No easy going for IT companies in Europe

For India’s top tech firms seeking to grow revenues from Europe in order to offset lower spend by American clients, it’s going to be Key facts on India's IT industry

a long, arduous journey, said research firm Forrester on Wednesday.

The US, which accounts for over half of India’s $60-billion software outsourcing industry, has traditionally been the top market for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro, among many others. However, over the past few years, Indian tech firms have been trying to mitigate their high American exposure by focusing on Europe’s $14-billion market for software and back-office services.

“You cannot replicate the US model in other markets. Unlike the US, European customers are not thinking primarily about costs. If Indian companies follow the same model for another 2-3 years, they will struggle,” said Sudin Apte, principal analyst of Forrester Research. Mr Apte, who surveyed around 400 European customers in order to understand their outsourcing priorities, said India’s tech firms will need to go beyond just hiring local workforce for sales and delivery efforts, if they really want to become successful in Europe.

“Offshoring in North America is a standard business decision, however in continental Europe, it’s a religious decision,” said Mr Apte, quoting one of the customers surveyed for his study.

Indeed, for almost a decade, the UK has been the top market for Indian companies with customers such as British Petroleum (BP) and British Telecom (BT) outsourcing projects to TCS, Infosys and Wipro. However, the UK, which outsources around $9 billion worth of projects to India every year, does not reflect the entire Europe.

“The United Kingdom is very similar to the US, unlike continental Europe where language and cultural barriers exist,” added Mr Apte.

Many European customers are more comfortable working with delivery teams in neighbouring countries, instead of signing large offshore contracts. “For example, Romania’s historical ties with Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, and Germany makes it easy to connect with clients in these locations,” Mr Apte added.

However, mature outsourcers such as BT, BP and ABN Amro have had no such bottlenecks, while deciding to work with large Indian offshore services providers such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro.

“For globalised European customers, outsourcing is not a new phenomenon, but for many companies, especially those who are pan-European only, outsourcing and offshoring is not such as hot thing,” he added.

Compared with Forrester’s survey in 2008, the current research shows a drop of more than 20% in the number of companies that were thinking about starting an offshore initiative for the first time. “This means that in the next 12 months, we will see few first-time offshore users sending their work to locations like India,” said Mr Apte.

The Forrester research also found that multinational firms such as IBM and Accenture are better positioned that the Indian IT vendors when it comes to serving customers in continental Europe.

“Accenture has more staff serving continental Europe customers than anybody else - it’s not about pure offshoring anymore,” he said. For instance, Accenture serves more than 300 customers from Germany with a few hundred staffs making use of the managed services model, which allows the company to serve more with less.

Agencies

IT spending likely to fall 5.2% worldwide, says Gartner

The worldwide IT spending is on pace to decline 5.2 percent this year. However, the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, with IT spending forecast to total $3.3 trillion, a 3.3 percent increase from 2009, according to research firm Gartner. In Asia Pacific, IT spending is expected to grow by five percent to reach $515.6 billion in 2010.

Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research, said that this represented a fast V-shaped recovery for IT spending in the region. Emerging regions will resume strong growth, he said. By 2012, the accelerated IT spending and culturally different approach to IT in Asia will directly influence product features, service structures and the overall IT industry.

However, growth varies considerably by country, vertical market and IT sector. Sondergaard said that while software would post the strongest growth in Asia Pacific, telecommunications still represented the largest area of IT investment.

In Australia, the five-year outlook for enterprise IT spending is a compound annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, with total IT spending by Australian businesses to reach Australian dollar 56.4 billion by 2013. The vertical sectors with the highest IT spending growth would be communications (3.2 percent), healthcare (2.6 percent) and utilities (2.3 percent). While IT spending will increase next year, Gartner cautioned IT leaders not to be overly optimistic.

"While the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012," said Sondergaard. 2010 is about balancing the focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50 percent of Chief Information Officers the IT budget will be zero percent or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011, he added.

Sondergaard said that the three most-searched terms by Gartner clients on gartner.com provide some clues as to the priorities of IT leaders around the world. Cost remained the most-searched term during 2009, although it peaked in May, followed by cloud computing. "Next year will be the year when cloud computing moves from the discovery phase to small pilots, as part of organizations' desire to move from owned to shared IT," he said.

The third most-searched terms on gartner.com were business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). "We believe that 2010 will see increased focus on optimization of business processes linked to software applications, what we call application overhaul. That is what will drive growth in the software segment," Sondergaard said.

