Apex body of Indian technology companies likely to forecast slowdown in Indian software exports in 2012-13

NEW DELHI/BANGALORE: The apex body of Indian technology companies is likely to forecast a slowdown in software exports in 2012-13, as corporations keep a wary eye on the global economic uncertainty and control expenses on information technology outsourcing.
"As of now, two things are certain: we might not be able to beat the upper end of this year's forecast, and it's unlikely the industry will grow any faster next year," said an official.

"Double-digit growth for financial year ending March 2013 would be a safe prediction," the official added.
Its members, which include companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro are struggling to provide clarity about demand. In a normal year, officials are more or less certain about the growth forecast by the end of January. But this time companies are still negotiating with customers on outsourcing budgets.
Usually, compiles forecasts from member companies, both Indian and multinationals, by January, and polls top analysts before giving its annual growth projection for the Indian IT industry sometime in February.
"It doesn't look as robust. The picture is hazy this year. You can't see the goal unless the road is clear. We might revise it upwards during the year, if the picture becomes clearer," said another official. He added that companies are yet to submit revenue forecasts for the year, so an accurate prediction is not possible now.
India's IT services and BPO exports were predicted to grow 16-18% in 2011-12 to $70 billion. The industry is likely to meet the target.
V Balakrishnan, chief financial officer of Infosys, said clients have become cautious because of the uncertainty. Even though they have the budgets to spend, they may not do so, leading to fluctuations in forecasts by companies.
"In such an environment, forecasting becomes a problem more than anything else because unlike earlier, growth does not come in a straight line," he said.
Research firm Gartner has lowered its IT spend forecast from 4.6% to 3.7%.

US, EUROPE STILL IN TURMOIL
"US dollar-based IT spending in western Europe will contract in 2012 as the ongoing political uncertainty and a mild recession lead businesses and consumers in Europe to be cautious in the coming months about spending on IT products and services," said Richard Gordon of Gartner.
Mid-sized tech company MindTree is of the view that the depreciation of the rupee is hitting multinational software outsourcing firms, which contribute a significant portion of India's total IT exports.
"If you look at most of the large Indian IT companies, they are growing at the upper end, so the problem is not there. What is impacting overall growth is that for multinationals and large US companies' captives, growth has been impacted because of the significant rupee depreciation," CFO Rostow Ravanan said.

Kalam asks experts in medicine to develop new technology

Former President inaugurates laser surgery machine at Maxivision Eye Care

Former President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said here on Tuesday that the country's best talent in the field of medicine should strive to develop innovative technology so that the needy could afford the fruits of modern medicine. On Tuesday, Dr. Kalam inaugurated VICTUS Femtosecond Laser Cataract Surgery machine at Maxivision Eye Care, Somajiguda.

“I call upon the Maxivision eye surgeons to form a team of experts who can explore the multidimensional uses of Femtosecond laser in treating various eye ailments. We need to utilise the technology and help people who can't afford modern medical care,” Dr. Kalam said.

The former President said that the multiple applications of the Femtosecond laser would help doctors treat a host of eye ailments.

Immediately after the inauguration, the renowned nuclear scientist also interacted with the eye surgeons of Maxivision and enquired about the newly acquired laser surgery machine.

The officials of Maxivision said that the new machine had been under test from November 2010.

Already, the eye surgeons had completed close to 450 eye surgeries by using the new laser machine. The surgeons pointed out that not a single case had reported complications after the surgery.

The VICTUS platform, essentially, helped doctors conduct cataract, refractive and therapeutic procedures of the eye on a single platform. The laser machine would help surgeons perform computer controlled precise, accurate and reproducible incisions compared to current manual procedures. The success rate for such surgery was 100 per cent, doctors added.

“This is the first such laser machine in the World and I would like to congratulate Maxivision for this accomplishment,” founder and chairman of GVK, G. V. K. Reddy said.

Chairman of L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Dr. G. N. Rao, Founder of Maxivision Eye Hospitals, Dr. Kasu Prasad Reddy, Film Producer D. Ramanaidu and several other doctors were present.

Banks, Internet companies team up to fight spam

(Reuters) - Some of the world's biggest Internet companies and financial services firms have developed a new approach to fighting email spam that they hope will reduce online scams.
Facebook, Google Inc (GOOG.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) have joined with financial firms Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Fidelity Investments and eBay Inc's (EBAY.O) PayPal to create a set of industry standards for preventing criminals from sending out spam emails that appear to come from corporate email addresses.
Fraudsters often pose as banks and other trusted firms in attempts to persuade email recipients to provide payment card numbers, bank account information and other personal data or click on links that infect computers with malicious software.
The new approach calls for email providers and businesses to attack spammers by coordinating on a massive scale the use of two existing technologies for email authentication known by the acronyms SPF and DKIM, which have yet to be widely adopted.
PayPal is one company that currently uses SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) technology standards to fight email spoofing, but only through partnerships with Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) and Google, said Brett McDowell, a security manager at PayPal who serves as chairman of the group that developed the new standard.
The group goes by the name DMARC.org, which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance.
If Yahoo or Google get an email claiming to come from PayPal that is not properly authenticated with SPF or DKIM, the email is not delivered, he said. But if fraudsters send spoofed PayPal email to other email providers, it might get through.
"What we need is an Internet standard that allows this level of protection to work at scale - without any discussion, without any partner agreements," McDowell said. "That is what DMARC does."
Other companies involved in the group include American Greetings Corp (AM.N), LinkedIn Corp (LNKD.N) and Yahoo as well as privately held Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path and the Trusted Domain Project.
IDC security analyst Michael Versace said that the approach recommended by the group appeared to be effective and inexpensive to implement.
Yet he said that the industry should keep developing new technologies to fight spammers because he expects that cyber criminals will eventually figure out how to circumvent the DMARC protections.