MUMBAI: Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has drawn up plans to overwhelm arch-rival Roger Federer in 2008. Easier said than done, given Federer’s imperious form this year. But he has help at hand, here in India.

From Nadal to the Sri Lankan cricketers, champions aiming at becoming the world’s best are rushing to India for success. Teams and players from across the world are scouting for analytical software that will help improve their games. And a host of Indian companies are playing ball.

Sample this: world No 2 Nadal is consulting Swantha Software to figure out ways to beat Federer on grass. The Bangalore-based firm’s software, christened Half Volley, provides frame-by-frame analysis of how Fedex plays his trademark forehand shots and executes those electric cross-court returns. Nadal’s certainly got an ace up his sleeve when he faces Federer next.

And he is not alone here. If Sri Lanka’s cricketing success is attributed to its well-crafted strategy against opponents, it has much to do with Chennai-based Meru Consultants and Technologies. The Sri Lankan board sources cricket analysing software from this company.

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(Pic: Hack Day India)

PUNE: Want to see a network-attached bread toaster gaining control of a computer? Or, learn how to wiretap an internet telephone call? Then, Pune is the place to be on December 9. For those who think of hacking as malicious attack on computers, this could come as a shock. But for those self-professed hackers who understand the term as an exercise in playfulness, cleverness and exploration, here is welcome news.

India’s hackers are going to come together and discuss their pastime at a day-long convention in Maharashtra’s technology hub this Sunday. Corporate leaders have been invited and cops will be there too, just in case.

“Not all hackers are out there to harm the society. There are many of them who are doing excellent work in their domains and we feel that a hacker should be judged only by his skill, intention and willingness to share his knowledge,” Rohit Srivastava, convenor of Clubhack 2007, said.

The media world over may have focused on the criminals among hackers, but the act itself is not aimed at crime. Richard Stallman, the global guru of free software movement, once roughly defined hacking as exploring the limits of what is possible and crossing it.

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(Pic: Uber CIO of Shinsei bank, Mr Jay Dvivedi)

ET Report -

There was a time when Shinsei Bank had so many Indian software engineers working at its headquarters in Tokyo that the company canteen introduced a range of curries on its menu. The software engineers were from TCS, Wipro, Infosys, iFlex, Polaris, Nucleus and their numbers were in thousands. Led by Jay Dvivedi , Shinsei’s legendary Indian-born CIO, they transformed Shensei from the stodgy old institution it was five years ago to the sleek new retail bank it now is.

The story eventually became a Harvard Business School case study, titled Information Technology and Innovation at Shensei Bank, and CEO Thierry Porté attests to the debt the Japanese bank owes the Indian engineers. “The IT initiative totally changed Shinsei,” he says. “Even today, we are a Japanese bank that runs on Indian IT.”

Formerly the head of Morgan Stanley Japan, Porté joined Shinsei in 2003, two years after its IT rejig began, but as a long time resident of Tokyo, he was well acquainted with the problems of the country’s banking system. When Indian engineers first began their work at Shinsei, Japanese banks charged ATM users a fee for every transaction — and the service was available only during banking hours, till three o’clock in the afternoon. “Japan’s banks started sooner with IT, but they didn’t change as technology developed,” says Porté . “Shinsei was one of the earliest to completely shut down legacy systems and start afresh.”

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(Pic: Michael Dell with the Chief Minister of Punjab, an Indian State)

BANGALORE: Dell’s R&D division in India is shutting down its core area of hardware design, a segment for which it had big plans about a year ago. The company’s site directors Vivek Mansingh and Kef Salestieu held a meeting with the staff of the division in Bangalore and explained that the work being done by the hardware unit in India is to be moved to the computer maker’s facilities in Austin (US) and Taiwan.

Estimates for the number of people who will lose their jobs in India on account of this vary between a few dozens to about 170. The division has about 500 people. Sources said that employees who have to leave have been given one-and-a-half months to find alternative jobs.

