The 2002 Flash Back

It also saw the market graduation from mere box-pushing to product offerings' integration too. Lets take a look at the headlines that marked the front page.

Save the business from default payers; Jan 9

An approximate setback that entire market had because of the default payment menace is close to Rs 5 crore. It is now high time that proper measures are taken by the resellers to prevent this 'history' from repeating itself. There were all kinds of resellers who had to undergo this depressing experience and that too in such bad times--the old timers, the experienced, the learnt and the novice--they all suffered it at one point or the other. But this year everybody is geared to take up this challenge--the challenge of combating this menace of default payments and removing the malefactor from the market--permanently.

Most of the dealers now stay put on having all the information of any alien in the market. The minimum details that any outlander in the market for credit buying has to provide are--permanent residential address in the capital and permanent telephone number, references from the old established people, sales tax number, bank guarantee in case the order amount is
huge and 'n' numbers of years in the business (which have to be reasonable enough).

Benq to launch digital lifestyle devices; Jan 9

Benq (formerly Acer Communications and Multimedia) has lined up the launch of a series of digital lifestyle devices in the first quarter of 2002. In digital cameras, it will launch a dual mode model. In scanners, it is planning to launch a 1200 DPI scanner. It will also unveil a new LCD panel.

Home is the battleground for PCs; Jan 23

According to IDC India forecasts, the home PC and the SOHO segment are two promising target markets likely to register impressive growth rates over the next five years. The consumer desktops or home PCs are expected to record the strongest compounded annual growth rate of 56.9 percent between 1999-00 and 2003-04 vis-a-vis 40.7 percent for commercial desktops and 26.8 per cent for portables. They are also thus expected to be the next battleground for the price war among MNCs, such as Compaq, HP and Dell, and domestic manufacturers such as HCL Infosystems, Wipro Infotech, Vintron Informatics and all our GIDs and local assemblers.

LG to focus on channel interaction; Jan 23

LG Electronics India Ltd has seen a lot in the past one year or so. Now it wants to take persistent measures to affirm its position in the market. Focus this year will be on brand building to enhance market share and on strengthening the channel partner relations. This was announced in the recent reseller meet held in Delhi by Pradeep Tognata, VP (Sales & Marketing), and Ganesh Mahalingam, GM (Marketing), LG Electronics India Ltd. LG plans to ramp up its channel operations, give a complete face-lift to its IT division workforce and settle any pending issues in the market. The work force would be redefined and a channel loyalty program will be in place. The company has also tied up with Solutions Integrated Marketing Service Pvt Ltd to supplement its relationship management. In addition, it launched a range of Flatrons at the event.

Gurgaon resellers come under the GITA umbrella; Jan 30

The widespread reseller's community for the IT hardware, software and all those engaged in the IT education in the city of Gurgaon, has come together under a common umbrella called Gurgaon IT Association (GITA). The group is clear about its three main aims--to work towards protecting the customer rights, to protect the dealers interests and lastly work to check the cut-throat competition which is making life difficult for all in the IT industry, especially in the city.

Sudden price rise of memories shakes the market; Jan 30

RAM prices worldwide are mounting consecutively for past three months now. The shuffle that started in November when prices once touched as low as Rs 450 and were mainly switching between Rs 450 to Rs 550 for local brands, since then has witnessed about 300 percent growth. Currently, the price of 128 MB RAM by high-end brand Transcend is about Rs 3,300-3400. Same from Simtronics and alike is available between Rs 1,700-1,900. For the ones that come through grey channel are also not very cheap, primarily switching between Rs 1,400-1,500.

Distributors reduce credit periods, limits by 50%; Feb 6

After the two major channel partners of Tech Pacific went underground with big credit dues last month, major national distributors have redesigned their credit policies. To start with, they have cut the credit periods and the total credit limits extended to their channel partners. These changes were implemented with immediate effect from the last week of January.

HCL Peripherals brings in new products; Feb 4

The Rs 120 crore HCL Peripherals Ltd is betting on technology to make itself a leading peripheral company in the IT space. To make this happen, the company is bringing in a series of hi-tech products including a new line of business of selling ATMs. Side-by-side, it hopes to touch the Rs 150 crore turnover figure in the current fiscal ending June 2002.

Wipro ePeripherals gets aggressive with storage solutions; Feb 6

The storage solutions arm of Wipro ePeripherals (WeP) is now getting aggressive to cater to the growing Indian enterprise storage solutions market, especially after the recent US-Afghanistan imbroglio. The division has tied up with various data storage companies to provide the Indian storage market with the world's best storage solutions possible. These tie-ups will enable WeP to bring in India the state-of-art enterprise storage solutions with the value for money factor.

It has tied up with Network Appliance (NetApp), Qualstar and Exabyte--three big players of the high-end storage sector. It is also offering Wipro Netstor--an entry-level server attached storage and NAS device.

Reseller associations: Getting their acts together; Feb 13

IT channel market has seen a greater tendency of creating groups than any other channel market in the country. Various associations set the tactics for this market; be it local or national. And principals have a love and hate relationship with these associations. These associations have been trying their best to regularize the day-to-day business and also try to make sure that every member of their association gets the best of profit lines.

Delhi Computer Traders Association (DCTA), Computer Media Dealers Association (CMDA), Wazirpur IT Association, Indian Software Dealers Association (ISODA), Jalandhar Computer Dealers Association (JCDA), Lucknow Computer Vyapar Mandal, Rajasthan Computer Traders Association (RCTA), Madhya Pradesh Telecom and Computer Traders Association (MPTCTA) are just few of the bigger players. 

