Enterprise News

Apollo Tyres Creates BS7799 History



The Rs 2,600 crore Apollo Tyres became the first tyre manufacturing company
in the world during 2005 to achieve BS7799 certification. Not only did the
certification attained with the help of Wipro Infotech's Consulting division
enable Apollo Tyres implement an organization-wide robust Information Security
Management System, it also provided the company well-defined and documented
security policies, processes, and guidelines in place to preserve the
confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information at all stages of the
information lifecycle. The BS7799 was, incidentally, part of the
organization's ongoing process of implementing best practices across
functions.

Asserted Dheeraj Sinha, Head-IT, Apollo Tyres, “This
certification has enhanced our internal security processes in line with
international best standards. And these capabilities have resulted in better
risk assessment and prioritization.” Wipro's consultants had worked closely
with the IT team of Apollo Tyres to build the organization's capability and
preparedness to handle threats due to network, OS and application security
weaknesses. This, in turn, had allowed the company to create a strong foundation
to improve, and continuously monitor its infrastructure for any new threats and
mitigations to be carried out. The scope of engagement in the advisory phase
involved risk assessment, gap assessment, risk prioritization, control
selection, and risk mitigation. The rollout and implementation phase involved
conducting training workshops and handholding Apollo's IT team during the
implementation of policies and procedures. 

Apollo Extends Telemedicine Frontier

Apollo Hospitals joined hands with Reliance Infocomm to offer access to its
Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF) through Reliance's nationwide
chain of 240 WebWorlds spread across 105 cities. With over 80 stations and 2,000
in-house specialists and super-specialists, this integrated multi speciality
telemedicine system, is the country's largest such network offering
high-quality healthcare. “By combining Reliance's 240 WebWorlds and
Apollo's 80 Telemedicine  Stations,
we have created a network few in the world can match. It has marked the
beginning of a new era in Indian healthcare,” boasted Dr Prathap C Reddy,
Chairman, Apollo Group of Hospitals.

The services offered by the Apollo-Reliance combine include
tele-consultation with specialists and super-specialists at Apollo Hospitals,
second opinion services relating to the diagnosis and management of a variety of
clinical conditions, specialist review of investigation reports such as ECG and
Echocardiography as well as seeking online appointment with doctors across the
Apollo Hospitals Network through Apolloedoc. Under the arrangement, people
living in areas devoid of high-class medical services could now go to the
nearest WebWorld and submit their medical histories and diagnostic reports that
are in turn digitized and transmitted over Reliance broadband network to
Apollo's centralized telemedicine portal. Subsequently, the patient is
provided consultation with specialists by videoconferencing at the WebWorld and
the expert opinion recorded in the Apollo Telemedicine portal and a printout
handed out.

OMNI Edge for Bajaj Allianz

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance (BAGIC) has derived significant competitive
edge in a fiercely fought marketplace by deploying the OMNI product suite from
Newgen, the Delhi-based worflow and document management product vendor. The
solutions rolled out included OmniDocs, OmniCapture as well as Remote Image
Servers (RIS) that allows BAGIC to get a view of documents online through its
core claims processing framework called Opus. This has resulted in one of the
fastest settlement of customer claims in BAGIC amongst any general insurance
companies in India, leading to the adoption of OmniDocs as a standard OEM
offering to all other Allianz sites in Eastern Europe.

OmniCapture, installed in all BAGIC branches, is used to
scan and upload documents. The uploaded documents are then archived
systematically in OmniDocs, and viewed securely through the Opus screens.
OmniDocs has been ported into the Oracle Application server and integrated as a
Web Service to Opus, thereby ensuring seamless user experience. RIS, installed
at all branches, help in caching documents locally, thus ensuring conservation
of bandwidth. Subsequent to the deployment OmniDocs and OmniCapture, BAGIC had
also gone for OmniReports and OmniExtract, thereby adopting Newgen's
end-to-end BPM solution. This solution currently supports 200 BAGIC users
concurrently working from different locations.  