Agencies

iGate expands Whitefield campus; To hire 1,500 by 2010

iGate on Thursday inaugurated the fourth phase of its global delivery facility at its campus in Whitefield, Bangalore. The new facility, set up at a cost of Rs 65 crore, provides 115,000 sq ft of additional workspace and can seat 1,050 people.

Phaneesh Murthy, CEO of the outsourcing solutions company, said iGate plans to hire about 1,500 people in 2010. The $220-million company currently has around 3,500 employees in Bangalore.

Murthy said he expected IT budgets to be up 2-4% in 2010.

“Discretionary project spends are starting to happen. The pricing environment is largely stable,” he said.

iGate’s campus has in the past sought to differentiate itself through the adoption of a host of environment friendly measures. The latest phase makes further advances on this front. It has LED lighting throughout and the lighting is solar powered. There’s an ozone-friendly air conditioning system, organic waste converter and a wastewater recycling system.

“We also made special efforts to procure green IT equipment,” the company said. The company has taken on a carbon footprint estimation study to determine the green house gas (GHG) inventory across all its global delivery facilities in India, Australia and Mexico.

Agencies

Will HP merge its PC, print divisions?

Hewlett-Packard Co is considering a plan to reorganize the company and combine its printer and personal computer units, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A plan is being finalized that would put Todd Bradley, who leads HP's PC group, in charge of the combined division, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

An HP spokeswoman declined to comment on what she called "rumor and speculation."

PCs made up around 30 percent of HP's revenue in the July quarter, with the printing group accounting for roughly 20 percent.

The printing group boasted an operating margin of 17 percent, making it HP's most profitable division.

For fiscal 2010, HP forecast revenue growth of 3-5 percent in its PC business and zero to 2 percent in its printing group.

HP is the world's No. 1 PC maker, holding a roughly 20 percent share of the global market.

The Journal report said Vyomesh Joshi, a longtime HP veteran who leads the printing division, could potentially leave the company in the coming months.

He has been approached in recent years by other technology companies looking for a new chief executive, the report said, citing people familiar with Joshi's discussions.

Agencies

New smart card technology by 2014, says MTA

Bus and subway riders will be able to abandon the MetroCard and use debit or credit cards to ride anywhere in the city by 2014, according to the MTA.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the first time set a target date for a no-swipe smart-card system to be in full use after years of studies and pilot programs.

With smart-card technology, riders simply waive or tap their credit or debit cards on readers when entering a subway station or bus.

Not having to swipe at turnstiles or dip a MetroCard into a fare box reader should speed travel and reduce MTA expenses, experts have said.

"I think it's great," Bill Henderson, executive director of the MTA's Permanent Citizens Advisory Council. "The technology is going help out the riders and the system."

The 2014 date is included in an MTA document detailing some of the major initiatives in the five-year capital plan recently approved by the authority's governing board.

If fully funded, the capital plan will allocate $220 million for a smart-card system, which also would include prepaid cards not linked to bank or credit accounts.

Agencies

500+ BPO jobs to move from Australia to India: Vodafone

Vodafone Hutchison has announced that it will be offshoring 450 call center jobs from Australia to Tasmania and India. A spokesman for Vodafone Hutchison Australia said that company would transfer an unspecified number of positions to a call centre in Mumbai and about 100 jobs to Kingston, Tasmania.

Service Stream, the company that was running Vodafone contract confirmed the telecom operator's plans to end the contract employing 450 in customer service and support roles starting in October to February. Michael Doery, Managing Director of Service Stream says that the company would try to find new roles for the affected employees, but was unlikely to accommodate them. "We're trying to do the right thing for our staff but not give them false expectations. Call centre people are unlikely to suit the other sort of work we do, which is technically-based or based on outdoor civil activities. If a company we're providing services to makes a decision to in-source call centre jobs to Tasmania and India, that's not our decision," Doery said.

The decision to transfer call center jobs out of Australia comes three months after Vodafone Australia and Hutchison 3G Australia formed a 50:50 joint venture. Speaking on the current development Nigel Dews, Australia Chief of Vodafone Hutchison said, "The opportunity to use our combined scale to enhance our customer service capabilities is an important outcome for the Vodafone Hutchison Australia merger."

Agencies

Seven-year IT services deal signed by IBM, Qantas

According to a report the outsourcing deal is valued at up to $200 million which could cost up to 178 Qantas workers their jobs

IBM Corp. said that it has signed a seven-year outsourcing contract with Qantas, Australia's largest airline, for the provision of project delivery functions, as part of the airline's improved business efficiency goals.

