HCL

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 HCL Technologies Ltd (HCL), the global IT services company today announced it has been named by CRF UK, the independent business research organisation, as one of Britain’s Top Employers, 2008.

Boeing has entered into an agreement with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and two leading Indian information technology companies to develop wireless and other network technologies for aerospace-related applications.

The agreement, signed by representatives from Boeing, IISc’s Society for Innovation and Development, Wipro Technologies and HCL Technologies,forms the Aerospace Network Research Consortium (ANRC).

HCL Infosystems has launched ‘MiLeap’ India’s first full functional, ultra portable range of laptops that promises to offer mobile internet computing experience starting from Rs 13,990.

MiLeap runs on Ubuntu, and ITVidya member Amit Karpe worked on the porting of Ubuntu on this Leaptop.

Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman & CEO, HCL Infosystems Ltd, said, “HCL is proud of its strong heritage of leading the technology revolution in India. With a legacy of having pioneered India’s first micro-computer, the country’s first desktop PC and the first home PC, at HCL it’s always been our endeavor to create technologies that touches lives. This revolutionary new range of Ultra Portable ‘MiLeap’ Leaptops will herald in a new category of computing devices, opening up a wide range of new usage scenarios and application areas.”

HCL today introduced its future computing strategy with two ultra-portable product laptop lines.

The first of the products is the MiLeap X series at Rs 13,990, a 1.4kg ultra portable with a 7" LCD, running Linux with a GUI. The X-series has 2GB flash-based storage instead of a hard drive, built-in wireless, USB and PC Card socket. It has soft faux-leather cladding to make it shock-resistant, which allows it to be carried without a laptop case.

The second product, the MiLeap Y series, is a sub-Rs 30, 000, fully loaded ultra portable tablet PC with Microsoft Vista. The 980 g laptop has multiple navigation (thumboard, stylus, keyboard, touch and voice), The Y series has a 1.8" 80GB hard drive, and a battery life similar to the X, of about 4 hours. It’s priced at Rs 29,990.

Both products have built-in Wi-Fi, and use an Intel processor. Intel has been a key partner, especially in offering special pricing for its products. The products are "simple, sturdy and reliable, energy efficient, safe and rounded with no sharp corners or edges, and environment friendly (RoHS compliant)".

Announcing the products, HCL chairman Ajai Chowdhry said that these products made portable computing accessible to a large part of the population of India. These "products have the power to change the marketplace," he said. There was a space in the market with more mobility than a laptop, and more capability than a cell phone, he added. "This has been a day I’ve dreamt of for a long time…the future of computing is now."

HCL ranked first among 276 vendors qualified for this survey by Brown-Wilson Group Inc.;
Emerges as the ONLY Indian company in the Top 10

HCL Technologies Ltd. (“HCL”) today announced that it has been ranked as the world’s No. 1 Infrastructure Outsourcing vendor by the Brown-Wilson Group for The Black Book of Outsourcing (Wiley Publishers). This report is a subset of the globally respected Annual Black Book Global User Survey.

Of the 276 global vendors qualified for this survey, HCL, EDS, CSC, Unisys and IBM took the top five spots. The rankings were derived based on user ratings spanning 18 criteria of ITO Infrastructure Operational Excellence. HCL not only occupies the top spot on this list, but also holds the distinction of being the only Indian company in the top 10.

The HCL Technology Hub at Noida, National Capital Region of Delhi, was today inaugurated by Mr. Kamal Nath, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry, in the presence of Chief Guest Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Hon’ble Former President of India. Mr. P. Chidambaram, Hon’ble Finance Minister presided over this function. Dr. Kalam in his key note address outlined his vision for the transformational role of technology in shaping the future of India and the world. Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Kamal Nath also spoke about the role of technology in enabling growth & development.

HCL has given in to the demands of Greenpeace International and has committed to phase-out the PVC and BFRs in all its products starting 2009.

In a communiqué to Greenpeace, HCL said that it has called for a Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation.

