India's IT export to the Middle East is likely to touch the one-billion-dollar mark in the next two-three years from 873 million dollars in 2006, a top official of a trade promotion body has said.

Electronic and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), part of India's Communication and Information Technology Ministry, has formed a strategy to increase IT exports through SMEs, ESC Chairman Sanjay Narayan told PTI in an interview here.

As per the strategy, SMEs would target export markets with a focus on the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

Currently, more than 65 per cent of India's IT exports go to the US while 25 per cent is targeted at Europe.

"Dubai can act as a hub for Indian IT exports to the whole region (the Middles East)," said Narayan, who was here to attend Gitex 2007 (Gulf Information Technology Exhibition), the largest IT show of its kind in the region.

"The SME sector has a huge cost advantage since they can develop tailor-made solutions for a particular sector," he added.

India's total IT exports are growing at more than 30 per cent annually and are expected to cross 50 billion dollars in early 2008, the official said.

"IT exports from India to the Middle East, particularly to the UAE have increased substantially in recent years. We see huge potential for further growth," ESC Regional Director in Dubai Kamal Vachani said.

"It is expected that the initiatives and the aggressive marketing strategies taken by ESC will surely help in augmenting India's ICT exports globally particularly to this region," Vachani said.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

Having a huge network of online buddies does not mean you have any more close friends than the rest of us, a British researcher said on Monday.

Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are changing the nature of how people connect by making it easy to collect hundreds of friends and acquaintances online.

"Our data suggests weak ties are (more common) but there is no difference in the number of close friends people have," said Will Reader, an evolutionary psychologist at Sheffield Hallam University.

"Nearly all our close friends require face-to-face contact," Reader told a meeting sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

The researchers focused on Facebook and MySpace, two of the most popular sites where millions of people express themselves online with personal photographs, musings and other content while adding ‘friends’ to their network.

In their study, Reader and colleagues asked people a series of questions about their attitudes toward friendships and found 90 percent of individuals said it was imperative to know somebody face-to-face to form the tightest bonds.

The key it seems is face-to-face interaction where people can interpret social clues such as laughs and smiles that help determine if others are friends to be counted on, Reader said.

"That weird experience of laughing together where people can find they have similar goals and experiences is necessary," Reader said.

"It is a bit like a dance between two scorpions where one is wondering if the other is going to eat me or sleep with me."

Other studies have shown most people have about 150 people in their extended networks, with just a small number considered a member of the inner circle of close friends, Reader said.

Even when people's social networks ballooned into many hundreds or more than a thousand people, the number of close friendships did not change, he said.

"One of the possibilities is that changing the nature of these networks can decrease the cost of maintaining friendships," Reader said.


Courtesy : Expressindia.com