David Hall, Qantas executive manager of corporate services and technology, said the agreement with IBM will enable a fast transformation, increased efficiencies, and improved customer experience.

"Qantas believes the partnership with IBM will give us access to IBM's scale, strength, expertise, and the latest tools and technologies available in the global marketplace. We are confident that IBM will deliver significant benefits to our business," he said.

Under the contract, Qantas will gain access to IBM's deep research, analytics and business optimization capabilities.

"Qantas' partnership with IBM represents a major step towards the airline's mission to lead and innovate in the competitive airline industry," said Katie Bambrick, IBM Global Business Services Managing Partner for Australia and New Zealand.

"Drawing on IBM's advanced technologies and the airline industry expertise IBM has built over the last half-century, this partnership has an exciting future," said Ms Bambrick.

According to Australian IT the outsourcing deal with IBM is valued at up to $200 million which could cost up to 178 workers their jobs.

Staff at Qantas's project delivery team are set to transfer to IBM as part of the deal. Those who do not accept new employment terms from IBM will be forced to take redundancy, the report said.

Agencies

Highest software budget for 2009-10 comes from APJ firms

Asia Pacific companies plan to increase their software budgets by 4.4 percent on average in 2010, while overall IT budgets was expected to decline by 3.1 percent on average, according to the latest survey by Gartner. More organizations in Asia Pacific (38 percent) expect to increase their software budgets in 2010 than their overall IT budget (31 percent).

"For most organizations, the budgeting process happens once a year, but adjusting the IT budget is a continuous exercise that is driven by economic conditions and changes in the business," said Gartner Research Director Yanna Dharmasthira. "In the midst of economic volatility, hardware budget allocation remains the top priority in most countries, but software budgets are a real bright spot and continue to demonstrate a positive outlook, although more cautious when compared with last year's survey."

The survey showed that the average expected increase in software budget of 4.4 percent in Asia Pacific is higher than all other regions surveyed including Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), North America and Latin America. India-based respondents are consistently the most optimistic, with the highest number of respondents intending to increase their IT budget in 2010 (42 percent), followed by China (32 percent). On the other hand, Malaysia-based respondents remain pessimistic, with the largest number of respondents intending to decrease their spending (52 percent), followed by Singapore (48 percent of respondents).

The respondents of this survey were asked whether they expected their 2010 IT budget to be below, the same or exceed their IT budget for 2009. Gartner surveyed 323 IT managers in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Hong Kong, as part of a worldwide survey of 982 respondents, to help business and IT managers compare their enterprise IT spending with peer organizations.

Software is expected to represent the second-largest portion of the IT budget in most countries, with the exception of India (where software and hardware spend are roughly equal) and Australia (where spending is notably higher on IT staff). India is the most aggressive with the highest software budget allocation (26.9 percent), followed by Singapore (25.8 percent), Malaysia (24.1 percent) and China (23.1 percent).

India is also the most optimistic in software spending, with the average expected change in software budget of plus 10 percent. Dharmasthira said that vendors should revisit their potential customer list, as they may have shifted in terms of geography, as well as market segments. "Software vendors should not only focus sales efforts on traditional hot spots such as India and China, but look at opportunities in mature markets too. The intentions to increase software budget have become more varied among different countries and organizations, presenting good opportunities in a mix of developed and emerging countries," said Dharmasthira.

Agencies

Major slice of Web ads goes to social networking sites

About one of every five Internet display ads in the United States is viewed on a social networking Web site like MySpace and Facebook, according to a new report.

The report by analytics firm comScore underscores the increasing prominence of social media sites in the Internet landscape and broadening acceptance of the sites by brand advertisers.

It also illustrates the increasing competition between social media sites and established Internet companies like Yahoo Inc and Time Warner Inc's AOL which have long billed themselves as the top online destinations for brand advertisers.

The study by comScore, released on Tuesday, said social media sites represented 21.1 per cent of US Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80 per cent of those ads.

"Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle," said Jeff Hackett, senior vice president of comScore.

According to comScore, AT&T Inc, Experian Interactive and IAC/Interactive Corp's Ask Network were the top three advertisers on social networking sites in July.

While social media sites have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years -- Facebook is now the world's fourth-most visited Web site -- some observers have questioned whether the sites can be effectively monetized.

Because the content on social media sites is created by users, and could therefore prove racy or offensive, some have questioned the willingness of marketers to place their brands alongside that content.

"They are sensitive to some extent, but nowhere near to the extent you might think," Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay said of advertisers.

