India News Briefs

Enhanced e-business application from Siebel - Stanley Glancy/Mumbai
Siebel Systems has unveiled a highly enhanced version of its e-business application, Siebel 7.5 in the Indian market. The company has embedded more than 100 business processes in this latest release to provide an end-to-end solution. Will Bosma, executive director—sales consulting for Siebel said that Siebel 7.5 incorporates hundreds of customised enhancements with 20 industry-specific versions. We have embedded best practices and new functionalities for areas as varied as multi-channel sales, marketing, service, employee relationships, etc, into the product, he added. The launch is part of Siebel’s strategy to formally enhance its presence in the Indian market. One of the primary advantages offered by Siebel 7.5, according to Bosma, is the universal application network (UAN), Siebel’s open-standards platform for integration of its applications with disparate systems. UAN is a set of enabling technologies targeted at CIOs who are concerned about how their myriad applications can be integrated. The technology provides interoperability between applications and runs on all common application servers.

Polaris to hire 2,000 software professionals - Prachi Verma/Delhi
Anticipating additional business in the coming months, Polaris Software Lab is planning to recruit over 2,000 software developers in the next one year. The company is also in the process of entering into a greenfield project or a second acquisition in the business process outsourcing (BPO) space. “We keep getting new business for which we need to prepare ourselves in advance with ramp-ups. In the existing centres, we have enough capacity to add 2,000 additional professionals and we will do so by 2004,” said Polaris Software Lab vice president Raghuraman Balakrishnan. Polaris, which recently merged with OrbiTech Solutions (a technology subsidiary of Citigroup), creating a Rs 600 crore company with offerings in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) space, now has over 4,000 developers.

Magnasoft and FIT in alliance
Magnasoft, a provider of GIS solutions, has announced its strategic alliance with FIT of France, a leading GIS solutions firm. This alliance enables FIT and Magnasoft to leverage complementary technology, project management skills and diverse domain expertise of the partners in infrastructure, real estate, urban planning, utility networks and cadastral information management along with application development expertise to provide innovative, and comprehensive GIS solutions to customers.

Syntel awarded ISO 9001:2000
Syntel’s global development centres in Mumbai and Chennai, India have been awarded the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 9001:2000 certificate of approval by audit firm Bureau Veritas Quality International (BVQI), replacing Syntel’s previous ISO 9001:1994 certification awarded in July, 1998. This certification includes assessment at Level 5 of the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (SEI CMM).

Business continuity seminar on April 29-30
A unique briefing ‘The Changing Economics of Business Continuity with Dr Kevin McIsaac’ on the enterprise business continuity scenario and practices, which had to be re-scheduled due to the crisis in the Middle East and travel advisories issued by many companies, will now be held in New Delhi on Tuesday, April 29 and in Mumbai on Wednesday, April 30. This exclusive two-city event will feature presentations made by renowned personalities from the IT industry. The speakers at the seminar are Dr Kevin McIsaac, program director, Infrastructure Strategies, Meta Group; T Srinivasan, country manager, EMC India, and Val Souza, editor, Hi-Tech Group, Business Publications Division, Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay).

— EC Bureaus and The Financial Express