BHEL Networks with Cisco

Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) invested nearly Rs 5 crore in a campus wide
connectivity project at its manufacturing unit in Trichy. The BHEL Trichy campus
(spread across 2,908 acres of land) ranks as one of the foremost manufacturing
facilities within the Indian power plant equipment market. Cisco was selected as
the infrastructure provider as well as the consultant for the project after a
competitive bidding process; it was particularly significant for the networking
vendor, being its single largest switching order within the manufacturing
vertical in the Asia Pacific region. With other BHEL units having already
deployed Cisco products, the Trichy implementation was another feather in
Cisco's cap.

The solution provided was a comprehensive integrated
network based on a 10 GB backbone. It included five core switches, seven
distribution switches, and a total of 152 Edge switches deployed throughout the
campus. Informed KV Seetharaman, Head-Informatics Centre, BHEL-Trichy, while
commenting on the deployment, “The existing network backbone in BHEL Trichy
was on ATM (OC3) technology that was deployed in the late 90s. The network
expanded in stages and products of different manufacturers have been deployed
during the expansions. To keep in pace with the latest technology, BHEL is going
in for 10 Gig backbone now.”

BHW Birla Homes in on FinnOne

BHW Birla Home Finance, a fully owned subsidiary of BHW Holding AG of
Germany and one of the fastest growing housing finance entities in India, has
implemented FinnOne, an end-to-end, housing finance solution from Nucleus
Software, across its 42 offices plus its satellite reach within India. The
FinnOne suite comprising of Loan Origination Systems (LOS), lending,
collections, general ledger and deposits offered BHW Birla a comprehensive
business solution for its pan-India operations in the housing finance space. The
deal also marked Nucleus' foray into the non-banking housing finance industry
in India.

After evaluation by PwC and Birla Home Finance, BHW Birla
opted for FinnOne influenced by factors such as product fitment, comprehensive
functionality, end-to-end solution offering, and number of implementations
across the globe and adherence to global standards. Built on the scalable Oracle
platform, FinnOne replaced the existing in-house developed software called
'ILMS' and was deployed in one single phase but across two separate OS.
Elaborated Martin Mueller, executive director, Birla BHW Home Finance, “In
Windows, the FinnOne solution is residing on the Application Server and in case
of UNIX it is residing on the Database Server. It interfaces with our deposits
software and initially, it has been implemented among at least 100 active
users.”

A Fillip for Delhi Tourism

The Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC)
launched Delhi Tourism portal, a multilingual interactive e-governance site,
with easily accessible information available in four different languages.
Developed using the Web portal solution from Cincom Systems, the site today
serves as a major hub for all DTTDC e-Commerce activities. Intended to attract
both foreign and domestic travelers, the site's implementation is a major step
for the Delhi government toward IT governance and to promote Delhi as a tourist
destination all over the world in preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

 

Asserted Ramesh Negi, managing director, DTTDC, “We
wanted to position Delhi as the unmatched destination that has captured classic
modernity with an enamoring past, and at the same time, promote Delhi tourism as
a friend that one can rely on. Cincom's proven experience and the ability to
provide superior results in lesser time has now made this goal attainable in the
near future.” The Web portal solution has also opened up a new
revenue-generating channel for DTTDC. It also helps supporting both domestic as
well as international travelers.

Escorted by CA Solutions

Escorts Agri Machinery, a pioneer in agricultural and farm equipment
manufacturing in India since 1965, selected CA's Unicenter Network and Systems
Management (NSM) to ensure flawless functioning of the Escorts Network
Management system. The Unicenter NSM has helped Escorts with easy and proactive
management of network links and bandwidth, besides speedy restoration of links
and other network outages. Besides NSM, it was essential for Escorts to have a
proven data backup solution and a fool proof security platform in place;
precisely the reason why the company also went for the BrightStor ArcServe
Backup and eTrust Secure Content Manager.