The price of placing ads on social networking sites is significantly less than on a Web portal like Yahoo or AOL, said Lindsay. The vast amount of Web pages available on social networks means that advertisers can purchase a massive volume of ad impressions at bargain prices.

The strategy may not be ideally suited to smaller marketers, or advertisers seeking a direct response from their ads, said Lindsay.

"For big, national brands it works just fine, just like TV," said Lindsay. "It's a huge, huge volume game."

Agencies

Google continues to lead against Bing

Microsoft's Bing search market share in the US grew by just 0.23 percent in August to 9.64 percent, the slowest monthly growth rate since its launch, according to analysis conducted by web analytics firm StatCounter.

The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats also finds that Bing and Yahoo! combined declined slightly in August to 20.14 percent from 20.36 percent in July.

"Perhaps a little worrying for Microsoft is that when you analyse the weekly data, Bing peaked for the week 10th - 16th August at 10.98 percent and has declined since then," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. Google increased its search market share slightly in the US in August from 77.54 percent to 77.83 percent.

Globally Microsoft and Yahoo! combined took 8.42 percent of the search market in August, a decline of 0.35 percent on July's figure (8.77 percent). Google remains the dominant force in the global search market with 89.57 percent in August (89.23 percent in July).

Data is based on an analysis of 1.073 billion search engine referring clicks (272 million from the US) which were collected in July and August from the StatCounter network of over three million websites.

StatCounter, which provides free website traffic analysis, is one of the largest web analytics companies in the world monitoring in excess of ten billion pageloads per month.

Agencies

Can TCS earn $1 bn revenue from domestic market?

Country's top software exporter Tata Consultancy Services said that it aims to double its revenues from the Indian market to $1 billion in the next 3-4 years.

"India has been one of the important markets. We are looking at whether in next 3-4 years we can double our revenue to billion dollars in the Indian market," TCS CEO S Ramadorai said.

At present, the domestic market contributes 10 per cent to the total revenue.

"Every mission mode project (government) that would come on the radar, we will certainly bid for them. TCS is in talks for 3-4 such mission mode projects as of now," Ramadorai said.

"When we look at the domestic market we look at three pillars -- large enterprises, governments - both the central and state governments -- and the third is the small and medium businesses which are part of our overall growth," he added.

Of the three, he expects the large enterprises to contribute more than the other two, followed by the government and the SMB sector.

Agencies

Will MindTree touch $1 bn revenue by 2014?

Mid-sized software services firm MindTree, which completed 10 years on Tuesday, will come up with newer strategies as it aims to achieve over $1 billion in revenues by March, 2014. The company, which counts steel-maker Arcelor Mittal and Swedish truckmaker Volvo among its top customers, will be focusing on areas like energy, defence and healthcare. The firm is also targeting newer geographies like Japan.

“We are making strategic investment in defence, working along with DRDO and focusing on areas which deal with the surveillance space. There isn’t much revenue contribution right now, but the potential in long run is great” , said S Janakiraman, president and CEO, R&D services and one of the 10 co-founders of MindTree. MindTree is also building video surveillance , analytics solutions and new telemedicine solutions for the burgeoning rural healthcare market. “We recently had a major win from an Apac telecom firm and an European consumer appliance company. The size of the contracts is worth $5-6 million”, he said.

Mr Janakiraman said that MindTree will be the fastest growing company once the recovery happens as they are making more investments for innovations. “The 15% salary cut of 200 employees out of 8,000 will be immediately restored once business picks up”. MindTree has also bagged a contract for IT services from Swift, the financial messaging provider, and has plans to tap energy sector.

“We have put the team in place and are talking to large energy companies in Europe and the US,” said Anjan Lahiri, president and CEO, IT services and one of the co-founders of MindTree.

Agencies

Open Source projects dominated by IT vendors

More vendors are getting involved in open source project despite the economic slowdown. Gartner has reported many key findings related to open source in Predicts 2009: The Evolving Open-Source Software Model report. Gartner reports that 50 percent of direct commercial revenue attributed to open-source products or services will come from projects under a single vendor's patronage. Many new projects are being commercialized early in their maturity phases - often by a dot-com startup and before a broad community "network effect" is firmly established. These projects are often under the patronage of a single vendor that employs nearly all key code contributors.

According to Gartner's key findings, driven by expanding mainstream IT adoption, open-source usage profiles are shifting to more-conservative, risk-versus-reward dynamics. As a result, new adopters now place an increasing premium on commercial support channels to establish service-level agreements on par with closed-source alternatives. Gartner recommends that companies should understand the role that a broad and vendor-independent community plays in mature open-source projects. More specifically, keep in mind that intellectual-property warrants and indemnities are strongest when vendors maintain more control over the source code pedigree.

