, pay for goods and services and settle accounts easily.
Symphony Services Chooses SymTest of Microsoft Symphony Services has announced that it has selected SymTest service of Microsoft to offer validation services for the independent software vendors (ISVs) using or intending to use Windows Server 2008-R2 Platform Ready Test for their Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or hosted applications. As an inaugural offer for ISVs eyeing gold validation, the Pass-Assist service will be provided at the same price of $3,000 to its first 50 ISVs, which will apply and pay by March 31, 2012. 82 | February 29, 2012
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Leisure
Missing:
The Voice of the
Desi Techie
Book lovers, particularly after recession, are waiting to read Indian techies and their dreams, desires, hopes, disappointments, et al SHYAMANUJA DAS
T
hough the recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) made it to the headlines because of the planned visit of Salman Rushdie and the subsequent cancellation of his session, that was surely not the only thing in the festival. There were many interesting sessions focusing on all aspects of literature, representing all genres.
Literature of Identity
However what dominated the 5-day event was the literature of identity. In fact, JLF was not unique in this respect. For some time, literature is dominated by the voice of specific groups, who are either searching for an identity or trying to establish it. Much of the literary criticism, too, has focused around this—the voice of second-generation migrants in the US to that of women in Arab, dalit voice in South India to that of ethnic minorities in the Middle East, the voice of the transgender in Africa to that of Kashmiri Pandits in exile. Migrants, religious groups, gender based groups, ethnic groups, and minorities in any geography—all these voices today echo in literature. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
Waiting to Read Indian Techies
So, one finds it surprising that one of the largest ethno-professional groups—the Indian techies—is still almost not there. The rise of Indian IT and the dependence on Indian IT professionals by businesses all over is nothing short of a phenomenon. Now, it’s in that critical stage, where it’s creating its own sub-culture—that is distinct from that of the ethnic groups or professional groups they represent. They have their own common challenges, common causes, common concerns, and a fairly common and shared dream. Yet, it is yet to be felt in literature. While there has been some work on the other side of the story—those affected by Indians—there is nothing significant evolving around this new global tribe—the desi techie. There are the early techies, who grew up fearing if they could ever get a job, even after doing engineering in some of the best regional engineering colleges, who now occupy important positions in global technology corporations. There are the new-generation confident Indians who are suddenly waking up to the reality that there is a darker side to the story as well—while the big dollars are real, so are the pink slips with no notice. Then, there is visit www.dqindia.com
the cultural shift—the new identity of an Indian as a software guy, globally—the good, the bad, and the ugly aspect of it. The trauma of facing and, worse still, being trained by the person whose job ‘you are taking away’; the H1B visas, Green Cards; the bug of entrepreneurship after a few years in the valley; and the stereotyping—sometimes for good—of the hardworking Indians. That is on the professional front.
Longings and Conflicts
The global Indian techie has his/her own set of peculiarities on the social and family front: The perceived value in the marriage market, the constant longing for an India that no longer exists, and the soft but continuous conflict—the techie’s dream of returning back as opposed to the spouse’s increasing desire to settle to a comfortable, no-tension(?) life in the US of A. There is a voice of an Indian IT professional that is beyond his/her capability to code, ie, willingness to work hard and desire to create a cutting-edge product by setting up an entrepreneurial venture in the valley. That voice is waiting to be expressed. One would not be surprised if we see the next Indian bestseller coming from San Jose. n February 29, 2012 | 83
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Davos 2012
Hope Around India, Role of Tech Acknowledged At the World Economic Forum, issues pertaining to India’s post-telecom scandal, role of science in solving social and biological challenges, communication in the age of social networking, cybercrimes, and role of cities drew massive attention Compiled by the DQ team maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
The panelists noted the role of social media in both creating opportunities as well as giving a platform to the youth to raise their voice against corruption and non-development 86 | February 29, 2012
T
he World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 at Davos was slightly low profile, considering not many see a bright outlook for the global economy. Nevertheless there was hope, although a little more philosophical this time around.