Explained RK Jain, DGM-IT, Escorts AMG, “Our field
executives access all sorts of data and this called for a cautious security
policy. Tremendous amount of virus attacks also called for greater vigilance.
There were circumstances in which security has been compromised at Escorts AMG
and that was the reason why we decided to go in for an anti-virus solution.”
Some of the other benefits Escorts has derived by using CA solutions include
being able to adhere to the backup policies and major savings in time and the
integrity of the data. Another highlight for the company has been improvement in
the bandwidth usage with the non-productive usage of bandwidth being brought
under control. This tool has both reduced pressure on the IT team and has also
saved money on bandwidth.

Canara Bank Opens up to Linux

Canara Bank selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux as its platform of choice to
automate more than 1,000 of its branches across the country. Under the roll out
of Total Branch Automation (TBA) initiative, the bank is modernizing branch
automation through an in-house developed TBA package. This package has been
ported to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform by the Canara Bank subsidiary,
CanBank Computer Services. This incidentally marked the largest roll out of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the Indian BFSI vertical till date.

RHEL is being deployed on more than 1,000 servers and
10,000 desktops at Canara Bank to power the bank's business critical IT
infrastructure. Under the first phase of deployment, roll out took place at
approximately 500 branches in a record time of three months. Close to 500 Red
Hat Enterprise Linux servers and 5000 Red Hat Desktops were deployed in this
phase. As part of its vision to introduce total automation into its banking
services environment, Canara Bank is now actively pursuing deployment in
additional branches as well. Red Hat has also provided training and help desk
services to Canara Bank for deployment and sustenance of the project over a long
term.

Retail's Rural Champion

Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, one of the country's first rural retail
initiatives by DCM Shriram Consolidated (DSCL), has created a retail solution in
partnership SAP and Polaris. The initiative, named Project e-STARR (Systems and
Technology in Agri and Rural Retail) offered a retail solution that helps
Hariyali serve the rural customers better, while creating a strong
infrastructure for operations spread over multiple locations. The SAP solutions,
IS- Retail and SAP Retail Store, were implemented by Polaris, who integrated it
with the Polaris POS and Agri Service modules.

Harping on the benefits of e-STARR, Ajay Shriram, chairman
and Sr MD, DCM Shriram described it as a path breaking initiative of DSCL, which
is set to invigorate the industry's collaboration with the Indian farming
community. “DSCL has been at the forefront of adopting IT for business benefit
and improving customer satisfaction, and we believe that adoption of this
technology by Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar would will further allow benefits of
technology and innovation to percolate into the rural sectors as well,” he
added.

Weaving Magic at HDFC

The selection of Interwoven's Web Content Management (WCM) solution and
Content Distribution (CD) software by HDFC Bank has enabled the bank to enhance
customer experience, reduce operational costs and streamline compliance
processes related to its public-facing website. WCM has empowered relevant
business users across the organization to directly contribute, edit, and
maintain content on the Web, without assistance from the IT team. Further, by
leveraging the CD software, HDFC Bank has ensured that all Web content updates
are automatically deployed in a consistent and timely manner across its website.

The solutions have allowed the bank to free its IT
department to focus on other business-critical issues, for which they are
specialized to handle, thereby improving overall operational efficiency and
reducing IT costs. Informed Ajay Kelkar, head of marketing, HDFC Bank,
“Marketing promotions could not be updated in a timely manner across our Web
site, hindering time-to-market for new products, which often translated into
revenue losses. Inconsistency in branding across the site also meant that
customers were not receiving the best possible experience on our site, and this
needed to change quickly if we were going to continue strengthening our
leadership position in the market.” The woven solutions have helped HDFC to
meet these challenges by automating Web content publishing and enhancing search
functionality with robust and integrated metadata technology.