The report also says that through 2011, less than 50 percent of Global 2000 IT organizations would have implemented a formal open-source adoption and management policy as part of an enterprise software asset management strategy. Open Source Software (OSS) has become unavoidable for most IT organizations. Open source is leveraged in virtually all mainstream enterprises. A comprehensive enterprise open-source adoption policy is the most important critical path towards establishing an optimal balance between risk and reward; however, less than 30 percent of IT organizations have such a policy in place.

Agencies

GP test market expected to reach Rs 6,692.5 million by 2011

The growing trend of the telecom market has paved way for the general purpose (GP) test equipment industry. According to the analysis from the Growth Partnership Company, Frost and Sullivan, the Indian GP test equipment market has earned revenues over Rs 4,346.50 million in 2007 and is expected to reach Rs 6,692.5 million by 2011.

The GP test equipment market is employed for a wide range of products including the research and development (R&D), manufacturing to installation and maintenance (I&M). The cost advantages and availability of skilled professionals have transformed India into a R&D hub for various industries. A vast number of companies from the entire world are investing in the country, which is aiding the market of GP test equipment.

"As security concerns assume the limelight in the wake of the terror threats and security concerns facing the country, an enormous amount has been budgeted for defense spending, which includes communication technologies," says Deepa Doraiswamy, Frost & Sullivan Program Manager. "A decent proportion of the spending goes into procuring test equipment, which mostly includes general purpose (GP) test equipment, and this is expected to create good opportunities in the ensuing years for the GP test equipment market."

Further, the customer support and the brand equity have become the determining factors for the success of the GP test Equipment market. Most of the test vendors have allocated 10 to 15 percent of their revenues to R&D, which result in the emergence of multi-functional instruments that integrate the functions of diverse equipments into one, marking the end of stand-alone products.

Moreover, the expansion of communication networks across the country is facilitating the GP test equipment such as the spectrum analyzers and the network analyzers. With the increasing penetration of mobile phones into the rural zones, the demand for the GP testers is on rise.

However, there are some concerns associated with the GP market, which need to be addressed. "Continuous product improvement with new features demonstrating cutting-edge technology remains the challenging aspiration for GP test vendors to gain market share," says Doraiswamy. "They must fine tune their products and make feature additions and modifications to outpace competition. Participants must also cater to the demand for customized products, identifying the specific end user needs across all end user segments," she adds.

SiliconIndia

Will Aegis Buy Australia's UCMS Group?

Essar Group's back office arm Aegis Ltd has agreed to buy Australian business process outsourcing firm UCMS Group Ltd in a cash deal worth about A$54 million, the firms said in a statement on Friday.

Aegis, through affiliate firm Aegis BPO Services Australia Pty Ltd, will pay UCMS stockholders A$0.98 per share, a 133 percent premium over Thursday's closing price of A$0.42 per share, they added in the joint statement.

"Australia and New Zealand logically become a part of our growth strategy and offer an opportunity for Aegis to expand its footprint in this geography," said Aparup Sengupta, global chief executive officer and managing director of Aegis. The transaction is expected to close in in the third quarter and is subject to approvals from shareholders and the Supreme Court of Victoria and other customary closing conditions, they added.

With this acquisition, Aegis will have operations in India, Philippines, the United States, Costa Rica, Kenya and Australia. Last year, Aegis acquired outsourcing firm PeopleSupport Inc.

Agencies

British insurer Aviva will layoff 1,690 jobs

British insurance giant Aviva said on Thursday it would cut 1,100 permanent jobs and 590 contract positions by the end of 2009 -- the latest British financial group to axe jobs amid the economic crisis.

"There is expected to be a reduction of 1,100 permanent roles by the end of 2009," Aviva said in a statement.

"In addition, 590 contract positions will be closed over the next few months," it added.

The leader of Britain's biggest union, Unite, said the announcement to shed 1,100 permanent roles "will cause alarm across the insurance industry."

"It is unacceptable that once again shareholders received their full dividends while the workers who brought the company this success are rewarded with job losses," said Unite boss Derek Simpson.

"The Aviva workforce is continuing to live under constant uncertainty about their future," he added.

Agencies

Global IT spending to drop by 3.8% in 2009, says Gatner

The ongoing global slowdown will force companies worldwide to reduce their IT expenditure to USD 3.2 trillion this year against $ 3.4 trn in 2008, according to an IT research company.

