John Ribeiro

Foreign companies aiming to take advantage of India

Putting new restrictions on H-1B visas in the U.S. would be a barrier to trade, the president of a large Indian trade association said Wednesday. The remarks come in response to an inquiry by two U.S. senators into alleged misuse of the visas.

NTT DoCoMo Inc. announced Monday that it will not proceed with a contract to license its I-mode branded online services and content to Indian mobile operator Hutchison Essar Ltd. DoCoMo and Hutchison Essar will not now deploy I-mode in India because of changes in the business environment, NTT DoCoMo said.

The digital divide will not get solved with mainframes and PCs, but with thin client computing, software-as-a-service, large centralized grids - according to Sun chairman Scott McNealy.

Nokia Corp. chose Delhi, India, for Thursday's launch of seven mobile phones for emerging markets, including two intended for shared use by families or entire villages.

IBM Corp. has teamed up with the Apollo Hospital Group, a large hospital chain in India, to offer hosted software applications for mid-size hospitals in India.

IBM Corp. has bagged a 10-year business transformation contract from a large Indian mobile services operator, Idea Cellular Ltd. The contract, awarded on a risk-reward revenue sharing model, is expected to bring to IBM revenue of between US$600 million and $800 million over 10 years, Idea said Wednesday.

Primavera Systems Inc., a vendor of enterprise project management software, has outsourced product development using the agile development process to the Indian operation of product engineering outsourcer Symphony Services Corp.