KOZHIKODE: Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham

Kozhikode,
earlier known as Calicut, is one of the major cities in of Kerala. It
is also the HQ of Kozhikode district on the Malabar Coast. It is
known as the 'city of spices'. According to data compiled by
economics research firm, Indicus Analytics on residences, earnings
and investments, Kozhikode is ranked as the 2^nd best city
in India to reside in. It was ranked 11^th among tier-2
Indian cities in job creation by a study conducted by Assocham.
Calicut is also known as second Mecca of football lovers in the
country (after Kolkata). Calicutl is home to two premier educational
institutions of national importance, viz, the Indian Institute of
Management and the National Institute of Technology.

The current
conditions of the Calicut IT market can be comfortably stated to be
stagnant. Zainuddin, CEO, Matrix Infotech said, “The market is in a
volatile state. There is total uncertainty in business
pattern-sometimes in a week, there is good sales while in another
it becomes difficult to push products. These days, every day is
different and so it becomes really difficult to plan anything.”

Some of the
brands that are doing good business in laptop segment are HP, Sony,
Toshiba, Acer. As far as desktops are concerned, Compaq, Lenovo and
Acer are much in demand. When it comes to peripherals, HP all-in-one
printers and Seagate HDDs are generating much desired moolah.
Dealers/distributors are of the opinion that assembled desktops are
sold more, it is because of the fact that customers, these days, are
getting more price conscious. This Christmas and new year period has
not brought any smile on their faces as compared to the peak season
around the Onam festival. Dealers said that during the
August-September period, business gets doubled or even tripled.

The Calicut
IT market has Malabar IT Dealer's Association (MITDA) for the
welfare of dealers and distributors. They are of the opinion that the
association is doing good work. Zainuddin added, “MITDA is helping
channel partners in ways more than one. Once, there were some issues
with Samsung HDDs, which the company distributed through national
distributor SES Technologies. Some time later, SES Technologies shut
down their shop. They have promised a 5-year warranty with the HDDs.
When this issue was taken up with the association, they ensured that
Samsung did not back track their decision.”