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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (3788)	2/22/1999 8:57:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

Y2K- 'Don't call us,we'll call you'-India India slows Year 2000 contracts By Reuters Special to CNET News.com February 21, 1999, 7:25 a.m. PT NEW DELHI--Time may be running out to fix the Year 2000 computer problem, but India's software firms are becoming careful about picking new contracts. Across the globe, companies will be tying up loose ends while others test newly compliant systems. But Indian firms are eyeing a future in electronic commerce and Euro currency-related projects, exercising caution for fear of stumbling into more glitches in taking on sensitive Y2K business at short notice. "The demand is quite high, but Indian companies are becoming much more choosy," Dewang Mehta, executive director of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, told Reuters in the Indian capital. With a large, skilled population, India's software firms have been seizing export opportunities in solving the problem created when meticulously reprogramming lines of code meant big costs in time and resources. Airlines, banks, telecommunication firms, and utilities that spent billions of dollars in computerization are preparing for the worst that could happen to their data--and business--because their computers denoted years only by their last two digits when they were programmed. As a result, 2000 could be read as 1900, leaving companies and government agencies vulnerable to calculation errors that could shut down their systems. The millennium bug has been hailed as a great opportunity for India, but firms are fast losing their excitement. "Indian software companies should not rush in to Y2K contracts at this point of time even if they are lucrative," said S. Ramadorai, chief executive officer of leading software firm Tata Consultancy Services. "Companies can get sued if they are unable to do a good job...and the time available now is not much." India has been a haven for Y2K projects. An estimated 150 companies have gained direct contracts to cure the Y2K bug, with dozens of subcontractors under them. In addition, tens of thousands of programmers have been directly employed by foreign firms at overseas facilities. According to market research firm International Data Corporation, between 1995 and 2001, worldwide spending on Y2K solutions would exceed $296 billion. The figure would peak to $87.4 billion in 1998 and slip 8.7 percent in 1999, it said. In spite of the demand, Indian firms expect to gain no more than $2.5 billion in related business, Mehta said. "By the D-Date we would have done $2.3 to $2.5 billion," he said. No more than $500 million worth orders are pending. In 1998-99 (April-March) fiscal year Y2K work is expected to account for about 25 percent of India's total software exports of $2.7 billion. news.com