SD Computers graduates to e-learning solutions; Feb 13

SD Computers Ltd-an old timer in the capital's resellers' community-has grown up from its regular hardware reselling business to the vast expanding field of e-learning. The new company-Fox-Vision Info Solutions Ltd--is a result of three and a half years of research, application and development and is poised to be a one-stop training solutions shop to offer digital education to the fast augmenting learning era. 

Refilled cartridges: An upcoming business?; Feb 13

The practice of selling the old non-usable items lying in house is an old practice. And the trend of it being a booming business for many is also not something very strange to be discovered. As the world has seen developments, so has this trend. There are number of 'manufacturers' who invite empty cartridges from consumers and offer them an enticing price in return.

AMD fine-tunes its channel strategy; Feb 20

AMD India is all keyed up with its many programs and training sessions lined up for this quarter and all at once aimed at the resellers' community. To start with, it has classified all its resellers into three main groups--Master Reseller, Premier Partner and System Builder Partner.

HP initiates thrust on SW; Feb 27

HP India Ltd has launched a two-pronged initiative to enhance its presence in the software market. While the company will address the enterprise customers and service providers through its partners, it will target the telecom segment directly through its consulting arm HP Consulting.

MP Police to open computer dhabas; Feb 26

The Madhya Pradesh state police has taken it upon itself to benefit the common man via IT and also make its own retired personnel productive in the process.

An elaborate project has been drawn up for the purpose, and central to this program is the opening of computer dhabas by retired policemen and police officers. The public will then be free to visit these dhabas and lodge their complaints and reports with the police or other district functionaries.

Altec Lansing comes to India; March 13

The US-based Altec Lansing Inc--the world leader in audio systems for multimedia PCs and home entertainment systems--is on an expansion mode, making major inroads into the South East Asian region. It has appointed Trifin Technologies as its national distributor for developing the distribution channel in India.

Sun files billion-dollar lawsuit against Microsoft; March 11

In what will likely become yet another long and potentially costly legal battle, Sun Microsystems announced that it has filed a $ 1 billion lawsuit against Microsoft on grounds Microsoft deliberately made its new Windows XP operating system incompatible with Sun's Java programming language.

Nehru Place attacked by Koreans; March 13

Last couple of days witnessed Nehru Place experiencing a high voltage vibration, which probably has never hit the market ever before. It was a virtual attack by Korean majors. Top officials from LG and Samsung visited the market almost simultaneously.

WeP now cashing on the 'need' for printers; March 20

The age-old management concept of deciding on whether it is a need or a want was recently given a new meaning by Wipro ePeripherals (WeP). The company introduced a novel concept of buying a printed page and not the printer. Corporates opting for this service do not need to invest or block the available capital in purchasing a printer. One can just sign up for WeP's service by paying a refundable deposit and the company would place its printer at the client's premises according to his specific needs. It is as simple as hiring a printer from WeP, and pays the company as per the usage. A pack of 30 pages costs at the rate of Rs 2.50 per page.

JFM 2002: Hope is in the air; March 20

With the recent downward spiraling growth charts, the JFM 2002 is a crucial quarter; it will decide the future track of Indian IT channels industry. With the Union Budget not being resilient, IT industry is trying hard to be back on the profitable rolls as soon as possible. The bird's eye view seems encouraging. The market is not the same hunky-dory as it was before the slump, but it is picking up. The feedback suggests that the market should be back to normal in the next six to eight months. The SOHO is the only segment that has shown some growth in the last six months; rest of the market segments have contributed far less than expected to the total sales.

Sony to discontinue CRT monitors; March 25

Sony India will stop selling its CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors in India from April and increase its focus on TFT monitors and digital cameras. Sony CRT monitors were positioned at a higher price point and targeted at professional users. Since the segment is niche, constituting about only five percent of the total monitor market and not growing, the company has decided to opt out of the business. India being a price sensitive market there was no way Sony could have brought in the volumes by focusing on the high-end niche segment.

HCL Peripherals introduces LCD monitors; April 1

HCL Peripherals Ltd, a leading national brand manufacturing a wide range of IT goods, has recently rolled out a new line of products--LCD monitors. To start with, the company has launched two LCD monitors--HCM500L and HCM700L. The HCM500L is priced Rs 32,000, while HCM700L is quoted at Rs 52,000.

Microsoft pushes Win XP harder in the market; April 3

Windows XP is enjoying an unprecedented marketing campaign to make sure it gathers the market share on an accelerated pace. The new campaign is trying to entice the 'lucky' ones to win a Fiat Palio, home theater systems, DVD players, Swatches and many more goodies.

Meanwhile, distributors have decided to play on a single dealer transfer price, result of this is the escalated price tag (four to five percent depending on the edition). Distributors have attributed this price escalation to the dollar exchange price increase and to bring some stability in the volatile market. This move has further weakened the already feeble market share of Win XP. This is repelling customers as per the channel partners, as they cannot justify this price increase.

Police Crime Branch nets a Nehru Place defaulter; April 10

The Fraud and Cheating Section of Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police's Crime Branch arrested Aman Kumar and five other accomplices for cheating a large number of individuals/concerns on the basis of misrepresentation of facts, by using fabricated documents and impersonation. Earlier also he had duped Groovy Communications and Computer Mart of close to Rs 20 lakh. The story on that was published in the DQ Week issue dated August 30-September 5 2001. 