A Dell India spokesperson confirmed that hardware design will move out. “Our future mission in India has been redefined. The country has great strengths in software. So our focus here will be on software development, solutions, testing and documentation. We will be hiring people in these areas,” he said.

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JERUSALEM: India’s digital marketing company Ybrant Technologies is looking at acquiring Israel-based online media solutions provider, Oridian, for over $15 million.

“We found the right ingredients in Oridian to enhance Ybrant’s footprint into the fast evolving global markets. Oridian’s team has mastered the art of entering new markets effortlessly,” Ybrant Technologies Chairman Suresh Reddy was quoted in a report by business daily ‘Globes’.

Prior to acquisition, Oridian will manage Ybrant’s international activities outside the US.

“We look forward to partnering with Ybrant’s family of businesses that will arm us with digital marketing tools to provide our clients full spectrum services,” Oridian Chief Executive Officer Jacob Nizri was quoted by the business daily.

Oridian is an online advertising company with over nine billion monthly impressions, a massive worldwide inventory, and have access to 10 million users in various continents.

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JALANDHAR: To accomplish its dream of becoming a developed nation, India should focus on three key areas of science – information technology, nano-technology and bio-technology, a top defence scientist said on Wednesday.

“Out of these three fields, India is already a major player in two – information technology and bio-technology. But in the field of nano-technology, which has been labelled as technology of the future, still there are lots of scope to take initiative,” Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister M Natarajan said.

While delivering his convocation address at the Punjab Technical University, he said it was essential that the country consolidate and strengthen its base in the field of material science development.

“Because this is essentially a very basic requirement for any technology – light weight material, nano-materials, composites, smart and stealth materials as the same will be required in future both for civil and military use,” he said.

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(Pic: A Bar camp in Bangalore)

Paul Icamina – AHN News Writer

Bangalore, India (AHN) – Tech giants Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco dominate the IT landscape in Bangalore, attracting home-grown start-ups to set up their own firms here as well.

Every week, Bangalore sees new firms like Mapunity or Mobisy or Motvik as a buoyant economy gives many Indians the financial cushion to experiment with start-ups, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Many coffee clubs have sprouted, and tips on new technologies and strategies for attracting investors are traded.

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Chennai: The US consulate in Chennai on Monday issued a safety advisory to women going to the US on dependent visa. A pamphlet, handed to every woman, provides detailed information on resources and support available to victims of abuse in the country.

The initiative comes after a recent case of domestic violence faced by a young woman from Tamil Nadu married and settled in the US. The pamphlet is available in both Tamil and Telugu.

The first pamphlet was presented to Tamil Nadu Minister of Social Welfare Poongothai by Consul General David T Hopper at a special ceremony at the consulate. The consulate also observed the day as ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women’.

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(Tip: Click on the above image to enlarge it)

Indian software vendors, led by firms such as Infosys Technologies Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd, are increasingly reusing for new customers software code or parts of it written for existing clients in an attempt to reduce development costs and time.

Such reuse, industry insiders and analysts estimate, helps reduce software development costs up to a quarter and time to write it by up to a half, and helps improve profit margins under pressure in an operating environment overshadowed by a rupee that has appreciated around 13% against the US dollar since the beginning of the year.

To help them reuse software code or modules, tech service providers are increasingly retaining the intellectual property (IP) on the software they develop for different clients and, in return for such rights, offer discounted pricing—sometimes up to 20%. The mid-sized Headstrong Corp. is one company that offers a 20% discount.

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(Pic: Sumit Jain, Lalit Mangal and Anshuman Mishra all worked at Oracle before leaving to establish maxHeap, a start-up).

By Anand Giridharadas, IHT

BANGALORE, India: Sumit Jain wanted out of Khatauli, a down-on-its-luck hamlet in northern India. When his father made him work at the family store, he sat at the counter poring over books, lifting his eyes only to make the occasional sale.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

“I fell in love,” he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle’s campus in Bangalore.

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