Indian's Global e-Ticketing Foray

Indian Airlines, recently re-christened as Indian, has partnered with
Amadeus to implement the first electronic ticketing solution in India with a
global reach. The national airline would be implementing the Amadeus Electronic
Ticket Server (ETS) to fully manage and distribute electronic tickets, including
interlining. The agreement is in relationship with IBM, who is undertaking the
upgradation of processes and systems at Indian to IATA e-ticketing standards.
The contract also reinforced Amadeus' position in the Indian subcontinent as
the e-ticketing leader, in terms of IT provision as well as e-ticket
distribution.

“Indian has moved a step forward and will offer e-tickets
by the end of this year,” asserted Anil Goyal, director-commercial, for the
airline, which expects to become fully compliant with IATA's objective to
achieve 100% paper-less air travel by end 2007. In addition to drastically
cutting Indian's ticketing costs, Amadeus ETS would help the carrier increase
operational efficiency and aid travel agents by reducing the workload associated
with the issuing, storage and distribution of traditional tickets. A stand-alone
solution, Amadeus ETS would seamlessly integrate into Indian's reservations
and departure control systems, enabling the carrier to interline efficiently
with 117 airlines across the world who are already part of the Amadeus
e-ticketing community, as well as with others on demand.

ING Vysya Goes on Filenet Lifeline

With the aim to become the top player in the life insurance space in India,
ING Vysya Life Insurance recently selected FileNet's ECM solution to help in
the management of content throughout the enterprise for the life insurance and
new business applications.

The solution was designed and an enterprise infrastructure
developed for ING Vysya Life by Datamatics Technologies on the FileNet P8
Platform. ING Vysya can now control processes better and achieve faster turn
around time with automated data entry in the core System, as well as image-based
processing. 

As ING Vysya Life increased in size, process
standardization became a significant task and it was imperative to implement a
solution that would help the company maintain its focus on its core business.
FileNet's integrated offering made it easier for ING Vysya to scan, index and
store documents-including proposal forms, age proofs, checklists, tax returns,
and medical reports-in a highly flexible and secure environment. As the
documents are stored online, they can be easily accessed and shared among users.
Agreed KR Subramanian, COO, ING Vysya Life, “The solution has helped us to
reduce operational costs with greater efficiency in the processing of a variety
of documents.” It has also realized benefits in the efficiency of handling
escalations, priority cases, and customer satisfaction.

XLRI MBA Through Videoconferencing

Jamshedpur-based XLRI, one of India's premier management institutes, tied
up with Reliance WebWorld to launch the Post-Graduate Certificate in Logistics
Supply Chain Management (PGCLSCM) program on a virtual classroom platform.

Father N Casimir Raj SJ, director, XLRI Jamshedpur, sounded
upbeat. “Our tie-up with WebWorld to offer the PGCLSCM on the real broadband
platform is taking the management training expertise of our faculty to several
virtual classrooms across India.” The professors use the WebWorld's
state-of—the-art video conferencing facility to reach out to the student
community across locations on a real time basis. Students can not only see and
hear the professor live, they can also interact with the professor and fellow
students at other locations. Those who missed the lecture can later catch up
with the video recording on-demand at the WebWorlds.

Infinite Power for Kanpur

Kanpur Electricity Supply Company (KESCO), the supplier of electricity and
power to the entire Kanpur zone in Uttar Pradesh, appointed Infinite Computer
Solutions to deliver a slew of integrated IT solutions to improve its
operational efficiency and customer responsiveness. The program, to be completed
in 12 months, comprised multiple projects such as GIS Based Consumer Indexing,
Energy Audit, and Accounting System (EAAS), Trouble Call Management System (TCMS),
Integrated Metering, Billing and Cash Collection with Online Payment update.
Infinite would also help KESCO achieve complete networking, covering interfaces
with Intranet and Internet with firewall protection, Web Server based Consumer
Information System, MIS and Decision Support System.