Channels expect more than 30 percent growth this fiscal; April 17

The DQW News Bureau did a market survey to find out whether the market sentiment matched the financial figures or not.

Well! The figures were much more upbeat than the low sentiments prevailing in the market. There has been a negligible growth instead of a drop in the toplines of the major channel partners in the capital, which were surveyed.

The IT enabled services segment showed the maximum spending in the industry, corporate segment was dormant, and government sector gave the bread and butter to the channel partners. The defense sector also did a lot of IT buying this year. In addition, the SOHO and the home segment recorded substantial growth during the last fiscal.

VIA announces Indian operations; April 24

Taiwan-based leading chipset manufacturer VIA Technologies has announced the start of its Indian operations. It has placed Ravi Pradhan as the Country Manager to develop inroads into the Indian PC market. 

Intel to increase focus on motherboards; May 1

Intel has initiated a huge thrust to promote its motherboards. This includes launching a new range of cost-effective integrated motherboards, meeting up with OEMs, educating GIDs and launching a media campaign. The campaign is slated to last a couple of months and will span across the country. Intel plans to launch a new series of motherboards by mid May under the 845 series (845 G, 845 GL, 845 E). 

The new HP takes birth in India; May 8

The new HP has been launched in India. This new launching was announced by Balu Doraisamy, the newly appointed President of HP India, at a press conference in Bangalore today. While announcing the formal launching of the new HP, Doraisamy expressed optimism about the future growth prospects of the company in India and hoped that the company with its rich set of products would emerge to be one of the most successful companies in the Indian market. He remarked that with its great spectrum of products the new HP would be successful in addressing the different needs of its customers, be it at home, work or play.

Pirated SW worth Rs 3.5 crore seized in Nehru Place; May 22

In a recent raid, Delhi Police has seized high-end pirated software packages worth Rs 3.5 crore from the IT hub of India--Nehru Place. A total of 831 software CDs were snared from the premises (301, Skylark Building).

Canon expands product range; May 23

Canon India Pvt Ltd has announced a strategic expansion of its business operations and an aggressive growth plan to emerge as a leading player in the imaging solutions market in India. It has introduced 12 next generation products positioned at the emerging digital imaging solutions segments of the Indian market. The line up includes six multimedia projection devices, two imageCLASS multi functional peripherals, three Bubble Jet printers and one scanner. The company had last launched a similar wide range of products in October 2001. 

Pune to boast of cyber police station; May 29

Pune will soon boast of its first cyber police station. The first training session for a dozen police personnel, who will comprise Pune's first cyber crime police station was held in the city earlier this week. The new cyber crime squad initiative comes after the city police decided to press their own men into the squad instead of depending on outside agencies for support. The new eight member team should be active from the third week of June.

Laptops gaining popularity and market share; May 29

The market has seen a boost in sales of laptops in the last couple of quarters. IDC has calculated a CAGR of 22 percent between the year 2000 and 2005. With these figures, the channel industry in India is lapping up the sales of laptops, which comes with higher unit sales profits. The market is full of sub Rs 1 lakh category laptops from various vendors. Toshiba, Acer, Compaq, Wipro and Dell, all of them are in the Indian market with the price performance factor and a mature channel network. The major sop a channel partner enjoys by selling a laptop is higher profit margins by selling few small boxes. The Indian market has graduated well to the laptop concept as higher numbers of corporates and individuals are buying the laptops, in fact SME and SOHO segment has also shown a greater contribution to the laptop sales recently.

Team promotes High Voltage to offer power solutions; May 29

Team Computers Pvt Ltd, one of Delhi's oldest and biggest channel player, has launched a new venture--High Voltage Power Solutions Pvt Ltd--to market and service power solutions products. It will deal in UPS systems, batteries, inverters and gensets. For UPS systems, the company has become the authorized business partner for APC, Powerware, TVSE, Elnova and Guard. 

AMD and Intel cut chip prices by close to 50 % ; June 6

The recent price drops by both AMD as well as Intel has not been able to stir the market well. Intel's decision of curbing the price differential between the low-end processors and high-end offerings was followed by a similar decision by AMD. This worldwide drop is aimed at bringing in better technology at a lower price, which in turn would mean that the older technology fades out from the market. As the Moore's Law states--over time, the cost of a given amount of computing power becomes increasingly small. More precisely, chip processing speed doubles about every 18 months and thus phasing out of older technology was mandatory. This move has also brought forth the required momentum for the high-end processors.

Bio-tech will now drive the Silicon Valley-Larry Ellison; June 12

Bio-technology is going to be the next big thing in Silicon Valley. In fact, it is expected to drive the valley. This is the prophecy of Lawrence (Larry) J Ellison, the charismatic founder of Oracle Corp. He was delivering the keynote address at the OracleWorld 2002 which started today at the Chinese capital of Beijing. 

AIIMS lines up Rs 32 crore IT expansion plan; June 19

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the premier medical institute of the country, has initiated a massive IT expansion program to streamline and modernize internal processes. The first phase of the exercise is expected to be completed within six months of signing the contract with the vendor. The vendor for the project has been finalized and the contract will be officially signed shortly. 

Media dealers' conclave; June 19

To counter the undercutting malpractice, top 10 media dealers in the capital had formed an association to sell HP consumables under an umbrella with no undercutting of prices along with a lucrative incentive scheme. This association came into being in December last and got dismantled within two months in February. Issue in question was to enable a standard pricing for various HP consumables, as they constitute close to 60 percent of the total consumables business in India. Though HP provided no handholding, still the respective division was glad on this move as it could ensure a healthy bottomlines for the resellers.

