Yoichi Takao (Japan), James Yeh (China), Ponani and Rodeh: Mensa club

When the heads of IBM's four research labs in Asia, India, China, Japan, and Israel congregate in India-the first such meeting ever-it means something is up. It is. For one, the meeting signifies the growing importance of the Asian, and the Indian market. For another, it indicates a desire to work across the four labs (there are teams that are spread across the four geographies) to address issues relevant to each. Thus, in India, the labs are working with some Indian Business Process Outsourcing firms to "develop technologies where data can not only be read from forms using optical character recognition (OCR) kind of technologies, but also verified and entered into databases," according to Michael Rodeh, the Director of ibm's Israel research lab. If it is BPO-related research for India, then it is consumer electronics for Japan and local language computing for China. And in each area, teams spanning the four Asian labs work with local companies to identify solutions. On the supply side, this increases the scale of expertise available; Rodeh's lab, for instance, works on enterprise search and could work on technology that can help search through the voice calls stored at a call centre. On the demand side, this signifies IBM's move towards market-driven research. "There is only so much that efficiency can help competing companies," explains Ponani Gopalakrishnan, the Head of IBM's India research lab. "After that, technology has to play differentiator." Hear, hear!

-Vidya Viswanathan

DASH BOARD

A
Advertisers who bought time on Ten Sports' coverage of the Indo-Pak series (such as Nokia) have hit the jackpot: access to an extra 40 million homes, courtesy, Doordarshan.

D-
The CEO, COO, and the CFO of its Indian operations quit; there are reports, and subsequent denials of financial irregularities, and the company continues to languish at #3. What's up?

REINCARNATION
New Avatar

Avatar Saini: An ongoing dream it is

As career decisions go, this was made in a unique setting, a walk in a cold arid desert in Ladakh. ''It was a toss up between starting something on my own or joining an ongoing dream,'' says Avatar Saini, the man responsible for setting up the Intel India Development Center in 1999. That isn't the only thing that distinguishes Saini. In his 22-year stint at Intel, he was part of the team that designed the Pentium and managed the team that developed the Itanium. For much of 2003, Saini was on a sabbatical (the trip to Ladakh happened then). He liked what he saw at Topspin, a 200-employee organisation that has attracted $67 million of venture funding. True to form, Saini's first task as vice president in charge of Asia will be to burn $10 million in a R&D centre in Bangalore. New avatar, same old story.

-Venkatesha Babu

D-Street Gaffe
Miscounting bids? Give us a break.

The least one expects of people operating stock exchanges is that they should know their numbers. But that, as the retail investor's recent experience goes, may be too much to expect. The Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange both miscounted the bids the recent IPOs (like those of ONGC and GAIL) received, thus misleading investors. How did they manage this incredible feat? By treating multiple bids from the same investor for the same stock as separate bids and not as one as they should have. Guess what? Apparently, that's how the two exchanges have always worked. "This practice (of treating multiple options as separate bids) is there for several years," says Ranganath Char of Enam Financial Consultants. That's just one of the chinks in our stockmarkets' armour. Another anomaly: To participate in an IPO, a retail investor must cough up the full amount up front, but an institutional can get by with a mere letter of commitment. "It is not fair to have separate rules for individual and institutional investors," says Bharat Kutreja, Vice President, Investors' Grievance Forum. What will help? Professionalising the broker-driven BSE. Unsurprisingly, such a proposal is pending approval.

-Narendra Nathan

SOAP-BOX
Convergence DreamsEmami Whips Up A Super Star

More than one company chose to use convergence India 2004, India's largest communications exhibition to make major announcements and unveil new products. A sampling of the best:

What is the height of convergence? How about Indian Railways turning into a ISP (Internet Service Provider)? RailTel-a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways-plans to open cyber cafes in all the railway stations in the country, some 4,000-odd. It also plans to apply for NLD and ILD licences.

A payphone that accepts credit cards? That's right, and MTNL is launching these sleek devils from Alcatel in the first quarter of 2004-05. The phones also accept smart cards and calling cards. There will be 200 such booths in Delhi and Mumbai in Phase I. The only hitch? MTNL has to find franchises who ensure these phones don't get stolen!

The phone-cum-PDA is still a novelty in India. KT (Korea Telecom) has partnered with some handheld manufacturers to vend PDAs that double up as CDMA video-phones, and is currently exploring options in the Indian market. "It will take a while. We are exploring the market and talking to service providers," says Young-Sam Lee, Director, Global Broadband Business Team, KT.

The HandyStar (as manufacturer Kori Tech fondly calls it) lets you sing alongside Kylie Minogue on TV. And record and upload the song on to your pc. You can also use this to download and play MP3s -a feature you may not need for a while, as it boasts a library of 3,000 scores . Other pluses: fm radio and a LCD display. Whew! Price: $175 to $200.

What is BREWing in Ratan Tata's mind? Voice-based instant messaging and chat applications. Tata Teleservices has allied with Qualcomm to launch the latter's push-to-talk solutions (marketed under the brew brand name to service providers). The company is also importing phones that support push-to-talk applications.

-Sudarshana Banerjee