In one of the largest e-governance projects in the power
sector in India, the solutions would help KESCO improve its Billing and MIS
Processes, service delivery, and quality to help productivity enhancements along
with the reduction of Distribution Transformer wise/Feeder wise losses. Infinite
is currently executing the project of computerized billing and consumer indexing
of approximately 4.15 lakh consumers, which would help KESCO in improvising its
billing system and setting up of electricity call centers as a step towards
increasing its customer interface. Confirmed SN Bajpai, AGM Commercial, KESCO,
“Infinite's robust practices and domain expertise in power utilities would
help KESCO to make right use of IT to implement changes in delivering more value
to the public.”

Foundry Networks at Syntel's New Campus

Syntel, one of the globally leading offshore services vendors, selected
Foundry Network's high-performance switching and routing solutions to power
its entire new Global Development Center (GDC) in Pune. The BigIron RX,
high-performance 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE) Terabit Routing Switches, now
powers the network core at Syntel's new campus making it the industry's
first 100 Gigabit ready switch with 10-GbE port density. Foundry Networks was
selected for Syntel's network infrastructure because of its ability to deliver
low latency, reliable and scalable solutions, and for Foundry's proven track
record at Syntel's other GDC in Chennai.

Foundry's FastIron WLAN POE Switches and IronPoint access
points were deployed throughout Syntel's campus to provide high-speed,
easy-to-manage and secure wireless LAN services. The entire network was designed
with highly available, resilient and redundant features to provide non-stop
operations. Foundry's ASIC based sFlow implementation provided Syntel with
advanced network monitoring, network auditing and intrusion detection
capabilities. Elaborated Sajid Ahmed, Global Head-Infrastructure, at Syntel,
“Network reliability and scalability are critical not only to Syntel, but to
our Fortune 500 clients who we serve through our global development centers.
Foundry not only won the price and features comparison against other vendors but
also prevailed in reducing the total cost of ownership as well as
future-proofing Syntel's network investment.” 

Suguna Hatches Oracle Strategy

One of India's leading poultry companies, Suguna Poultry Farm, deployed
Oracle Applications at nine of its divisions across seven states in the country.
The implementation by IBM Business Consulting Services was the first of its kind
in the Indian poultry farming sector and involved Suguna's corporate office,
seven regional offices and 74 branch offices, six grandparent poultry farms, 126
breeder farms, 35 hatcheries, 10,000 broiler farms, 30 feed mills and five
transportation offices. On completion, the Oracle Applications based technology
solution would support Suguna's entire integrated poultry business from the
management of the poultry breeding process right up to the packaging and
marketing of the end product.

 The Oracle
Applications modules deployed at Suguna included ERP, Advanced Pricing,
Enterprise Asset Management, Self Service Work Request, Incentive Compensation,
Advanced Supply Chain Planning and Constraint Based Optimization. This
pioneering infrastructure was implemented using the advanced partitioning and
virtualization feature available on IBM Power5 servers. Quipped Bsoundararajan,
MD, Suguna Poultry Farms, “As pioneers in integrated poultry farming in India
with 10,000 farmers from 270 business locations feeding into our supply chain,
IT has always been an integral part of our growth plans. With the assistance of
IBM and Oracle E-business suite we would be better positioned to support our
current and future growth.”

Nestle's Local DMS Goes Global

Nestle Globe implemented CD Sprint-a Distributor Management Software (DMS)
for a majority of its distributors across three continents of Asia, Oceania and
Africa (AOA). Incidentally, the application purchased from Botree Software, was
already being used by Nestle India for its local operations for the last six
years under the brand name Nesprint. Since it was already running live at 700+
sites for the last six years, Nestle short-listed and selected CD Sprint amongst
all other DMS packages for this global initiative.

As a Distributor Management System, Nesprint functioned
similar to an ERP for small distributors/stockists giving total control over
business operations to small trading partners who worked for Nestle. It recorded
all information on purchases, inventory transactions, promotions, claims, and
sales and also came with a built-in financial module. With the implementation of
this software globally, Nestle would benefit from uniformity in reporting,
allowing the company to talk the same language to all its distributors, pan Zone
AOA and get a consistent reply from each of them. In India, the solution
included a Web and PDA-based version that too were available to all of
Nestle's field representatives.