India as a Market: A Review
Some countries like India, however, were seen with a lot of hope. In a discussion—How Immune is India?, Anand Sharma, union minister for commerce, industries, and textiles, maintained that India’s macroeconomics is fundamentally strong. “Those who have these alarm bells ringing should look inwards,” he said. “India can take care of itself, I can assure you,” he reiterated. “India is not immune, but it has its own cushion with the size of domestic demand,” said Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general, visit www.dqindia.com
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Chander Prakash Gurnani, CEO, Mahindra Satyam, India is captured during the session ‘Leadership Models across Generations’ at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum
Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry during the session ‘The Future of South Asia’
John T Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco USA speaks during the session ‘The Global Business Context’ at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum
Summary: Social and Technological Models
Participants engaged in a discussion covering a variety of topics related to social and technological models. Throughout the discussion, a recurring theme was that of science, technology, and innovations, which can help in addressing the world’s serious challenges.
Global Agenda Council on Robotics & Smart Devices
As a part of Global Agenda Council on Robotics & Smart Devices, Chua Kee Chaing, head, department of electrical and computer engineering, National University of Singapore, noted exciting developments in brain science, robotics, and smart devices, which when combined, promise to solve many problems. However he warned that these new technologies come with risks and unintended consequences. “We need to think about the social, political, legal, and ethical issues which these new technologies present,” he urged.
Global Agenda Council on Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Similarly, Steven E Hyman, distinguished service professor, Harvard University, noted that brain-machine interfaces, such as implanted stimulating electrodes, promise help for people suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, depression, obsessivecompulsive disorders, and drug addiction. Simultaneously, these technologies can influence personality and change behavior. However these scientific advances and its ramifications require an adequate investment in public education, understanding, discussions, and debates. Hence as per a young global leader Jane McGonigal, creative director, SuperBetter, new media can provide the necessary platform.
Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies
Technology and science are evolving from uniform products and services to individually-customized uses and applications. As per the observation of Doreen Lorenzo, president, frog USA, people can now ask: “What can this do for me?”
Global Agenda Council on Digital Health
The gap between individual understanding and technological progress is growing. As per David Blumenthal, people’s fears about the misuse of personal data is creating a ‘huge barrier to progress’. Hence he urged the public to understand science and technology in a better way. “Given the great progress in science and technology, people in the hard sciences are optimistic about the future,” noted Ricardo Hausmann, director, center for international development, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University. “In contrast, social scientists are pessimistic. Scientists do not fully understand science. No one understands everything. The world has become very complex,” he said.
Global Agenda Council on Informed Societies
“Social media has become ubiquitous and has disrupted traditional media and journalism,” observed Yuen-ying Chan, director and professor, journalism and media studies center, University of Hong Kong. “There is a lot of noise, but communication is lacking. Issues of personal privacy and norms of behavior online are still to be addressed,” Chan added. “The digital revolution and advent of smart materials are permitting ordinary people to create technology,” noted Neil Gershenfeld, director, the center for bits and atoms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “Technology is allowing ordinary people to change and improve the world,” he continued.
Global Agenda Council on Infrastructure & Urban Development
Participants debated the role of cities as physical places in shaping the future. “There is no successful megacity anywhere,” argued Adele Naudé Santos, architect, urban designer and dean, school of architecture and planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “There is some possibility of leapfrogging, but we are repeating the same old mistakes,” she warned. While modern technology is connecting people around the world, the direct and serendipitous human interaction made possible in cities remains vital. (As summarized by David Watkiss for WEF) DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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February 29, 2012 | 87
Davos 2012 Summary: Shaping New Models with Technology Pioneers
How are disruptive technologies impacting industry and benefiting society? Idea 1: Transforming education using an adaptive learning technology Idea 2: Rethinking the future of medicine and diagnosis Idea 3: Creating a safer, faster, and smarter internet Idea 4: Enhancing greenhouse gas measurements to meet new standards
Key Points
n Advances in educational technology will rapidly quadruple the number of people with access to full-time learning, causing
a new revolution in education.
n The ability to monitor and analyze a body’s biomarkers using advanced molecular techniques will lead to a fundamental
change in how we discover, approve, and pay for drugs.
n The internet was built to have a maximum of 3 bn devices connected to it. Capacity is running out and security is
not robust.
n Synopsis
# Idea 1: Transforming education using an adaptive learning technology
The history of education is, in fact, the history of education technology, from the invention of language to writing and invention of the printing press. Currently, around 50% of the world’s population does not have access to full-time primary education and almost 80% is without access to full-time secondary education. Specializing in monitoring personalized education data every day, technology company Knewton uses the information collected to adapt the content and learning methods to the specific needs of each individual student. Knewton looks at the data on an individual basis. It can also aggregate and analyze the mass of information, matching unique learning styles of 2 people over millions of records. Technological advances like this will increase the number of people with access to full-time primary and secondary school education.