“HCL is committed to a phase out of PVC and all BFRs from all its products by 2009 and 2010 respectively. We will also proactively promote and push for a Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation based on the principle of Extended/Individual Producer Responsibility,” HCL officials said.

Reacting to the move, Greenpeace complimented HCL for its move further towards offering clean products and taking back those that have reached the end of their life.

Greenpeace activists also visited HCL headquarters in Noida with a banner that read 'Bravo HCL! Keep going green'.

Pranav Sinha, Greenpeace toxics campaigner, said HCL's public commitments to playing a lead role in solving the e-waste problem has given much needed impetus to the Indian IT sector.

"It is now for other players, industry associations and the government to come forward and proactively work towards making the Indian IT sector clean and competitive in a global market. This can be achieved through a combination of legislation and industry initiatives to design clean products and take back and safely recycle end-of-life products," he said.

Talking to CyberMedia News, George Paul, executive vice president at HCL Infosystems said that the company has been adopting environmental friendly measures under the ‘HCL eSafe’ policy.

“We believe in building a symbiotic relationship between us – the manufacturer and the recyclers with the aim to promote integration and sustainability n our least stress on the environment. HCL under its eSafe policy aims at integrating environmental management with business processes thereby protecting the environment, health and safety of all users,” he said.

Paul asserted that the comprehensive policy focuses on product lifecycle management based on WEEE and RoHS under IPR.

“HCL’s commitment stakeholders under IPR cover e-waste management, internal waste management, pan-India support and policy of RoHS. We are also ensuring that our partners and suppliers also adhere to the environmental friendly standards,” he said.

“All HCL products are ‘Energy Star’ compliant and have Green PC features. The refrigerators we use in our manufacturing facilities are CFC free. HCL is committed to phase out manufacturing of RoHS non-compliant products by end of 2007. Similarly all products will be free from PVC and BFR by 2009 and 2011 respectively. We also support for EMS guidelines to be brought by the government of India,” he informed.

“Customer awareness is one of the key objectives and HCL is already taking steps towards that,” Paul added.

In August, Greenpeace had accused the company of adopting unethical environment practices in the country. The NGO had also approached Nokia, one of the major partners of HCL to urge the latter to go ‘green.’

Greenpeace activists also protested at HCL’s headquarters in Noida against the company’s ‘green-washing’ and its failure to make clear commitments on the phase out of hazardous chemicals from its computers.

Other manufacturers such as Acer and Lenovo are also going environmental friendly.

According to the Acer environmental disclosure policy, the Taiwan-based PC manufacturer had said that under the Acer HSF program launched in 2006, the company will eliminate PVC, BFRs and Phthalates from all its products by 2009.

Similarly, Lenovo, which currently prohibits use of PVC in external cover parts of more than 25 grams has also set a elimination target for 2009. Lenovo’s target for elimination of BFRs from intentional addition to all remaining parts will also be in 2009.

Government estimates suggest that India handled about 146, 000 tonnes of e-waste last year alone and this is likely to increase 11 times by 2012.

Apart from western countries such as those in the EU, eastern manufacturers such as China, Taiwan and Thailand, have also created progressive regulatory frameworks to foster the greener growth of the electronics sector. In contrast, India does not even have a basic legislation like RoHS. Greenpeace believes that this ironically presents India with the opportunity to draft a state-of-the-art legal framework based on the EPR principle, which would address the e-waste crisis.

Though HCL as a predominant market player has now committed itself, the question however lies in a comprehensive policy by the Government, on the lines of WEEE for the Indian context. Only then will the IT industry will be streamlined and also be commended for being environment-friendly.

Multinational-Corporation (MNC) PC brands have overtaken the local Indian PC brands in terms of sales, growth rates and marketing activities, says Gartner Inc. Indian branded vendors like HCL, Zenith, Wipro and PCS account for only 14 percent of the Indian desk-based PC market and six percent of the Indian mobile-PC market in 1H07. According to Gartner, only HCL has withstood the competition.