AMD's market share is inching up; June 19

Right now AMD enjoys a total market share of around 11 percent in the Intel monopolized market. Being a channel intensive product, as per the channel partners, there needs to be a greater handholding from the AMD's side. Major issue is the visibility factor; channel partners cannot push a product unless there is a gradual increase in the pull--it's sheer demand and supply equation. 

Is Nehru Place dying as India's biggest IT hub?; July 3

Crowned as the king of the IT business hubs, Nehru Place is losing its crowning glory. The IT dynasty is fading away. With street-side vendors and stray animals capturing the open spaces, hygiene and business focus is in a limbo. Most of the IT operators in Nehru Place are concerned with the slow but imminent death of India's most valuable and important IT hub.

There are various reasons attributed to this present status of Nehru Place. Various issues have aggravated this condition and the erstwhile Dalal Street of IT products--Nehru Place--has lost its position as the one-stop-IT market. Reasons are varied, right from the cleanliness to the paradigm shift in the distribution model of various vendors and distributors; everything is adding to the present misery of this IT hub.

DQW Awards recognize north India's top channel partners; July 6

The DQ Week Delhi organized its Fourth Annual Resellers Award nite at a grand ceremony at Hotel Park Royal Intercontinental, New Delhi. Supported by Samsung India, the event also marked the completion of 250 weeks for the DQ Week Delhi. In its five years of existence, the DQ Week Delhi has carved a niche for itself as an exclusive weekly newspaper dedicated towards the channel segment.

For the second consecutive year, the Best Reseller award (for Delhi) was bagged by Vidur & Co with Micro Max Technologies coming a close second. In fact, this was a hat-trick for Micro Max as it bagged the award for the third year in succession. Team Computers took away the award for being the Best System Integrator. And the runner up in this category was PC Solutions. In the Retailer category, Computer Land emerged as the winner. Agrani Convergence was chosen as the Most Promising Retailer.

Apart from Delhi, awards were given to best resellers of 17 other cities of north India and two cities of east India. Which meant that this year, the total number of cities awarded grew from 11 last year to 19 this year.

HP India's sales affected by grey inkjets; July 17

The past three months has been witnessing a strange phenomenon--grey inkjets. It is estimated that between 20,000 to 30,000 of these grey HP inkjets have reached India. This in turn has severely impacted the sale of the genuine HP inkjets.

However, the actual number of printers coming in, and yet to be traced, could be drastically higher.

Infotecnics sells its business to Visesh Infosystems; July 24

Visesh Infosystems Ltd, a leading ERP and software solutions provider, has taken over the business interests of Delhi-based systems integrator Infotecnics India Ltd. The new entity will be called Visesh Infotecnics Ltd (VIL). Infotecnics' holding in this new entity will be just under 23 percent. 

Want a buy a Windows XP for just Rs 70?; July 24

Windows XP in a double CD set is all yours for Rs 70. Rs 100 if you are wearing a pair of jeans. Rs 500 if you are seen stepping down from an expensive car. Rs 1,000 if you look like you can pay up. Rs 2,000 maybe, if you look new to the deal of buying pirated software. Welcome to the great Indian IT bazaar--Nehru Place.

HP's widest storage portfolio; July 29

With terabytes deployed daily around the world, storage now accounts for 60 percent of global IT budgets, the biggest area of IT spend in large to mid-size enterprises today. Storage is also the biggest ray of hope for the revenue--and margin--starved IT industry, especially systems vendors. It's growing, has relatively high product margins, and includes services revenues. No wonder all of them, including IBM, Sun and HP, are so active here. HP was a low-profile player in this area in the 1990s, largely through its tape backup products and disk arrays that have shipped with HP servers for well over a decade. More recently, it ramped up its enterprise arrays and virtualization products. Post 1990s, a big step was the re-orienting of its popular OpenView network management software toward storage management. 

Tech Pacific stops Intel distribution; July 31

Tech Pacific (India) Ltd, the Mumbai-based Rs 1,675 crore distribution major, is on the verge of discontinuing with Intel business in India. Although legally the distribution arrangement is still valid, but for all practical purposes, Tech Pac is not very active in promoting the Intel business as of now.

Samsung aims #1 status in lasers by mid 2003

Samsung Electronics India Information and Telecom Ltd (SEIIT) has lined up an ambitious strategy to grab 45 percent of the laser printer market by this year-end and become the number one vendor by mid 2003 displacing HP in the segment.

The strategy envisages a focussed attempt to capture the SME market by providing a value proposition at the entry-level laser printer. Traditionally printer vendors have positioned the laser printer for corporates and government. During the year, the company would have a special emphasis on multi-functional printers by launching several new products in the category.

CD duplicators business is hotting up; Aug 7

The VCD player prices have touched the rock bottom, so has the prices of media. The prices of CDR have also seen the way down recently. With all these commodities becoming cheaper and cheaper day-by-day, the CD duplication business has seen a sporadic growth. Business is simple, import the chassis and controller card from Taiwan and fit it with the locally available CD writers and voila! You've got your CD duplicator.

Shree Sagarmatha refutes HP charges regarding grey inkjets; Aug 7

Shree Sagarmatha, a leading importer of Samsung Electromagnetic, LG and Sony products, has strongly refuted the blacklisting of the company by HP for importing grey HP inkjets.When DQW News Bureau tried to contact HP officials for their version, none of them were available for comment.

