IBM &Vodafone discuss Indian outsourcing

IBM aims to grab more outsourcing deals from Indian telecom companies and is in talks with the Indian unit of Vodafone Plc, a senior official said on Friday.
India is the world’s fastest growing mobile market, adding more than 6 million users a month, and telecoms companies are stepping up investment on technology. India had 130.6 million mobile subscribers on the popular GSM platform at end-May.

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“My feeling is that in the next 18 months, at least two more operators should be settling for outsourcing,” Vivek Gupta, director of communications sector at IBM India and South Asia, told Reuters in an interview.

“We would be extremely disappointed if we are not the key player there. From my perspective, I want to grab 100 percent of the business.”

International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, New York, is in talks with unlisted Hutchison Essar Ltd., in which British phone firm Vodafone bought a controlling stake this year, for an outsourcing deal, Gupta said.

He did not give details.

Last year, Vodafone outsourced key IT functions to IBM, the world’s largest technology services company, and Electronic Data Systems Corp.

IBM, which employs 53,000 staff in India that accounts for 16 percent of its global workforce and makes it the company’s second-largest operation after the United States, has been winning large telecoms outsourcing deals in India.

In March, India’s fifth-largest mobile phone firm, Idea Cellular Ltd., signed a 10-year pact to outsource some of its operations like managing IT infrastructure and billing services to IBM in a deal valued at up to $800 million.

On Thursday, IBM said it had signed another 10-year deal worth $53 million with Idea for an interactive voice response transformation project.

IBM had signed a 10-year, $750 million, deal in 2004 with top mobile services firm Bharti Airtel to manage its IT infrastructure. It is now estimated to have gone up to about $1.5 billion due to robust growth in Bharti’s subscriber and revenue.

“Telecom is a very fast growing market in India and this is bringing in enormous opportunity… Our intent is to grow outsourcing business in India with rest of the telcos also,” said Gupta.

“Since the market visibility is very high (and) customers are giving very good reference about us, I think we should be increasing our market dominance for India much more in future.”

IBM’s business in India grew 37 percent in 2006, making it the company’s fastest-growing country operation, as telecoms, banks and government departments ramped up spending on computer hardware and services.

Apple blames iPhone for Leopard lag

Apple said on Thursday it was delaying the release of its new Leopard computer operating system, sending its shares down 3 per cent.

The company said its eagerly anticipated iPhone was on schedule to ship to the US in late June, as planned, after passing several of its required certification tests.

But it said delivering the phone on time contributed to the delay of the next version of its

OS X operating system, code-named Leopard, until October because the company said it had to divert resources to the iPhone.

“iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price – we had to borrow some key software engineering and … resources,” Apple said in a statement.

Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies in San Jose, California, said the delay in Leopard could slow the pop in sales that normally comes from die-hard Apple computer fans, who will now likely wait to buy new computers.

“I actually think the effect is going to be somewhat negligible,” Bajarin said.

Leopard is expected to boast new features including a file back-up feature called “Time Machine” and improvements to its e-mail and instant messaging software. Another feature allows users to move from their standard desktop view to an archival view showing every change made to a particular file.

Apple said Leopard’s features would be complete in early June ahead of its worldwide developers conference but that the product would not be ready for release. Instead, the company said it plans to give developers a test copy and ship Leopard in October.

The delay follows Apple’s January debut of its much-anticipated take on the smart phone, combining a phone, an iPod and instant messaging in a sleek device with a large screen.

Analysts have said the iPhone is a potentially huge source of growth as Apple seeks new revenue streams and ways to build on its 70 percent-plus U.S. market share for digital music players.

Apple shares fell nearly 3 per cent in extended trade to $US89.51 from a Nasdaq close of $US92.19.

Back by popular demand: Windows XP

PC maker Dell Inc. said on its website on Thursday it will once again let home PC buyers choose between Microsoft’s older operating system and Windows Vista when they purchase certain new machines.

Dell, like many computer makers, stopped offering XP on most home desktops and laptops soon after Vista launched at the end of January. By late March, the company said only two models aimed at home users could be configured with XP (the option still existed on many models for business users).

But on Dell’s IdeaStorm website, where visitors can post suggestions for the company and vote on the ones they think are important, a plea titled “Don’t eliminate XP just yet” racked up more than 10,700 votes.

“We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings,” Dell responded in a web posting Thursday.

The company said it will immediately offer XP again as an option for four models of its Inspiron notebooks and two models of its Dimension desktop PCs.

This comes just weeks after Dell said it is also planning to offer PCs with Linux, a free operating system that competes with Windows.

“This is really odd,” said Michael Silver, research vice president at Gartner.

“On new PCs, consumers usually do want the latest and greatest.”

Microsoft countered that Dell’s move was in response to a “small minority of customers” with a “specific request.” Michael Burk, a product manager for Microsoft’s Windows Client group, said in an emailed statement, “The vast majority of consumers want the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Windows Vista”.

Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director of JupiterResearch, said many consumers continue to buy XP because it is familiar, it works with their existing hardware and programs, and is overall “good enough,” even though Vista boasts a prettier user interface and stronger security.

“Microsoft is going to have to work hard to make sure that even if companies like Dell are offering XP, their customers don’t want it,” Gartenberg said. Now is time for the company to crank up Vista marketing, but that may be harder than it sounds.

“Operating systems inherently by nature are kind of boring,” he said.