The domestic ITeS-BPO market is expected to cross Rs 6,600 crores in 2006-07, according to a new study by the National Association of Software and Service Companies. The study was conducted jointly with IDC India, the Indian arm of IDC, a research and advisory firm.

The study is estimated that in-house spending on IT services (including training costs, salaries of in-house IT staff and associated overheads) still accounts for more than half of the corporate IT spend in India, while the outsourced / vendor addressed spends account for just 45 per cent of the total. The study found that though IT services form 27 per cent of the total domestic IT spending, its share is significantly higher in segments like BFSI, Telecom, Automotive and the Manufacturing segment.

"In terms of split by industry vertical spending, BFSI, manufacturing and communications accounted for 77 per ent of the overall spend on IT services in 2004. On the one hand, the mature user segments are increasing spending on IT services by moving towards holistic IT services contracts, while on the other hand emerging segments like healthcare, the government and small and medium businesses are also deploying IT services as a means of productivity enhancement, competitive advantage and value addition," the study said.

It said that Nasscom had commissioned IDC India to conduct the baseline research study against the backdrop of the increased interest in the domestic IT services market by major IT vendors that has been fuelled by high value deals (SBI-TCS, Bharti-IBM, Bank of Baroda-HP, andDabur-Accenture). "Nasscom is very keen on promoting the domestic IT Market. Increasing use of IT within the country will help to enhance the competitiveness of the Indian economy and of the companies and sectors that use IT," a Nasscom release quoted.

Computer geeks who were hoping to find a PC featuring Microsoft Corp.’s brand-new operating system under the tree this December are going to be out of luck.

The Redmond software maker said on Tuesday that it would delay the consumer release of the new system, dubbed Vista, until January 2007. It’s a move analysts said would hurt computer makers and retailers most of all, since they were likely looking forward to a new operating system to boost holiday sales."It’s a much bigger deal for the computer makers than it is for anybody else," said David Smith, a vice president with Gartner Inc.

Windows Vista is Micros-oft’s first major update to the company’s flagship ope-rating system since Windows XP was released in late 2001, meaning partners will be left with a fifth major holiday season without a new version of the operating system to promote sales. "It’s not the optimal situation, to be launching the next-generation version of Windows right after the big holiday sales season," said analyst Joe Wilcox with Jupiter Research.

A spokesman for Dell Inc. declined to comment on how the delay might affect sales. In a statement releas-ed by Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Co. said it supported the decision. (AP)

iGate Global Solutions, an integrated technology and operations company, has launched an ERP (enterprise resource planning) centre of excellence at its software development facility in Hyderabad. The CoE will be developing solutions for clients, and would have 60 software professionals working for it, Mohan Sekhar, chief delivery officer, of iGate Global told reporters on Wednesday.

Expanding on the work the CoE would be involved in, he said it will create solutions and frameworks which can be leveraged by iGate’s Fortune 1,000 clients, in ar-eas like system integration, business intelligence and ERP testing.

"The CoE has been instrumental in developing IP solutions like Portfolio Co-nnect, which helps provide seamless integration betw-een ERP systems and other legacy applications. A few of iGate’s customers are using it to effectively eliminate the complexities of sy-stem integration," Debas-hish Pattanayak, vice president, ERP, said.

According to Mr Raj Lanka, a 14-year veteran of iGate Global Solutions and head of its development ce-ntre, iGate expects to ramp up the recruitment for the centre. "We are in the proc-ess of hiring a number of middle management talent to meet its growth targets."