Finally a sub Rs 20,000 branded PC in the market; Aug 14

HCL Frontline has launched its low priced offering--Ezeebee in the C and D class cities. This is a Cyrix/VIA-based machine, which is priced at Rs 19,990. This product is aimed at bridging the digital divide in smaller cities. The PC comes with a competitive configuration of Cyrix VIA 733 MHz processor, 14 inch monitor, PLE 133 FSB, 20 GB hard disk, memory expendable to 1 GB and other similar features as the rest of the PC offerings. It is also offering a multimedia offering in this configuration for just Rs 21,990.

Samsung's unveils new Blue CD-ROM drive; Aug 14

Already having taken a leading position in the Indian IT market of 60 percent plus market share in monitors and equally good share in hard disk drives and optical media solutions distribution markets, Samsung has taken the next leap forward in making the already huge gap between its sales and its competitors virtually unbridgeable. In a demonstration of what it says is its unmatchable commitment to the Indian market, the company unveiled its blue CD-ROM drive--SC-152L/YON.

Maxtor unveils new channel initiative; Aug 19

Maxtor Corporation today announced a reseller program--"Start Your Engines" in India. The program will focus on the Maxtor Atlas 10K III Ultra 160 SCSI drive and aims at driving sales for Maxtor enterprise drive, the Atlas 10K III Ultra 160 SCSI drive in India. The program will simultaneously be announced in Singapore and Malaysia too.

AMD appoints Tech Pacific as its sub-distributor; Aug 21

AMD has appointed Tech Pacific (India) Ltd as its sub-distributor for India. As reported in the DQ Week issue dated Aug 1-7, the appointment of Tech Pacific has come in a rather convoluted way.

Officially AMD has appointed Hagemeyer India Pvt Ltd--a large distributor of semiconductor components--as its new national distributor in India. Hagemeyer has in turn appointed Tech Pacific as its sub-distributor. For all practical purposes, Tech Pacific will function as the national distributor, despite the nomenclature of sub-distributor. Other AMD distributors in India include Avnet Max, BBS Electronics and Intraco Technologies.

Rajasthan deals with the biggest default; Aug 21


Rajasthan, which was believed to be untouched with the bad market practices and payment defaults, got the taste of one in the recent case where RS Modi who owned Modi Sales Organization ran away with a booty that comes close to Rs 13 lakh--a highly underestimated figure, according to local channel players.

A FIR has been lodged by Chandra Online dotcom, Kanchan Comptech and RR Systems against Modi Sales. They have lodged an initial FIR numbered 165 in Jalupura Police Station,
Jaipur.

Epson puts its best foot forward; Aug 21

With the recent launch of its new printer--C41SX, Epson has put a completely new strategy in the market to gain the lost ground. It has begun a slew of marketing initiatives that range from innovative loyalty schemes to price protection for the older inventories for the channel partners. This new strategy is proving to be quite successful so far. The channel partners are also showing greater confidence in Epson, as they are able to retain healthier bottomlines with Epson printers through the various channel-oriented schemes and marketing initiatives.

Canon rolls out new strategy for value customers; Aug 26

In a major restructuring exercise aimed at reaching out to customers in a better manner, Canon India Pvt Ltd has created two independent channels--value and volume. Value products consist of digital high-end applications, which are usually networked while volume products of the likes of copiers would be worked through the reseller channel.

HP gains on the LaserJet pie in India; Aug 28

With new marketing scheme of trading an inkjet printer or a dot matrix printer with a LaserJet, HP's Imaging and Printing Group is happy with the Q2 results of this calendar year. It has gained on the market share with the present share standing at 80 percent in the final sales.

Rajya Sabha MPs to get handhelds soon; Aug 26

Members of the elders house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, are soon to get handhelds for official use. The decision has been taken by a committee led by Dr Najma Heptullah, Vice Chairman of the House. Details of the decision are yet to be known as recommendations have been passed to an expert committee to find out the best pricing and best product. However, according to industry grapevine, the order would most likely be bagged by erstwhile Compaq's handheld iPaQ, now rechristened HP i-PaQ. The order is expected to be finalized very shortly.

There has been concerted efforts to make Indian Parliamentarians tech-savvy. 

Wipro ePeripherals celebrates the millionth printer; Aug 28

WeP is in the midst of celebrating the predicted sale of the millionth printer. It has planned a nationwide campaign for its channel partners where it is imbibing the spirit of celebration to get them out of the general gloom that has set in the channel partners due to this slowdown phase. This plan includes a slew of celebration parties, launch of new channel incentives and a new channel structure in place to imbibe the new enthusiasm in the channel partners.

Intel to invest $ 130 million in India; Sep 2

Dr Craig Barrett, CEO, Intel Corp during his two-day visit to India announced that the company would invest up to $ 130 million in the country within the next three years. He also announced that the company plans to ramp up the manpower in the country from the current 1,000 software developers to 3,000 within the same period. Intel plans to set up a high-end microprocessor design center in Bangalore. The center which would be the third in the world, the other two being in the US and Israel, would be focussed on developing Intel's 32-bit architecture for servers targeted at enterprises. The ramp-up of manpower would essentially be for this new venture.

Nortel to make inroads into smaller Indian cities; Sep 2

Nortel Networks (India) Pvt Ltd is planning to make inroads into smaller Indian cities and towns with an increased emphasis on adding more and more resellers through its prime distributor Ingram Micro. Till now the company was mainly focusing on larger cities and towns with its enterprise class of products. The company is also running certified training programs to help the channel partners and local resellers to address the service needs of its customers.