Toons Go Mobile

Capitalizing on the expanding wireless and emerging technologies business in
India and to further extend its brand presence, Turner International India
entered into a strategic tie-up with Mobile2win, one of the country's leading
wireless services providers. As part of this venture, Mobile2win India provides
interactive wireless solutions for popular Turner International India channels,
namely CNN, Cartoon Network, and Pogo. It has also announced 8558 as the new
short code for all three channels.

The popular shows and characters of Cartoon Network and
Pogo are now available on the small screen in a variety of genres, while CNN
viewers can enter SMS contests as well. Earlier kids also participated in SMS
contests developed for Pogo's fourth original production Bam! Bam! Bam! Gir
Pade Hum... and Pogo Amazing Kids Awards 2005, via the new short code 8558.
Cartoon Network's signature event, Toon Cricket 2005 also added mobile
interactivity to their promotional plans.  Going
forward, mobile2win would also create a WAP site for the Turner group, to
showcase the rich content of Cartoon Network, Pogo, and CNN that would be
available for download. “With the exponential growth of mobile users in India,
wireless activity integrated with television is an exciting medium of increasing
viewership,” felt Anshuman Misra, managing director, Turner International
India.

IT's Healing Touch at Wockhardt

Wockhardt, one of India's premier pharma and healthcare companies,
implemented the HIRePS (Hospital Information Resource Planning System) Hospital
Information System (HIS) across its hospitals thereby significantly enhancing
patient and employee satisfaction. Developed and deployed by Wipro Healthcare
IT, this HIS is based on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft SQL Server
2000, and integrates with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 to send automatic
reports and alerts to the relevant people. The solution was designed to
integrate both the inpatient and outpatient departments. This ensured that
required departments had access to requisite patient information thus helping
reduce the time taken to process patient needs.

No wonder, therefore, that HIRePS has helped Wockhardt
substantially improve patient and employee experience, reduce waiting time and
improve inventory management and billing. Agreed Lloyd Nazareth, general
manager, Wockhardt Hospitals, “Wipro's Hospital Information System helps run
the Wockhardt Hospitals in efficient and cost-effective manner. The HIS system
puts clinical and financial information at our fingertips, helping doctors and
administrators in critical decision making. The improved efficiency has
obviously resulted in a better experience for the patients as well.” Wockhardt
Hospitals collaborated with Harvard Medical International (HMI) in the solution
evaluation process when HIRePS was selected. The HIS system had interfaces to
laboratory equipment, telephone exchange, mobile phones and pagers, attendance
recording system, and financial accounting systems; and included 36 modules,
including various inpatient and outpatient management and patient record
management modules.

ATM Outsourcing by PSU Banks

Two leading public sector banks, Bank of Maharashtra and Vijaya Bank, have
outsourced the deployment and management of their network of 525 ATMs across
India to Financial Software & Systems (FSS). The two contracts together for
both the banks are valued at Rs 110 crore. While Bank of Maharashtra opted for
the outsourced model for the ATMs over a five-year period, Vijaya Bank preferred
the owned ATM model, with the contract for ATM managed services for eight years.

In the outsourced ATM model for Bank of Maharashtra, the
ATMs and the related services are outsourced to FSS, whereas in the owned ATM
model, the ATMs are owned by Vijaya bank, and the services are outsourced to FSS.
The ATM outsourcing contracts included comprehensive maintenance, network
monitoring, site security, cash forecasting and replenishment, as well as help
desk, reconciliation and settlement services. FSS would install ATMs and all
related equipments at the sites selected by the banks and drive the ATMs from
FSS centre in Chennai with back office support and disaster recovery support
from Mumbai. Services provided included online transaction authorization, ATM
and Debit card management functions, interchange support, transaction reporting
and back office functions.