However, even they are losing out to MNCs in the consumer segment. The Indian PC landscape is divided among three different groups: MNCs, local brands and white box vendors. In the past few years, although local brands are growing at a steady pace, they are clearly way behind the growth rates of the MNC brands.

Indian vendors' shipments grew 18 percent year over year in 2006 and 35 percent year over year in 2005, while MNC shipments grew 73 percent in 2006 and 50 percent in 2005. This disparity gets even more accentuated considering that in 2004, local and MNC brands were growing at roughly the same rates.

“Unable to withstand the pressure of the marketing blitz and the reach of the MNC brands, the local brands have almost exited the consumer segment and are rethinking their strategy to focus more on government, education, and small and midsize business (SMB) segments”, said Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst for Gartner’s client computing group.

“Moreover, the mobile-PC segment in India, which has been growing at 74 percent year on year, has seen little traction by local brands. MNC brands are dominating this niche yet high margin segment with 94 percent per cent of the market share.”
Top 5 desk-based PC Vendors

Top 5 mobile PC Vendors

The key growth drivers in 2007 were the education, small business, consumer and government sectors. Mobile PCs continue to out perform desk based PCs in terms of growth.

The key factors contributing to this phenomenon is the rapidly decreasing price differential between mobile PCs and desk based PCs, performance parity between the two, availability of a wide portfolio of products ranging from entry level to high end and push from both vendors and channels to grow this segment.While mobile PCs have grown at 74 percent, desk based PC growth has slowed down to 3.9 percent.

However, with small business and education segment likely to continue with their spends on IT infrastructure desktops should see some rapid upward mobility in the coming quarters.

Gartner recommends a roadmap for local brands to improve their market share in the India:

Improve product lineup: Indian vendors lack a complete product lineup. They are primarily focused on the low-and-mid range desk-based PC segments and miss out on the lucrative mobile PC and high-end desk-based PC segments.

To grow their market share they should focus on introducing and pushing AMD-based products, maintain specific stock keeping products for smaller cities and gain technological advantage by concentrating on high-end digital lifestyle and gaming machines where none of the MNC brands have a dominant position. ·

Increase brand visibility: It would be a challenge for local vendors to quickly ramp up their visibility through marketing activities. They should therefore use a more focused approach of targeting select retail outlets in major cities where they can increase POS material, display space, product range, customer assistants, etc.

They should also leverage key channel partner for joint marketing initiatives in smaller cities. Such programs haven't yet been undertaken by MNCs in smaller cities, so local vendors can get a head start.

Improve channel mind share: Local vendors, although gradually, are losing channel mind share, but not necessarily the channels themselves resulting in fewer new-client. Local vendors must invest more to gain channel loyalty by adopting a more proactive approach toward their channels, investing in building a brand at the POS, improving their product range, and forging deeper bonds with the likes of Intel and Microsoft. Indian vendors must continue to focus on and dominate government, education and small-business segments, a space where their MNC counterparts haven't yet made major inroads.

Why need a process...?
[Copyright © DEEPAK JAIN]

By definition, I take a process as the decision or a set of decisions, one wishes to get early in a project. Here, the question comes why do the people feel the need to get something right early in the project. The answer obvious is because they perceive those things hard to change in later phases of the project. I could not find any theoretical reason of anything in software being hard to change. Any aspect of any software may be picked up to make easy to change. Here a common practical problem arises. Efforts to make anything easy to change make the overall complex software a little more complex. This way, making everything easy to change in the software makes it uncontrollably complex. In fact, this is the complexity of the software systems that makes it hard to change. And its hardness to change gives a need of right decisions in early phases of the project.

Some new and unique revenue models are emerging and are being experimented in India and termed as Value centric Partnership.

Some Case Studies

• HCL entered into a unique Royalty model with Cisco Systems, Inc., the world leader in the networking space as the two companies celebrated a long standing Product Engineering partnership - one of the largest and longest Product Engineering engagements in the history of Indian IT. Under this model, Cisco has licensed HCL the Intellectual Property (IP) for one of its network management products—with HCL being completely responsible for the engineering of the product