India News Briefs

Silverline puts key assets on the block to stay afloat
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)-listed Silverline Technologies, in order to clear its debt and overcome its current financial crisis, has started to dispose of key assets on a selective basis. The company is on the lookout to dispose of its assets from the business process outsourcing (BPO) business, which it had recently entered. Early this year, the company announced its plans of converting its facilities in Thane to service the BPO market. Sources from IT and BPO companies that have been approached by Silverline said: “The software company had come to us for a proposal relating to its 1,000-seater BPO centre in Thane and its other assets.” Silverline officials denied any such development. However, analysts confirmed Silverline’s latest moves, and said it was now widely known that the company has been facing a severe liquidity crunch, has little working capital and has been unable to pay its employees on time. He added that the company has also defaulted on its payments to Punjab National Bank and the Jammu & Kashmir Bank. Punjab National Bank (PNB) recently took over some of the assets of Silverline in lieu of its letter of credit worth Rs 5.58 crore.

Sify to invest Rs 20 crore in cyber cafe expansion project
Sify will invest Rs 20 crore into building infrastructure in 50 cities across the country where it plans to set up cyber cafes in the next six months. The company will also make additional investments in the new iWays, Sify’s branded cyber cafes. The company invests Rs 1.5-2 lakh in each iWay while the franchisee is required to invest around Rs 5 lakh. “We are likely to end up with 950 cyber cafes by March-end, 2003. We will add more in the next six months,” said Sify president for access media, Shrikant Joshi. The company has already tied up with 80 cable operators in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Chandigarh, Joshi said. In fixed wireless, Sify is planning to expand its services in Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. The focus will be on broadband as dial-up access is going through a stagnant phase. For the last one year, Sify has concentrated on providing broadband services to customers.

PC sales slip 2.3 percent in Q3
Personal computer sales dropped by 2.3 percent in the third quarter ending December 2002 over the previous quarter (July-September) to 4.31 lakh units, according to Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (Mait). Mait released its findings for the third quarter ending December 2002, which however said that the PC industry would be able to meet the target of 20 lakh units in the fiscal ending March 2003. Last fiscal, PC sales registered a negative growth of 7 percent over fiscal ending March 2001. “The PC performance this fiscal has been impressive and for the last quarter we expect PC sales to cross 6.27 lakh units, registering a growth of around 45 percent over the third quarter,” Mait executive director Vinnie Mehta said.
From a 50 percent share in the first quarter ending June 2002, the share of the unorganised sector in the PC market went up to 63 percent in the third quarter. The findings for the third quarter of 2002-03 also reveal that the top four cities still account for 50 percent of total PC sales and 68 percent of the total notebooks sold.

Naidu for knowledge edge, game for bigger fund
In its endeavour to transform Andhra Pradesh into a ‘knowledge hub,’ the Chandrababu Naidu government has ventured to extend financial support to research and development activity in the state. The government’s intention is to fund research in high-end technologies and is discussing with various academic institutes to take up research in Nano and Ocean technologies, etc.The government has already earmarked Rs 10 crore seed-money for the ‘Research and Development Support Fund,’ chief minister Naidu said.

— The Financial Express