Adaptec puts thrust on Indian distribution network; Sep 4

Adaptec is putting a major thrust on the growing Indian market. The company, right now in India, has associations with OEMs, white box manufacturers and channel partners. It also has an R&D center in Hyderabad, which is the only R&D center out of its headquarter in Milpitas, California. Adaptec is trying to increase the headcount multifold in India in the next two to three years. 

PC market grows by five percent in AMJ; Sep 9

IDC India research indicates that the Indian PC market showed some signs of life in the April-May-June 2002 (AMJ) quarter. Unit shipments in AMJ 2002 totaled at 5.32 lakh, two percent higher than IDC's initial forecast. The seasonal dip that is usually seen in AMJ was not evident this year and AMJ 2002 was lower than January-February-March 2002 (JFM) by just one percent. On a year-on-year basis, the market showed a five percent gain.

Shree Sagarmatha launches Tech-Com; Sep 11

Shree Sagarmatha Distributors Pvt Ltd, a leading importer based in Delhi, has announced the pilot launch of its own brand--Tech-Com, under which a whole range of products including ethernet adapters, fax/modems, graphic accelerators and media are being introduced.

DCTA to compile NCR service centers directory; Sep 11

Although Delhi Computer Traders Association (DCTA) has lately not been very active, but the backdoor activities have been happening regularly. And the latest in offering is an industry directory that will contain details of all the service centers located across the NCR. This new directory initiative is spearheaded by JP Bansal, Secretary, DCTA. Divided on the basis of products and regions, this will be aimed at boosting the basic knowledge of the resellers' community in Delhi.

Multiple Zones launches security and VOIP solutions; Sep 18

Multiple Zones India Pvt Ltd (MZI) has launched a wide range of security and VOIP solutions. MZI has also launched a gamut of IP telephony products for its customers. It has in offering YapJack, which gets attached to the normal phone line and allows one to dial overseas by connecting to the Internet, thereby not requiring the cumbersome process of dialing and talking through a PC. It has also launched an IP telephone, which works with a high-speed/broadband connection (ie DSL, cable, ISDN). With this `always-on' connection, one can quickly and easily place low-cost calls. The company has also launched the Linksys Instant Broadband EtherFast Cable/DSL and voice router. The security solutions and access control devices include BarCode, Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID), Biometrics (finger print-based access control devices, both for the desktop level and for access into restricted or critical areas) and data encryption.

Inkjet MFPs grow by 80 percent in H1 of 2002; Sep 18

The market for inkjet multi-functions or all-in-ones as they are so called, has taken flight in the first half of the fiscal 2002. As per IDC research in India, the market for inkjet-based Multi Function Peripherals (MFP) has registered an impressive growth of 79.8 percent in unit terms and 13.5 percent in terms of value. Altogether, 9,160 inkjet MFPs were shipped in the Indian market in the first half of 2002 as compared to 5,094 units shipped in the first half of 2001.

As per IDC's technical definition of the product, a MFP device is a product that can be connected to a PC and that can do at least two out of the four document management functions like printing, copying, scanning and faxing. Besides these basic functions, a multi function device can have additional features like answering machine etc also.

Seagate unveils new channel partner program; Sep 18

Seagate Technology has announced its latest `Expansion of Channel Partner' program for India. This will be followed by a launch in the other SAARC countries. The company also informed plans of a foray into the consumer electronics and mobile segments. Seagate also announced a `Swap Center' for warranty replacements of Seagate drives. A reward scheme for the channel has also been announced. 

Samsung launches branded white boxes; Sep 25

Altering the traditional definition of a PC white box, Samsung Electronics India Information and Telecom Ltd has introduced a new concept of PC barebone boxes. This box by Samsung contains all PC components except for the CPU and RAM in it.

To sell this new product, Samsung is appointing Samsung Authorized System Integrators (SASIs) across the nation. This is a move to fortify the brand equity of its online presence--www.buildurpc.com further. A customer has to configure the requirement on the Net and file a requisition on the website for the PC and this request will be automatically sent to the nearest Super
SASI.

Laptops available for Rs 5,000 in Nehru Place; Sep 25

Laptops cost a lot of money, right? Wrong. Second hand laptops costs just about Rs 5,000 for a 486 model, which is about five to seven years old, in Nehru Place. A PIII machine may cost Rs 25,000. More recent P4 avatars command around Rs 38,000. Reconditioning of laptops is also done here right at the heart of the city; of course there are no auctions as such. The process involves adding some memory, or making such similar cosmetic changes in the hard disk.

A PII laptop may be given a PIII processor and sold as a PIII laptop, and never mind performance. 

New HP's post merger channel policy is in place; Sep 25

The new HP in India is the first entity across Asia to integrate the channel policies of erstwhile HP and Compaq as one organization. In this new channel policy, it has integrated the two sets of channel policies such as credit terms, cash discounts, stock price protection and inventory management into one. This new policy is based on the channel policy that is already in place for HP in India.

Millenium launches Tornado--a value for money PC; Oct 1

Millenium Automation and Systems Ltd has been a strong player in the corporate and government sector in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and has recently forayed in the retail PC segment. The recently launched PC--Tornado--is aimed at the home segment in the smaller cities. Priced at Rs 28,995, this fully multimedia enabled PC is placed as the ultimate value for money product in the market.

