The DQ 111-126

Texas Instruments India

The revenues of Texas Instruments India do not tell the whole story as it
includes only India direct salesto the tune of Rs 163 croreand the offshore
revenue estimated by Dataquest on the basis of manpower. On both accounts, it
actually does better. India not being a big manufacturing base, not much sales
happen directly here even though mobile phones contain TI chips. On the offshore
front, the value of patents filed from India does not reflect in this revenue.

NCR India

It was an action packed year for NCR globally, with key joinings, increased
channel focus, new solutions and plenty of deals. One expected the emphasis on
channel approach to trickle down to India too, though there was no immediate
excitement on that front during the year. It did have some significant wins.
HDFC renewed its contract to manage 2,000 ATMs and placed an order for 300 new
ATMs. As part of Indias financial inclusion program, NCR inked a five-year deal
with FINO to roll out 30,000 micro deposit machines. Axis Bank too deployed 400
new ATMs.

R Systems International

After some heady M&A activities the previous fiscal, R Systems International
got down to consolidation in FY 09. The companys two mainstay revenue
segments, software development and customization services as well BPO were under
duress, especially in North America. The US contribution came down from 70% to
55%; however, its European operations firmed up from 11% to 28%, thanks to its
acquired entities. Client spread too became more secular as the top five
dependence dropped by nearly five points.

NetApp India

Few key areas that NetApp identified and channelized its efforts to grow
included IP SAN (iSCSI), virtualization and dynamic data centers. The idea was
to change the perception from just being a NAS player. Some big wins included
Tata Communications, WNS, Aviva, Adobe Systems, and Tech Mahindra, among its
sixty new clients. Government was identified as a hot verticalthe Airport
Authority projects at Mumbai and Amritsar, and the one at ISRO were key wins.
The arrival of Rajesh Janey from EMC signaled stronger channel focus for NetApp.

Prime Focus

Even as it continued its strong performance in Bollywood, working on films
like Ghajini and Chandini Chowk to China, Prime Focus broadened its exposure in
the US and the UK market. Though the VFX and animation business in Bollywood
underwent a slowdown due to reasons like some of the majors films flopping, and
strike between producers and multiplex owners, Prime Focus was able to make up
with the allied services it offers, like equipment on rentals. On cards is a
possible inorganic entry into Russia and Hungary Budapest markets soon, as the
management explores various options.

Megasoft

Bitten by the slowdown bug, it was not an easy task for Megasoft. Add to it
the bad press following the World Bank disbarment for four years. The company
downsized its workforce significantly. A bit of a paradox considering Megasofts
strength remained telecom (mobile services platform), the sector that was
relatively insulated from recession blues. It made three installations of its
MSPs for its MVNOs in Europe that were connected to Vodafone and one
installation for Diemo, a GSM operator in Venezuela. On the domestic front, it
betted big on the MTT-eCognito platform.

Autodesk India

Autodesk strongly felt the repercussions of the recession globally: it laid
off 10% of its workforce, some offices around the world were merged and the
location services business was sold off. It put up a brave face and even
launched Autodesk Maya 2009, its 3D animation and visual effects software, in
celebration of the softwares ten year anniversary. Maya was used extensively
along with Flame and Luster by Tata Elxsi VCL to create Indias first mainstream
3D animated feature film Roadside Romeo.

Tyco Electronics

The company was sailing along well till about September 2008, but after this
there was a clear impact of the slowdown. The real challenging times started
from October with decline of almost 15%-20% in terms of order booking, while in
terms of billing the period saw a flat to negative growth. Tyco experienced a
boom in the data center market place, particularly in IT/BPO, in the first half
of FY 09, But manufacturing and government business declined for Tyco in the
second half. The only sector which was relatively insulated from the downturn
was telecom, and that helped Tyco somewhat compensate for its business loss in
other sectors.

Take Solutions

For Take Solutions, FY 09 was a year of consolidation across locations. It
also entered some new markets like Indonesia and managed to do quite well in the
Middle East. Vertical wise, the focus was strictly on life sciences and SCM
products and services. Although the SCM business suffered, owing to the
downturn, the life sciences line held out well. Consequently, the company
churned out a number of pharma product suites like Pharmacovigilange and
PharmaReady version 4.1 for the APAC market.

Accel Frontline

One notable outcome of Accel Frontlines restructuring strategy in FY 09
was the integration of its non-core Warranty Management Services division with
the wholly owned subsidiary company, Accel Frontline Services (AFSPL). No wonder
that despite the recession, the company had some major client wins. Accel bagged
a Rs 8.5 crore order for application and server consolidation from Axis Bank.
Another significant deal of Rs 4.5 crore was won from the Essel group, which
Accel executed in association with BT India.

Verisign India

With Internet security gaining importance, FY 09 proved to be a good year
for Verisign. Although primary share of revenues came from the BFSI sector,
e-commerce sites and services sector also provided substantial business. Another
area of focus was the government where Verisign launched its Platform for public
key infrastructure specifically targeted at the vertical. It concentrated on its
two strategic lines, naming and authentication, and focused majorly on creating
education about Internet threats.

Nucleus Software

It was a tough year for Nucleus, though it managed to bag close to
twenty-one new orders globally. While the company tried to focus on upgrading
its product range, most of its prospective client deals took longer to seal than
usual. There was some good news from existing clients, many of whom closed
larger orders. The maximum growth, surprisingly came from Japan, and some other
Far East countries (nearly 54%), while Asia Pacific (including India) grew 42%.
Europe and the US however pulled down the overall growth.

GemStone Systems

With already over 200 installed customers globally, GemStone bagged new grid
computing deals from customers like JP Morgan Chase, Merril Lynch, Credit
Suisse, Adobe, GMO and one of the largest online betting companies called BET
365. The company launched Gemfire 6.0, a new verison of its flagship database
product, and tied up with Sophis to roll out the companys entire entire risk
management roadmap on this Gemfire platform. In India, GemStone established an
OEM relation with NSE IT, and SI tie-ups with Infosys and KPIT Cummins.

McAfee India

The company appointed and fitted in corporate and enterprise level managers,
and ISRs for each region separately, who would provide leads to their partners
rather proactively Close to ten senior people were hired in various positions.
The company seemed to be adopting the push model for sales, which gave it the
much needed growth impetus. On the product front, McAfee strengthened its range
of web, mail, and firewall portfolio along with data protection solutions,
thanks to its two major acquisitions.

Diebold

After declaring its intention of strengthening the India operations, Diebold
went on an enhancement drive and expanded its manufacturing, services support
and sales & marketing activities in India. It also added several offerings to
its portfolio including services like ergonomics, branch transformation, cheque
truncation. It further broadened its outsourcing solutions by adding security
related solutions and consulting. Diebold entered the mobile banking areas,
which it now offers as a part of its total outsourcing solution.

Epson India

Overall a satisfying year as it continued its domination in its two
traditional categories. Its market share in the dot matrix printer segment
increased to 48%, while in the POS printer segment, the share went upto 55%. The
company launched a slew of products including a wireless all-in-one six color
photo printer allowing users to print from their home. The Stylus Office range
was targeted at the SMEs, and included features like scanning business cards and
duplex scanning besides Wi-Fi and fax. Earlier this year, the company appointed
Eiji Kato as the new country head.