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DOT.COM: STARS & STRATS What's Hot! In a curious fallout of the American slowdown, US-based resumés enrich Indian job sites' kitty; digital signatures remain hazy; and ideas are in demand once again! By BT Team e-lead
As the popular saying goes, one man gathers what another man spills. So what if the trend of benching and laying off it pros have shattered the dreams of few tech wannabe millionaires? This is a god-sent chance for a second lot, job sites. Consider this: Naukri.com's 'Resume Services' has seen a 100 per cent jump in March-April, forcing the company to launch a new database, the 'it Talent Bank'. PrizedJobs.com now receives 500-1,000 resumés per month from Indian professionals in the US as against a dismal 10-20 resumes per month till March. And 20 per cent of the 175,000 it-pro resumés registered with JobsAhead are from US-based techies. Naukri.com's it bank now boasts about 3,000 registered users. Says its CEO, Sanjeev Bikhchandani: ''We are now being able to collect a lot of resumés without much marketing effort.'' PrizedJobs expects 50,000 it professionals to return to India in this quarter. ''We are receiving 30-40 resumés per day from Indian it pros in the US,'' says a confident K. Lakshmikanth, MD, Prizedjobs.com. To keep the resumes flowing, the company has launched an ad campaign in major India-centric North American publications. Prizedjobs also plans a strategic alliance with an American jobs portal or a recruitment company, but its officials are tight-lipped about the move. The sole voice of dissent comes from Krishna Krovi, General Manager of the newly-launched Monsterindia.com: ''It's true that a certain percentage of Indian techies are coming back, but the numbers are not that high.'' But Krovi has got his own twist to the tale, so typical of Monster. ''The slump has forced firms to be cost-effective. That means those who are hiring, opt for the online recruitment mode since it is the most cost-effective of all.'' All's well that... e-key
It's here; it's not here. When the Controller of Certifying Authorities for Digital Signatures, K.N. Gupta, assumed charge in November 2000, he said the first certifying authority would be up by January 2001. It's April 2001, and the latest take is: ''We will kickstart the process by May''. That means the first authority won't be announced before June-July. Why this delay on such a vital matter: ''So much work had to be done,'' is all Gupta cryptically says. He also complains that despite the initial brouhaha shown by industry bigwigs (TCS was tipped to be one of the first licencees), no one has come forward yet.
To date, his office has shortlisted a panel of 16 auditor companies. These will scrutinise the facilities and infrastructure of companies who wish to offer digital signature certificates. The auditors will be assigned the responsibility of inspecting and scrutinising the applicant's infrastructure and facilities before granting the licences. Meanwhile, there's at least one company whose eyes are fixed on the going-ons, HCL Comnet. It has forged an alliance with the US-based RSA Securities to offer the latter's digital signature systems branded 'Keon' along with implementation services for deploying the system. e-news At a time when everyone's fave e-parameter Amazon.com is quoting at a dismal $12 (down from a 52-week high of $68) on the NASDAQ, its Indian e-CRM back-bone is going strong. Delhi-based Daksh.com, 50 per cent of whose revenues come from the US retail major, is about to seal its second round of funding. Daksh is playing its cards close to the chest with regard to the identity of the investors, but will reportedly be mopping up $6 million through the deal. As part of a major expansion drive, Daksh plans to recruit 5,000 more people by 2005, and will open a client delivery/customer interface office in Europe by the end of this year. Says Pavan Vaish, Co-founder and Vice-President (Technology), Daksh: ''Web-enabled customer service will remain our focus, but we have a whole host of value-added services over and above that. Some of it is in place, although it isn't offered yet as a separate offering.'' Intranet majors NetAcross and xchange21 have merged to form a $15 million entity, Intiqua. The merger has been through the stock swap route. Intiqua will be headquartered in Singapore. ''Mind your tongue broadly'' is television software major UTV's new chant. Its interactive division, UTVI, is converting its vern portals into broadband platforms. Chennai-based Vijay TV will be supplying streaming content for UTVI's Tamil portal tamizha-tamizha.com. And the company is in talks with Gujarati channels for its Gujarati portal kemchho.com.
INTERVIEW Uma Ganesh, CEO & Prez, Zee Interactive Learning Systems, talks to BT's Aparna Ramalingam on the latest trends in the online learning space.
Today, we have about 400 learning centres all over the country. Thirty of them are broadband-based, and this will be raised to 100 by the end of the year. Has there been any change in the focus? The focus remains the same-schools, corporates, and universities, with a new emphasis on topics related to it and management. We have trained about 50,000 students last year. We are planning to double that this year.
And what about investment... The planned outlay is in phases. So far we have invested around Rs 35 crore. That will go up to Rs 35-40 crore this year. The P2P? Well, the course fee remains our main lifeline. We are talking to cable operators to finalise the last mile subscription fees for zed TV. From June 2001, the channel will go into the pay mode. Content outsourcing seems to be an in thing now. What about ZeeLearn? Well, we have a foot in both. We have a core team of experts in-house, plus partnerships with about 10 Indian universities (these are content as well as certification partnerships). We have also partnered with Carnegie Mellon University, US, to offer programmes to Indian software pros. What is customer feedback? Our pilot learning programmes for interactive learning drew a tremendous response. Well, it has been a learning process both ways. Now, we are working with BSE and the Stock Holding Corporation of India, where we are looking at new kinds of integrated learning solutions. Otherwise, how do you read the online education market in general? Online learning companies whose services were born typically out of the web have fallen by the wayside. They thought that they could replicate the textbook and the website would start working. Ultimately, it is a mix of technology and learning that will survive. What's in store? We are working on more focussed programmes
for corporates. As for the dotcom scene in general, I think the days of
pure content play are over. It's time to take advantage of technology. |
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