SCADA Support for ONGC

ONGC awarded a Rs 430 crore contract to ABB India to provide an enterprise
wide Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system for its production
and drilling facilities. The turnkey project, to be completed by 2007 end, would
involve site survey, system design, engineering, supply, installation and
commissioning of an integrated three-tier SCADA system. The contract also
included a six-year post warranty Annual Maintenance Services agreement with
ABB.

Some of the key benefits expected of the SCADA system would
include reduction in time, effort and cost of integration, enhanced reliability
and scalability, monitoring and control of assets across locations and improved
efficiency in operations. The system would enable ONGC to integrate its basins,
plants, forward base and other assets to the corporate data center, facilitating
'anytime-anywhere' access to data and real-time performance management. It
would also improve the performance and efficiency of ONGC's onshore and
offshore facilities. The oil and gas industry spans a long process chain-from
exploration and drilling to consumer delivery, making it critical for companies
to plan, manage and optimize their assets. SCADA would enable ONGC to monitor,
control and manage vital data across locations and enable faster
decision-making.

Pathways Scripts IT Destiny

Pathways World School, a International Baccalaureate School in Northern
India, installed Library Management Software called “Destiny” at a cost of
Rs 2.5 lakh. Developed by US based Follett Software, Destiny is designed to
simplify handling of library with its highly flexible features. To sustain the
Destiny implementation, the network architecture was put in place at Pathways by
Cisco with a bandwidth around 512 kbps. A Wi-Fi network was also put in place
and laptops with Windows OS provided to the students.

Informed Prashant Jain, director, Pathways World School,
“Installing the advanced Library Management Software Destiny has made our
library more efficient and user friendly. Moreover, it has saved a lot of manual
work and worry.” Destiny integrated key library automation functions such as
circulation, searching, reporting and inventory management. It also offered
catalog functions, which enabled students and staff to search the entire media
collection from anywhere in the school and reserve it. The librarian needed to
scan the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) into the software and
subsequently, it immediately pulled out records of the book from the Follett
database and various servers across the world. In Destiny, online public access
catalogue is connected to the Web. So any student can access the library
catalogue from anywhere and check the availability of the book and can then
reserve the same for him.

Valvoline Adopts SAP Standardization

Valvoline Cummins, a 50:50 JV between Valvoline International, part of
Ashland, and Cummins Diesel Sales & Service and a leading manufacturer and
distributor of lubricants (oils and greases), filters, specialty chemicals and
car care products, implemented SAP for its operations in India. As a part of its
worldwide initiative, Ashland was implementing SAP under the 'GlobalOne'
project to improve overall efficiency and productivity of its operations in the
US and other countries. It was the intention of Valvoline Cummins to implement
SAP (version same as that of GlobalOne project) for operations in India and
eventually become a part of GlobalOne project. Additionally, Valvoline Cummins
intended to have a system in place for supporting corporate governance.

Satyam acted as a strategic partner to Valvoline Cummins to
implement SAP and create an integrated solution that could efficiently carry out
its business processes. Valvoline Cummins implemented SAP R/3 which included
finance & accounts and localization, costing and controlling among others.
Naveen Gupta, Managing Director, Valvoline Cummins lauded Satyam as an
implementation partner. “Satyam demonstrated an exceptional track record of
implementing SAP based Applications and system integrations in the manufacturing
domain. We are optimistic about a sustained and fruitful relationship with
Satyam in the years to come.”

A SATHI For the Indian Army

The Indian Army became the first military in the world to use the open
source OS to power its handheld computers called Situational Awareness and
Tactical Handheld Information (SATHI). Jointly produced by Encore Software in
collaboration with the Indian Army, SATHI is powered entirely by Linux. The
product was initially named Baaz and tested and deployed for counter insurgency
operations in Jammu & Kashmir, following which it was inducted in mechanized
warfare and infantry operations.