The menace of fake demand drafts now hits Punjab; Oct 1

Arun Gupta, Proprietor, Aman Electronics, Jalandhar said that he was approached by Spring Mind Call Center, Bangalore for an order of 25 PCs on September 20 afternoon. By evening he had in his hand a purchase order worth Rs 8,06,300, out of which Rs 50,000 were given to him upfront as a token money. By the evening he had delivered good worth Rs 5 lakh. He received his DD for the rest of the amount--Rs 7.18 lakh. Gupta was relived after the payment, but found something amiss in the DD as the branch codes for the issuing bank and the branch code for the drawee bank were the same. And this made him think hard about the credibility of the DD and he put a hold on the further delivery for the next day. Early next day morning he went to the premises of the buyer and more than half of the goods were missing and he promptly lodged a complaint against the buyer.

HP India to increase retail outlets to 1,000 by Oct 2003; Sep 29

In a move to reach out to an increasing number of customers in India, HP India Ltd plans to more than double its retail outlets in the country. Apart from retail outlets, it envisages consumers to experience and enjoy digital imaging the HP way in its `Concept Stores', to be opened across the country, shortly.

HP India announced plans to further strengthen the retail business in India, which it acquired as part of Compaq's merger with itself. According to Ravi Aggarwal, Director (Imaging and Printing Group), HP India, the company would increase the present number of 450 outlets in 200 cities to 1,000, that will cover 280 cities in the country by October 2003. These stores will sell the entire range of consumer products, which will include Compaq Presario home PCs and notebooks, handhelds, inkjet printers, photo-smart color printers, scanners, consumer and commercial all-in-ones, entry-level laser printers, supplies and an extensive range of papers.

SIs are now turning their attention towards biometrics; Oct 9

Biometrics is the latest technology that most of the system integrators are following rigorously. It is the new and rising field that people know about, and it involves identifying people based on physical characteristics, such as the patterns of the iris. In movies, spies may need to use fingerprint identification to get into certain secret areas. Now the common men use these devices increasingly. ATMs are now using iris scans instead of numbers.

There is a rapidly growing importance of biometric-based electronic signature solutions in banking, e-governance and enterprises secure and paperless with e-sign. There are many biometric technologies that have been developed including retinal and iris scan, thumb and palm scans, voice and face recognition and even DNA analysis. Besides this, the range of biometrics is big. This would include Access Control Systems, Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID), Iris, finger print and face recognition systems.

Tech Pac to focus on up-country markets, solutions this year; Oct 4

Addressing a channel community of about 300 partners at the company's annual meet--Fortune 100--Tech Pacific India Ltd announced that the focus for this year would be to concentrate on up-country markets and to enable partners to foray into the solutions domain. To this end, the company itself would increase its presence into smaller towns and provide training to its partners to move up the value chain.

eSys unveils VIA-based PC at Rs 9,990; Oct 23

Delhi-based eSys Distribution Ltd had its worldwide launch of its new range of PCs in Delhi today, which includes a PC starting at Rs 9,990. There are two other models available, and priced respectively at Rs 11,990 and Rs 16,990, plus taxes.

The company also announced the appointment of GS Paul as the CEO of Indian operations. Simultaneously, eSys has also announced its expansion plans in India in terms of human assets and infrastructure.

Branded as ePC and based on VIA C3 800 MHz processor, the entry-level model is configured at Hynix 64 MB RAM, 20 GB Seagate hard disk, ASUS CUSI-FX motherboard, Sony 1.44 MB floppy drive, Aztec modem, keyboard, mouse and headphone. The same configuration with Hynix 128 MB RAM, speakers and CD-ROM drive is pegged at Rs 2,000 extra.

Other things being the same, the 256 MB RAM version comes with a 40 GB HDD and a DVD/CDRW and is priced at Rs 16,990. All these models comes with a TV output socket, thus one can use a normal television as a monitor for these PCs. All the models come with a one-year warranty and a data-recovery CD and all these PCs are multimedia ready.

Maxtor adopts broadline strategy for growth; Oct 21

The focus is now shifting towards retail for Maxtor. With its brand gaining more exposure in the global market and the HDD industry beginning to increasingly resemble a typical consumer industry, Maxtor Corporation is gearing up to become a `full consumer technology' company. Maxtor is one of the largest suppliers of HDDs, storage products and solutions. The company distributes its HDDs through its OEM partnerships including Dell, Sony, DirecTV, Apple and IBM among others.

Stephen Di Franco, VP (Corporate Marketing), Maxtor who is responsible for Maxtor's global marketing strategy including all marketing activities, channel development and corporate branding initiatives, truly believes that a flexible product line and a broad strategy is the way to go. 

Corel announces its distributor and plans for India; Oct 28

Corel Pty Ltd has signed a distribution agreement with Trifin Technologies, a Delhi-based software distributor. Hailed as the measure to strengthen Corel's relationships with its customers and partners in the region, and also tackling software piracy in the region, Corel aims to multifold its brand equity in India. 

Pen Drives are on the fast lane; Nov 13

With storage becoming the buzzword in the IT industry and most vendors concentrating on the storage area, there is one product which is growing at an accelerated pace--Pen Drive, a hot swappable USB storage device. The pros are multiple--use it to carry data dynamically, you just need to plug into a USB port, use it as a backup device, carry sensitive and confidential data with you, carry presentations with you, you can rewrite on this drive umpteen times and resellers can earn good margins on it. Coming to cons, none except the fact that it is as yet an expensive device (though the prices are tumbling down) and knowledge about this device is yet to percolate down to the masses.

There are at least 15 branded and unbranded pen drives present in the market. 

