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It was a Glitzy Night

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DQI Bureau
New Update

The crowning glory of the film world has been the annual Academy Awards,
popularly known as the Oscars. Closer home, Bollywood has its Filmfare awards
night. And notwithstanding several clones that have cropped up over the years,
these awards still symbolize the epitome of excellence in their respective
fields. Ditto is the case with the Dataquest IT Person of the Year award.

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Now in the sixteenth year of its highly celebrated existence, the Dataquest
IT Person of the Year has become the benchmark for excellence in IT. It has
elicited tremendous response and participation from the IT fraternity (and even
associated domains) and the awards ceremony has always been awash well attended
by the whos who of the industry. The scenario was no different in this years
function held recently in a plush South Delhi hotel.

The Winners Gallery: The only event in the Indian IT
fraternity that boasts of so many luminaries at once on the stage

The Best e-Governed State of India award went to the NCT of Delhi. Chief
Minister Sheila Dikshit received the award from Wajahat Habibullah, chief
information commissioner and Dataquest publisher and CyberMedia group chairman
Pradeep Gupta. Delhi got the award for setting up a series of citizen centric
services.

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Delhites were the most satisfied with e-governance initiatives as Delhi
topped nine of the fourteen parameters in this category, according to a survey
conducted by IDC India for Dataquest. Delhi spent Rs 10,982 for every citizen on
building its IT infrastructure and maintaining citizen-centric IT applications.

Jab We Met: The luminaries of the evening exchange
pleasantries, while being welcomed by the hosts		 Lighting the Lamp: Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit and chief
information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah complete the honors

Lakshmi Narayanan, vice chairman of Cognizant Technology Solutions was
presented with corporate Indias prestigious Dataquest IT Person of the Year
award 2008, for his stellar role in leading and growing Cognizant Technologies.

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Cant Stop Laughing: Dataquest group editor Ibrahim Ahmed
chatting up with some guests		 No More Stiff Upper Lip: British High Commissioner Sir
Richard Stagg believes IT has brought India and UK even closer

In a glittering ceremony in the presence of leaders from all sections of the
IT industry, AjaiChowdhry, chairman and CEO of HCL Infosystems (winner of last
years Dataquest IT Person of the Year award) and Pradeep Gupta, presented the
award to Lakshmi Narayanan.

The coveted Lifetime Achievement Award was bequeathed on to Dr DB Phatak,
the Subharao M Nilekani chair professor and head of IIT Bombay-based Kanwal
Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT) for making an indelible mark on
the Indian IT industry. He inspired a whole generation of young students, who
have in turn transformed into big thought leaders.

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ITs a Habit: Vijay Thadani of NIIT accepts the best IT
trainer award, again, from Pradeep Gupta		 I am the Best: Genpact chief Pramod Bhasin accepts the newly
constituted best BPO award from Nasscoms Som Mittal

The awards jury also acknowledged the leadership provided by Narayanan to
Nasscom, Indias largest IT industry body. He was the chairman of Nasscom in
2007 where he played an important role in bridging the gap between industry and
academia, and worked towards forging closer ties between them.

Roster of
Champions
  • Top Systems Company

    Award: Hewlett-Packard

HP emerged as the clear leader in almost all categories of computer
systems: desktops, commercial as well as consumer; notebooks; and servers,
both x86 and non x-86 categories.

  • Top Networking Company

    Award: Cisco Systems

Cisco dominates the networking equipment market in India, with 80% share.
It retained lead in the key segments of routers and switches, with over 75%
share in each, and also WLAN products.

  • Top Training Company

    Award: NIIT

NIIT has been the training leader from the beginning, retaining 35% share
of a rather fragmented marketwith training revenues of over Rs 900 crore,
growing at 27%. It also completed a decade in China, where it is growing
consistently.

  • Top Growth Company: SAP India

SAPs global headquarters declared the India operation its Jewel in the
Crown, for being the fastest growing subsidiarygrowing 84% in the last
year to over $800 mn.

  • Top IT Company & Top Exporter: TCS

TCS topped this category again, growing 22% to over $5 bn in revenues,
and growing beyond one lakh employees. It also diversified, with 45%
business coming from outside North America. It also struck a $1.5 bn deal
with Nielsen, the largest in offshoring history.

  • Top Services Company (India Market) Award: IBM India

IBM increased the gap between itself and the #2 in strategic outsourcing,
winning Vodafone as a customer, after Airtel and Idea. It also built up
momentum on its SMB strategy, doubling its customers to 27.

