Infosys announces organic growth model, ties up with Toshiba for ERP
Bangalore: Riding high on the back of an impressive financial results announced by the company, Infosys Technologies legendary chairman, Mr. Narayana Murthy said that the company aims to limit its revenues from developing e-commerce related software to 40-50 per cent of its total revenues. The company will also limit the e-commerce revenue from purely internet companies to 15-20 per cent of total revenues. While stating this he reiterated that the main engine for the company’s growth will continue to come from software development, re-engineering and maintenance of computer applications, clearly signalling the organic growth will still continue to be the mantra at the software giant.

During the day, the company also announced that it had been retained by Japanese consumer electronics giant, Toshiba Corporation, to provide the latter with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions for its business processes. Infosys is involved in identifying all the interfaces and customisation required to tailor the ERP solution to Toshiba’s requirement.
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In India, Glaxo and Burroughs Wellcome legal merger put off
Mumbai: Though for all practical purposes Glaxo India Limited and Burroughs Wellcome India are working as one, pursuant to the merger of their respective parent companies abroad, the legal merger between the two Indian entities has been deferred.

Announcing this to the shareholders at the annual general meeting, chairman, Mr. Deepak Parekh, told that the legal merge at this stage could prove to be counter-productive, since the workers of the Wellcome plant at Mulund (a suburb of Mumbai) had yet to accept the offer aimed at ensuring wage parity with Glaxo. Further, the integration could also result in a huge one-time cost and stamp duty payments. He said that for all practical purposes the issue of the legal merger and its timing was, in fact, a non-issue.
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Air-India to shed 7,000 jobs in three years
Mumbai: India’s international airline which has been plagued with the ills of a bloated staff for many years, today announced a plan that will reduce its personnel strength from its current level of over 17,000 to a more manageable 10,000 by 2004-05. This attempt, it is hoped, will bring down its employee-to-aircraft ratio to international levels.

It plans to do this through lucrative voluntary retirement schemes, after its success in laying off over 500 people through a scheme that offered shorter working days and two year leave.
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Leading edge acquires US-based Applisoft
New Delhi: Leading Edge Systems, a company promoted by former head of Hewlett-Packard in India, Mr. Suresh Rajpal, announced the acquisition of US-based software company, Applisoft, for an estimated $9m.

This deal is expected to give Leading Edge access to new client base in the US. This base includes the likes of GE, 3Com, Intel, Bank of America and such other multinational clients.

Applisoft, a privately-owned California-based company focussing on software services also benefits since it gets a reliable technology-savvy organisation to execute its projects. Besides, it believes that being part of the Leading Edge group will help in employee retention, since Leading Edge, a listed company, has an attractive ESOP plan.
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Broadcast Worldwide launches channel
Calcutta: Rathikant Basu, former chief executive officer of the Star TV group in India, has finally put his post-Star TV plans in action. His new company, Broadcast Worldwide P Ltd, in which media baron Rupert Murdoch has an eight per cent stake, and which will be listed on the stock exchanges later this year, has launched its first regional Bengali channel. The channel, christened Tara, will begin with a 12-hour program initially, and will become a 24-hour channel in a few months.

The company, which plans to launch channels in Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati later, has already acquired a Rs. 10-crore office-cum-studio complex in Calcutta. The Bengali channel is being beamed via the Intelsat satellite. The company is also negotiating with National Geographic, The History Channel and BBC Learning for beaming their programs in regional languages.
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Escorts Communications out of BIFR net
New Delhi: Escorts group company, Escorts Communications Limited, which was before the BIFR as a sick company, has come out of the BIFR net pursuant to the South Korean giant, LG Information and Communications Limited, taking a 49 per cent stake in it. This stake saw an infusion of approximately Rs. 10 crore into the company the paid up capital has exceeded the accumulated losses, as a result of which the company has moved out of the BIFR net.
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Balrampur Chini to get into B2B portal for commodities
Calcutta: India’s leading sugar company, Balrampur Chini Mills Limited, has decided to enter the infotech areas through its newly established subsidiary, e-commodities.com Limited.

It will set up the first-of-its-kind portal that will provide live price quotations of all the 25 important mandis of the country on an hourly basis. Besides, its sugar portal will also provide corporate information on all the 450 sugar companies alongwith a detailed list of suppliers and buyers on a regional basis. Other commodities will be included later.
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Mitsubishi PTA project off the ground
Haldia: Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation’s largest investment in Bengal, the Rs. 1,600 crore PTA project, was inaugurated today by the West Bengal chief minister, Mr. Jyoti Basu. The Japanese company is already contemplating doubling the 3.5 lakh tonnes capacity of the plant, depending on the response it gets from the market.

The company’s plant has proved to be a boon for the consumers in the north and eastern parts of the country.
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Sundaram Finance teams with SunAlliance for non-life insurance
Chennai: NBFC and part of the TVS group, Sundaram Finance, today announced the formation of a joint venture with Royal & SunAlliance of the UK, for its foray into non-life insurance business.

As per the norms established by the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (Irda) in this regard, 26 per cent of the equity will be held by SunAlliance. Sundaram Finance plans to hold 50 per cent of the equity and the balance 24 per cent will be offered to strategic investors after studying the RBI guidelines for NBFCs entering the insurance sector.
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Reliance to bring offshore funds into the country
Mumbai: In response to a notice from the ministry of finance asking it to remit back to the country the funds of the ECB parked abroad, Reliance Industries Limited, today brought in close to $1 billion into the country.

The funds are part of the close to $1.3 billion raised in ECBs by the company with an average maturity period of 23 years. The funds brought in are planned to be used by the company in its share buy-back plan.
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