After BPO and KPO (knowledge process outsourcing, to the uninitiated), the coming trend is expected to be "intelligent" BPO services. But does "intelligent" BPO services imply that what Indian companies have been doing so far is "unintelligent", if not moronic?

"Intelligent BPO services is quite simple really. It takes the routine, mostly repetitive work, which costs a lot of money in the West, principally in the United States, and getting it done in India," says Mohammed Shams Qamar, managing director and CEO of eXensys Software Solutions Ltd, an enterprise software developer, which has started offering "intelligent" BPO services.

"With intelligent BPO services, the cycle time for clients is reduced, by moving critical functions like production planning and such to India," says Mr Qamar, whose company is the first IT firm launched by Saudi Arabian investors in India. "eXensys is doing pilot projects in intelligent BPO services for six clients in the US, including a fabless semiconductor firm, and we have about 30 people in Hyderabad handling this business."

"We expect the trend of companies in the US and elsewhere farming out their vital, but

often repetitive, work to India," he said. eXensys Software, which has been certified at Capability Maturity Model Integration Level 5 recently, estimates that "intelligent" BPO services will be a substantial revenue earner in the future.

WiMax way

On another front, WiMAX is going to be on the gravy train in the years ahead, according to In-Stat. "WiMax has an excellent opportunity to expand the market for fixed, portable and mobile broadband access. WiMAX’s advantages in cost, flexibility and portability will also allow its providers to take market share from operators using proprietary wireless or wireline technologies," the high-tech market research firm says. However, the market’s biggest challenge will be worldwide harmonisation of spectrum sufficient to allow manufacturers to mass-produce equipment at ever lower prices.

"Our aggressive forecast for pre-WiMAX-Certified 802.16-2004 equipment — subscriber units and base stations — is $42 million in 2005, growing to $3.2 billion in 2010," In-Stat says. "The aggressive forecast relies on subscriber units, currently about $500, falling to less than $100 by 2010. Traction in the 802.16-2004 market will be important."

Wavecom, a leader in embedded wireless communications solutions for automotive, industrial (machine-to-machine) and IT major Infosys on Wednesday signed a partnership agreement to address the growing machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless connectivity market.

As part of this agreement, Infosys Technologies became a Wavecom certified competence centre, offering design, development and integration services. The partnership will enable Wavecom to provide wireless solutions to global customers utilising Infosys’ proven expertise in product engineering and IT, said a joint press statement issued by the Wavecom and Infosys.

"The Wavecom — Infosys partnership fills the void in a space where there is increasing need for software and software integration services with more and more intelligence and connectivity being embedded into devices to give businesses the competitive edge with access to real time information," the statement added

Wipro Ltd, India’s third biggest software services company, will be setting up a development centre in Visakhapatnam, with an initial seating capacity of 1,000 people, the company’s chief operating officer A. Lakshman Rao said.

Speaking to this newspaper, Dr Rao, a 25-year technology veteran of Wipro who assumed charge as COO of the company in June last year, said that the company expects to begin work on the Visakhapatnam unit soon as the Andhra Pradesh government gives possession of the land in the port city.

Dr Rao and K. Ratna Prabha, secretary, information technology and communications to the Andhra Pradesh government, had signed a memorandum of understanding on October 20 last year, for the acquisition of seven acres of land in Visakhapatnam.

"The Visakhapatnam unit will eventually have nearly 3,000 people," Dr Rao said. Asked whether the centre in Visakhapatnam would be involved in software development or business process outsourcing operations, he said, "It will be a mix of both software development work and BPO." Dr Rao said the company had decided on the resources it will investing in Visakhapatnam, but declined to disclose them. Ms Ratna Prabha said on Thursday that the state government had allotted the land in Visakhapatnam to Wipro.