  • Top BPO Company: Genpact

Genpact continued its strategy of focusing on large clients and growing
these accounts, and managed to nearly double its non-GE business. It also
got listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007.

  • Top Distribution Company: Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro grew well, crossing $2 bn in India, and adding new
principals such as VMWare, Business Objects, and Hitachi; it also managed to
grow its PC business by 30%.

  • Top Software Company

    Award: Microsoft

Microsoft led this category and grew 25%, despite pressure from piracy
and open source, helped by Vista, which crossed 2 mn unit sales. During the
year, 35 mobile phone models in India adopted the Windows mobile platform.

  • Top T-School Award: IIT Kharagpur

IIT-Kharagpur drew the maximum IT and BPO companies as recruiters, and
was clearly ahead of other institutes including IITS, in the average salary
drawn through campus placements.

  • Top Imaging and Printing: Hewlett-Packard

HP remained the market leader in imaging and printing, with the fight on
for the number two slot. It topped the inkjet market with over 67% revenue
share, and laser printers with over 76% share.

  • Top IT Employer: iGATE

iGATE was the best employer as per the DQ-IDC Best Employer Survey 2008,
continuing its run from last year, where it jumped 36 places to reach the
3rd position. It scored high on company image, culture, content, and
training.

  • Top BPO Employer: vCustomer

vCustomer emerged as the top BPO company in the BPO-Employee Satisfaction
2008 survey, because of its employee empowerment agenda and sharp drop in
attrition. It focused on bringing behavioral changes and skills enhancement
through training, and took performance management completely online.
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Building on Cognizants strengths in human resources, technology expertise
and state-of-the-art delivery centers, Narayanan grew the company three-fold in
his three years as the CEO. Cognizant, the first IT services company to be
inducted in NASDAQ 100 is a Fortune 1000 company.

Person of the Baton: Lakshmi Narayanan of Cognizant receives
the IT Man award from last years winner Ajai Chowdhry, and Pradeep Gupta

Pathbreaker of the Year 2008 award was presented to Sanjeev Bikhchandani of
Naukri.com The young entrepreneur, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, has established a
successful online business model and created an unmatched mindshare among web
users looking for jobs. Having founded Naukri.com about 10 years ago, the
companys new properties include jeevansaathi.com and 99acres.com. In addition
to building a great global brand, Bikhchandani has been able to create, retain
and maintain a great team.

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The Best Among the Best: Prof BK Mathur accepts the best
T-School award for IIT Kharagpur from Kiran Karnik		 Maintaining Satisfaction: Navin Joshua and Neeloy Sarkar of
vCustomer retain the best HR performer among BPOs for the second year
running
The Dream Merchant: Naukris Sanjeev Bikchandani is indeed
one for which he receives the Pathbreaker award from Wajahat Habibullah and
MakeMyTrips Deep Kalra		 The Educationist: IIT Bombays Prof Deepak Phatak accepts
the Lifetime Achievement award from Oracles Krishan Dhawan and TIEs
Saurabh Srivastava

A dozen more awards were given to the top manufacturers and service providers
in the industry. Speaking on the impact of the global meltdown on Indias
information technology industry Pradeep Gupta, chairman of CyberMedia said, The
current financial crisis presents an opportunity for Indian services providers
to grow their market share across sectors and geographies.

Is RTI on Track: That seems to be everybodys moot question
for Wajahat Habibullah
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I am confident that the entrepreneurs will use this opportunity to sharpen
their offerings by leveraging technological strengths and abundant manpower
pool, added Gupta.

The Dataquest annual awards, now in its 16th year, have honored IT leaders
like N Vittal, Ashok Soota, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, Rajendra Pawar, Kiran
Karnik and S Ramadorai, among others over the years.

The Scent of Green: It not only looks and feels good, green
smells good too		 Can You Make My Trip? That seems to be the question for
MakeMyTrips Deep Kalra

Speaking on the occasion, Dataquest chief editor Prasanto K Roy said, The
awards reflect the highlight of the year gone by, a trend that continues in
2008-09: the rise of the domestic market and the technology industry. Indian
market growth overtook exports growth for the first time in a decade, and with
the global recession, the home market is going to be even more interesting for
every technology player.

The Show is On: Guests watch as one of the award winners
walks toward the stage

There is also this large untapped market for services companies, both in
India and abroada long tail of companies and processesthat do not outsource
yet but may now be forced to look outside to reduce costs, he added.

Team DQ

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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