# Idea 2: Rethinking the future of medicine and diagnosis
Life expectancy is increasing worldwide. Growing and aging populations need better access to treatment and care. Personalized medicine represents the next generation of medical development, seeking to improve outcomes for patients in a cost-effective manner. When someone gets sick, they are diagnosed and treated. However not all patients with the same disease react in the same way to the same drug. It’s important to understand these differences to improve outcomes and ensure an optimal treatment for every patient. The ability to continuously monitor and analyze a person’s biomarkers using advanced molecular techniques will lead to a significant change in how we discover, approve, and pay for drugs. The technologies to do this already exist, but they are costly and available to few hospitals. A new development makes it possible to bring the data to where the physician and the patient need them, via a ‘lab-in-a-box’, which samples many types of biomarkers and delivers a report to the physician within an hour. Given the increasing amount of information available, it’s important to ensure that the data delivered is useful and pertinent to the case at hand.
# Idea 3: Creating a safer, faster, and smarter internet
Cloudflare’s mission is to build a better, faster, and more secure internet, by rebuilding the infrastructure from the ground. Entrepreneurs in Africa are concerned with ‘faster’; they should not be disadvantaged because of connection and speed issues. Increasing the safety of the internet is paramount, as the threat of hackers, cybercriminals, and other players trying to knock the internet offline grows. There has been a 700% increase in denial of service attacks against sites. The internet was built to have a maximum of 3 bn devices connected to it. Capacity is being pushed and the network is beginning to strain at the edges. Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPV4) website names are about to run out. If the internet is to be the force it has been, where everyone can get online—and stay there safely—and if it is to continue to grow, it must be a faster, more secure network.
# Idea 4: Enhancing greenhouse gas measurements to meet new standards
Cities account for 80% of the world’s carbon emissions, 50% of the world’s population live in them, and they account for 2% of the land mass. Picarro offers greenhouse gas-measuring tools that have a wide application for cities, events, and facilities such as power stations. Measuring emissions can be a safety matter. For example, methane gas can kill trees, and a build-up can cause an explosion. Tracking emissions can be a powerful tool in making authorities and utilities accountable for pollution and environmental damage. (As summarized by Kirsten Lees for WEF) 88 | February 29, 2012
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Leisure UNCTAD. He also praised India’s open market and exchange rate policies, which are one of the least interventionist policies among the emerging economies. “India’s investment grade rating of BBB is stable and is more likely to improve than deteriorate,” said Douglas L Peterson, president, Standard & Poor’s USA. He cited India’s strong domestic demand and domestic growth as reasons for optimism. “There are development challenges such as the need in the agricultural sector for modernization,” said Peterson. “There are two or three things which need to be fixed such as education and inflation,” said Baba N Kalyani, chairman and managing director, Bharat Forge India. Kalyani believes that any negative perceptions about India’s business environment were groundless, since 75% of Indian companies are enjoying a record growth in revenues and profits. However he emphasized, “We need to be a little more self-assertive about what we are doing.” Nik Gowing, main presenter, BBC World News UK, told the audience that he believed the business community’s perception of India had become more negative. “It’s the first time India has been downgraded in their minds as a safe place to do business,” he shared. “Incidents like the 2G Telecom Scandal have damaged business confidence,” added Gowing. Nonetheless, he drew positive examples of Indian business too. “In the UK, India is saving a lot of businesses which were in doubt,” he said, citing examples such as the Stanlow Oil Refinery and Jaguar Land Rover. Barry Eichengreen, professor, University of California, predicted solid ongoing annual growth for India of as much as 8%, assuming the economy is not adversely impacted by external factors such as the European debt crisis. “However 2012 DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
could be worse because India didn’t keep its powder dry,” he said. “People are more worried about India than any other emerging economies, because India has less scope for doing anything. China can roll out an infrastructure by spending, because it doesn’t have the same deficit,” he adds.