LG increase market share with restructured distribution; Nov 20

The monitor business of LG Electronics has registered phenomenal growth in terms of marketshare following the restructuring exercise in its distribution network. With sagging marketshare and slew of rumors that it was exiting the IT business in the country, LG embarked on a restructuring exercise in the beginning of this year from a three-tier model to a two-tier based distribution structure.

Vidur enters software distribution business; Nov 20

Software has become the most sought after market today. In a bid to be a part of this, Vidur and Co--winner of the DQ Week Best Reseller award for two consecutive years--has become the distributor for the Microsoft software products.

Microsoft Software has three divisions namely OEM, FPP and MOLP. Vidur is the distributor only for the FPP software, targeted mainly towards the home and the SMEs. In Delhi, there are just two distributors for FPP Software.

Samsung to stick to three year warranty on HDDs; Nov 27

Samsung, after looking at the market trend, has planned to keep up its promise of three-year warranty on its HDDs. "It does make a small dent on our profits, but I am sure this step should fortify our presence in the market. We have been able to capture a growing PC storage market through our innovative service offerings and will continue to do so," pointed out MS Bhalla, Country Product Manager (HDDs), Samsung Electronics Information and Telecom (SEIIT). He foresees the demand of the HDDs catapulting after this move. 

Elcom establishes memory assembling unit in Delhi; Nov 27

Elcom Trading Company, a leading importer and channel partner based out of Delhi, has announced the launch of its own brand of memories--Syno--which will be assembled at its unit set up in Delhi. These memories are priced at par with the grey market memories.

To start with, this new assembling unit will assemble 128 MB and 256 MB SDRAMs priced at Rs 845 and Rs 1,425 respectively. These memories will have a warranty period of three years. Right now the unit has a capacity of 2,000 units per day, which can be upgraded as and when the demand increases.

Somesh Narang, Director, Elcom, informed that this unit is right now producing samples and a couple of OEMs are using it. "Vendors like Samsung, eSys, HCL and Computer Vision are right now testing our memories. We are in the middle of tying up with some more OEMs for these memories."

LCD monitor market is on the upswing; Dec 4

The market seems to be warming up to the idea of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors. During this year, the sale of LCD monitors has far exceeded expected targets with sales in the range of 30,000 units against 7,000 units last year. At this rate, vendors even expect sales to touch one lakh units by next year.

Most vendors tentatively launched LCD monitors from the middle of last year positioning the product as a niche item. Vendors did not expect much result with most of the energy focussed on educating the market. Being highly priced, vendors knew they had to bide their time before Indian customers took to the LCD monitor.

Tablet PCs invade the market; Dec 4

With laptop penetration in India maturing, there is a new gizmo on the block--Tablet PC. There were six Tablet PCs unveiled recently in the US.

The defining feature of a Tablet PC is that one can write on it like paper. It has a touch-sensitive screen and a pen-like stylus. What is written can be saved, manipulated and sent around just like something that was typed. One could take a Tablet PC to a meeting and write on it. The Tablet PC software can do some interesting things. Users can write notes on it and the software will recognize the words and keep track of them in digital format. Later, one can create copies, search for it and edit it just like any other digital file. The handwriting recognition software is supposed to be the best yet, with an accuracy rate of 60 to 70 percent.

BPL's Cybercom is the new entrant in the PC market; Dec 18

The latest vendor to join the branded PCs bandwagon is BPL Telecom Ltd (BTL), which recently launched its PCs under the brand name `Cybercom'. The company which has the distinction of being the first private sector telecom company in India, is an integral part of the Bangalore-based BPL Group of Companies.

BPL launched Cybercom in South India in the month of September 2002 (where it came out with five models) and in the North during the annual trade fair held recently in the capital's Pragati
Maidan.

IT paves way for the intelligent consumer electronics; Dec 18

IT is right now going through a rough patch and most of the players are trying to create new profit opportunities for themselves and consumer electronics came closest to their modus operandi. With convergence being the buzzword and IT becoming all-pervasive in its nature, consumer electronics items are not far left behind. Vendors are talking about digital technology changing the world. Consumer durable companies are talking about intelligent devices working in your homes and creating a comfortable world for you to live in. IT vendors have taken a cue from these pure play consumer electronics manufacturers and are trying to invest heavily to tap this market. Samsung had envisaged this arena to be big and is trying to tap this market, so is LG. The latest advertisement of LG reads--`Life is too short to waste time'.

HCL Peripherals reworks its channel strategy; Dec 16

HCL Peripherals, manufacturer of IT products and solution provider, has reworked its channel strategy by putting in place a new structure for distribution of its products. Under the new charter, the company would be appointing eight to 10 regional distributors, in the first round, covering all the major regions across India. The company has already appointed two regional distributors in Delhi and Coimbatore, and is in the process of finalizing the name in
Chennai. 

Storage market in India is all set to explode; Dec 24

Couple of years ago storage was all about the storage space in the computer's spindle drives or at the maximum, storing the important data in the backup devices such as MO drives or Zip drives. The inflection point in the storage industry has happened and now the storage is all about consolidated storage solutions for the complete enterprise. The buzzwords are NAS, SAN, FAS and Disaster Recovery. Globally, storage has grown leaps and bounds partially due to the 9/11 incident and also the recent mishaps in the global business community. The WorldCom and Enron fiasco has made the database management the need of the hour. Storage has been maturing significantly in India too, though the inflection point is yet to happen here. Indian storage requirement is still driven by the backup devices such as tape drives and RAIDs etc. The enterprise storage is limited to DAS (Direct Attached Storage) but bigger companies, especially the banks, data critical companies, insurance sector and IDCs are considering NAS and SAN solutions.