SATHI is powered by the 2.4.18 GNU/Linux kernel, and
keeping in mind the sensitive nature of its operations, it is not a standard
distribution. It has been specially ported to run on a 400 Mhz ARM RISC
processor with 128 MB RAM and 96 MB flash. It runs on a 128-bit encrypted (DES)
standard, capable of withstanding temperatures between -20 C to +70 C, with a
range of 5 km, an inbuilt RF modem, and a GPS receiver-all with 24 hours of
battery life and weighing just 875 grams. A software called GIPSY converts GIS
maps into a readable format for SATHI. As part of an initial development
contract, 120 SATHIs have been delivered to the Indian Army. The army collects
military reports from various SATHIs to channel them into a command center that
allows the battalion commander to visually see the battle ground from a remote
position. The command center runs a combination of Red Hat 9.0 and Fedora Core
2.

Bangalore's SAP Makeover

The much maligned Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the planning
authority for Bangalore metropolitan area deployed SAP solutions to automate and
integrate its processes across various departments. HCL was chosen as the
implementation partner to design, develop, implement and support the integrated
management information system. This was part of BDA's Comprehensive
Development Plan (CDP) for the Bangalore Metropolitan area.

Claimed M N Vidyashankar, Commissioner, BDA, “The
e-governance project, first of its kind in the country, would integrate the
numerous processes and also bring the various divisions on to a common platform,
enabling a single-window view for clearance and information updation.” Even
the Online Complaint Management System (OCMS) of BDA has laid the foundation for
effective partnership between government and citizens in Bangalore, which
enables them to participate constructively in the e-governance process.
Vidyashankar believed that the SAP solution would further empower senior
officials to take right decisions at the right time with ease thereby optimizing
on resources reducing, reaction time and enhancing efficiency.”

NGO's Telemedicine Dream Turns Real

Byrraju Foundation, an NGO, has launched telemedicine services in ten
villages in Andhra Pradesh which now have a last mile robust connectivity. Over
the next three months, the service will be rolled out to 150 villages across the
state. The service is based on Satyam's web-enabled healthcare platform which
is built on Oracle's Healthcare Transaction Base (Oracle-HTB). Oracle has
provided this software free of cost to Byrraju.

The phase I implementation of the solution would enable
registering and searching patients and their records, their primary health
details and tracking primary health prescriptions in the areas of infant
vaccination, maternal care, hypertension, and school health. In phase II, the
solution would extend its coverage to areas like dental and eye care, epilepsy,
cancer detection, and health insurance. By using Oracle HTB, Satyam ensured that
the entire system would comply with the industry required HL7 compliance (Health
Level 7). HL 7 is the industry standard for the exchange of clinical data in the
hospital environment. Commented PK Madhav, lead partner, Byrraju Foundation,
while speaking on the planned implementation, “ It is a great opportunity for
us to help save lives in remote areas with a world-class technology backed
health solution. We are glad that Satyam and Oracle have helped us in this noble
cause, with an effective system with which we can track and manage the health of
thousands of people.”

Reliance Connects its Petrol Pumps

Reliance Industries connected 1000 of its retail petroleum outlets across
the country through DiRECWAY 7700 platform, a two-way satellite broadband
solution from HECL. The deal valued at Rs 8 crores involved Hughes installing a
technology backbone for all of Reliance petroleum outlets in a phased manner,
connecting 3000 outlets by end of 2006.

Reliance became the first customer to use this in India
that would run all its applications on a single infrastructure. These
applications included tank monitoring, sales management, credit access, back
office applications, POS services and value added services like Wi-Fi access,
multicasting, package delivery and internet access. Hughes would build, manage
and provide on ground support for all these services. Hughes would enable
turnkey networking solutions encompassing network design, data center services,
security infrastructure, VPN services, systems integration, facility management
of network components and a 24X7 network management services for the connected
outlets.

Andhra Bank Goes Mobile on ATMs

Andhra Bank became one of the first banks to introduce the mobile ATM in the
country. Licensed by Reserve Bank of India, the bank would ply the ATMobile
initially at Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts in Andhra Pradesh. The ATMs
would provide services like balance enquiry, cash withdrawal, mini statement,
funds transfer, cash against credit cards, utility payments and mobile recharge,
and wou