On the Path of Inclusive Growth
William H Gates III, co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation USA captured during the session ‘Global Economic Crisis: Role and Challenges of the G20’ at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum
Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles during the session ‘How Immune Is India?’
Sharma defended India’s growing current account deficit. “We need to spend to empower and educate our people,” he clarified. In another discussion, that focused on India’s ability to record an inclusive growth, panelists deliberated if the growth has failed to trickle down adequately or speedily enough to many parts of society, especially the traditionally disadvantaged such as women and the rural poor. The panelists noted the role of social media in both creating opportunities as well as giving a platform to the youth to raise their voice against corruption and non-development. However the panel also articulated that in the heady excitement of high growth rates, critical issues such as education and health cannot be ignored. Even the so-called unemployability of India’s engineering graduates did find a mention. Overall, the panelists agreed that there are many steps that can and must be taken to use India’s demographic gift of nearly 500 mn people under the age of 25.
A List of Who’s Who
Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology during the session ‘ The Future of South Asia’ at Davos visit www.dqindia.com
The Indian delegation to the summit included about 100 business leaders, including Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Azim Premji, Rahul Bajaj, and Adi Godrej. Top people from the government included ministers Anand Sharma, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission. n February 29, 2012 | 89
Afterthought
Shyamanuja Das The author is Editor of Dataquest shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
G
Whither Freedom of Expression
oogle and Facebook have told the court that they have removed objectionable content from their sites. This should neither be seen as a backtracking by the firms nor should it be seen as a victory for those who want to ‘curtail freedom of expression’. What these companies have done is quite understandable. They have complied with the court order. You do not stand up for freedom of speech by disobeying the court order in a country that you want to do business in. This, by itself, is no big news and does not mean much. Except that the one argument—which some had taken refuge under—that it cannot be done technically, has been decisively proved wrong. So, the general public, which was in some doubt about whether this could be done now knows that it can indeed be done. But those advocating censorship should not start celebrating. While the internet companies have complied with the court order, they have also in the process shown how this does not serve any real purpose. The so-called objectionable content, which included images of religious figures, have been removed only on Google’s localized India web domain. Users can still access it elsewhere. That kind of proves the futility of the whole exercise. India is not China. A democracy cannot survive by censoring media. On the other hand, India is still not a society—I hate saying this but that is the truth— mature enough to keep the debate at a pure debate level. We have seen in the past television reports— and fairly objective ones—resulting in communal violence. A middle ground can be and must be found. In the last issue of Dataquest, I argued that we must 90 | February 29, 2012
recognize this as a healthy debate, instead of trying to sit in judgement. The action of Google and Facebook has taken us a step closer to the next logical step in this debate. If law has to be modified, keeping with the ground realities, we must campaign for that. Violating the law is not a responsible behavior. Neither is being at loggerheads with the judiciary. In the recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival, where the non-participation of Salman Rushdie raised such a loud protest from some of the writers, the entire event was dominated by a debate between pro-Rushdie and anti-Rushdie camps, an Australian writer asked me about the debate of internet censorship and how it compares with the freedom of expression debate in the festival. What I told him was not really relevant. But what is noteworthy is that he did not see it as something hugely unusual. “Those who are comparing it with China do not know what they are talking about,” he said pointing to a session where someone from the audience got up and asked why ‘such a bad poet as Kapil Sibal’ was being invited to sit on the dais in an event like that. And the moderator actually tackled that with some good wit. While a section of the media may try to play the role of a champion of freedom of expression, it’s ironic that much of the public that wants internet to be censorship free wants to see that precisely because in their eyes, the traditional media has lost much of its credibility. They see internet as a platform for the voice of the people. But be it a TV channel, a newspaper, or social media, there are commercial entities involved in all media. Freedom of expression is one thing. Credibility of media is another.
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8RNI No. 40432/82
DL(S)17/3159/2012-14 Licensed to Post WPP. U(SE)26/2009-2011 Posting Date: 3&4 and 17&18 of every month. Posted at Lodi Road HPO