"The unprecendented decline of the global economy is impacting the IT industry with worldwide IT spending forecast to total $ 3.4 trn in 2009, a 3.8 per cent decline from 2008 revenue of nearly $ 3.4 trn," IT research and advisory company Gartner said in a report.

Gartner said that all four of the key market sectors of the IT industry-- hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications have been revised downward, with only software spending growth remaining positive.

"Spending in computing hardware
will see a decline of 14.9 per cent with total spending to be around USD 324.3 billion as against $ 3.4 trn in 2008," Gartner said.

The spending in IT services and telecommunications sectors will also fall by 1.7 per cent at USD 796.1 billion and 2.9 per cent at USD 1,891.2 billion, respectively, the report said.


Agencies

Internet rip-offs causes $265 million loss

Internet-based rip-offs jumped 33 percent last year over the previous year, causing a loss of $265 million to the victims, with the fifth largest number of complaints coming from India, according to a new report.

Americans filed 275,284 reports (92.4 percent), claiming to be ripped off on the Internet, the highest number reported since the Internet Crime Complaint Centre, a partnership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Centre, began keeping statistics in 2000.

Canada came a distant second with 1.77 percent complaints followed by Britain (0.95 percent), Australia (0.57 percent) and India 0.36 percent.

"This report illustrates that sophisticated computer fraud schemes continue to flourish as financial data migrates to the Internet," said Shawn Henry, the FBI's assistant director of the cyber division.

At $265 million the total dollar loss from such crimes was $26 million more than the price tag in 2007, the Centre said. For individual victims, the average amount lost was $931.

The dollar loss has been on a steady increase since 2004, while the number of cases referred to law enforcement has decreased steadily since that same year.

Henry said the figures show the need for computer users, in businesses and in homes, to be wary and use sound security practices while using the Internet.

The centre said the top three most frequent complaints were about merchandise that wasn't delivered or payment that wasn't received, Internet auction fraud and credit/debit card fraud. Other scams include confidence frauds such as Ponzi schemes, cheque fraud, the Nigerian letter fraud and identity fraud.

One popular identity fraud scam used during 2008 involved sending e-mails crafted to appear as if they had been sent by the FBI. Sometimes the scammers went so far as to say the mailings were from FBI Director Robert Mueller himself, according to the centre.

The e-mails would ask the recipient for personal information, such as a bank account numbers, claiming the FBI wanted the information to look into an impending financial transaction.

One variation of the scheme, according to the centre, was to send an e-mail saying the recipient is entitled to lottery money or an inheritance and the funds can be moved as soon as bank account information is supplied.

The FBI has issued warnings about such scams in the past and Monday's report included a new one: "The FBI does not contact US citizens regarding personal financial matters through unsolicited e-mails."

Agencies

India to have more IT professionals than US

Infosys chief and co-founder S Gopalakrishnan has said that the Indian IT industry would tide over the current downturn and may surpass the US in terms of having the largest number of IT professionals in the world in the next three years.

“In the IT revolution, we are at the centre. We are underinvested, but that is an opportunity. A lot of investment is being done in R&D here because of the availability of talent. Our education system provides for that,” Infosys CEO and managing director Gopalakrishnan said.

Last week, India's second-largest software company Infosys said that it will be inducting almost 20,000 engineering graduates this year at over 8.3 per cent higher salary from what was offered last year, even as the company seeks to cope with a lower demand for software services in its top export markets of US and Europe.

According to the company, the offer letters and dates of joining have been sent to the 20,000 freshers (2008-09) and the process of joining the company will start from June this year. Last year, Infosys recruited almost 18,000 (2007-08) engineering graduates.

Agencies

Is India back on FDI radar despite recession?

At a time when the world economy is facing the worst credit freeze in several decades, India attracted USD 2.7-billion FDI in January, up 58.8 per cent from a year ago, and remained a favourite destination for cross-border investments.

"January numbers are very good...it is an indication of the confidence that the rest of the world has in India," Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Ajay Shankar said.

The foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows for the April-January period aggregated to USD 23.8 billion and is expected to cross the last year's target of USD 25 billion this fiscal.

Though the government had set a target of USD 35-billion FDI for 2008-09, it looked rather ambitious in the wake of the global downturn.

Up to September this fiscal, the monthly inflows were in excess of USD 2 billion. However, the following three months saw a sharp dip in the overseas investments.

The January figures bring a renewed hope that India is back on the radar of global investors.

Agencies