Google’s First Phone: The iPhone With More Buttons

The first phone that harnesses Google's ambition to make the internet even easier to use on the go was revealed Tuesday, and it looks a lot like an iPhone.
T-Mobile USA showed off the G1, a phone that, like Apple's iPhone, has a large touch screen. But it also packs a trackball, a slide-out keyboard and easy access to Google's e-mail and mapping programs.
T-Mobile said it will begin selling the G1 for $US179 ($214) with a two-year contract. The device hits US stores October 22 and heads to Britain in November and other European countries early next year.
The phone will be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the US cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third-generation wireless data network. By launch, that will be 21 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami.

If the HTC’s new G1 cellphone, featuring Google’s Android software, were introduced two years ago, jaws would drop. But Apple’s iPhone already won the wows that go to the first small phone that is truly good at Web browsing. So the G1 offers some interesting evolution, but not a revolution in the concept.
After playing with the G1 for 20 minutes, my initial take is that the G1 is the PC to the iPhone’s Macintosh.
The G1, which is initially being offered exclusively through T-Mobile in the United States and Europe, has many more buttons on the front and many more options on the screens inside. That means that it takes longer to do the things you want to do most frequently, but you also have many more options at hand. For example, when you take a photo, the software asks you whether you want to keep it or delete it. The iPhone just saves all your pictures and you have to go back and delete the ones you don’t want later. (There may be a way to change that setting on the G1, but I didn’t get around to looking at the configuration options. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot of them. It’s that sort of device.)
Physically, it is a little narrower than the iPhone, but thicker. That means the screen is a little smaller. I also found that the plastic case feels a little cheap. The biggest differentiator is the G1’s slide-out keyboard, some might find easier to type on than the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.
Some of the software in I played with seemed nice, like the mapping software, which is built on Google Maps and very clearly displayed travel directions. But the phone doesn’t yet give turn-by-turn directions the way a car GPS device does, which is also a well-noted flaw of the iPhone. Neither does the phone record video, another feature some people miss on Apple’s smartphone.

India to Reach for the Moon Next Month

Chandrayaan is all set to make history; taking India to the moon
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If everything goes as planned, any of the days starting October 19th to 28th would be remembered as a red-letter day for us Indians. Our very first, homespun lunar probe, Chandrayaan is all set to make its first voyage to our nearest celestial body -- the Moon on these tentative dates -- depending on the weather conditions then. If the weather plays spoil sport, the mission will need to be postponed to December. In any case, a successful mission will no doubt put India in the elite club of counties who have been able to send missions to moon. Chandrayaan is still undergoing tests and is yet to clear the vibration and acoustic tests, which it would be subjected to later this week. These tests will simulate the conditions that the probe will need to bear at the tine of launch. These include high-temperatures, vibrations during take off and not to mention, the tremendous noise that is expected of a typical rocket launch.
Chandrayaan will carry as many as 11 payloads -- five from India, three from the European Space Agency (ESA), one from the Bulgarian Space Agency (BSA) and two from NASA, making it a truly global initiative. The two-year mission will be invaluable as the Chandrayaan is programmed to orbit the Lunar surface and digitally map it. It will also send information on the traces of the composition of the lunar surface apart from looking for atomic minerals such as thorium and uranium. The probe is also equipped with high-resolution cameras which could help shed some light on the existence of water on the moon. A modified (rather upgraded) PSLV launch vehicle will be used to transport the probe to the lunar orbit. Due to the modifications, the PSLV C-11 will have a lift-off weight of 316 tonnes, which is much higher than the "standard" 294-ton version. Additionally, the payload capacity too has been increased from 1600 kg to 1800 kg. The PSLV has been the most successful launch vehicle for ISRO till date. It also holds the record for sending as many as 10 satellites simultaneously during its last mission. This time round, it is all set to break its own record by carrying 11 different payloads. Undoubtedly, the Indian space program has come a long way since its initial stages when the first rocket transporter happened to be a bicycle, which carried the 9 kilo rocket to the "launch pad"! That was back in 1963 when visionaries like Vikram Sarabhai and APJ Abdul Kalam laid the foundation of what has become one of the greatest success stories of India.

Chocolate helps heart stay healthy

A small square of dark chocolate daily protects the heart from inflammation and subsequent heart disease, a new study of Italians suggests. Milk chocolate might not do the job.
However, this guilty pleasure has a limit.
A prototype package and finished dark chocolate is shown atop cacao beans at the new TCHO chocolate factory in San Francisco, Calif., August 25, 2008. [Agencies]
Specifically, only 6.7 grams of chocolate per day (or 0.23 ounces) represents the ideal amount, according to results from the Moli-sani Project, one of the largest health studies ever conducted in Europe. For comparison, a standard-sized Hershey's kiss is about 4.5 grams (though they are not made of dark chocolate) and one Hershey's dark chocolate bar is about 41 grams (so a recommendation might be one of those weekly).
Chronic inflammation of tissues in the circulatory system is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, such as myocardial infarction or stroke. So doctors strive to keep patients' inflammation under control. One marker for inflammation in the blood is called C-reactive protein.
The researchers found a relationship between dark chocolate intake and levels of this protein in the blood of 4,849 subjects in good health and free of risk factors (such as high cholesterol or blood pressure, and other parameters). The findings are detailed in the latest issue of the Journal of Nutrition.
"We started from the hypothesis that high amounts of antioxidants contained in the cocoa seeds, in particular flavonoids and other kinds of polyphenols, might have beneficial effects on the inflammatory state," said Romina di Giuseppe, lead author of the study. "Our results have been absolutely encouraging: People having moderate amounts of dark chocolate regularly have significantly lower levels of C-reactive protein in their blood. In other words, their inflammatory state is considerably reduced." The inflammation reduction that the researchers observed controlled for other confounding variables such as wine or produce intake.
Previous studies have found that chocolate might be good for you, though doctors usually warn that it is more important to focus on one's overall diet when it comes to health. One health study found that blood platelets among chocolate-lovers were less likely to clot together in dangerous clumps.
Other studies have found a host of diet and exercise changes that can help a person beat the odds of death. Clearly, no single change is a guarantee of long life.
With chocolate, moderation is key, the new study found.
"The best effect is obtained by consuming an average amount of 6.7 grams of chocolate per day, corresponding to a small square of chocolate twice or three times a week. Beyond these amounts the beneficial effect tends to disappear," di Giuseppe said.
The milk in milk chocolate interferes with polyphenols, so the team kept that out of the study.
"We consider this outcome as the beginning of a large series of data which will give us an innovative view on how [to achieve] prevention in everyday life, both against cardiovascular disease and tumors," said Licia Iacoviello, head of the Laboratory of Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology at the Catholic University of Campobasso and responsible for the Moli-sani Project.

Sony Ericsson to launch unlimited music service

Sony Ericsson will release a music and content download service, under its Play Now brand of old, over the next few weeks in a bid to make sure Nokia doesn't steal the market with its 'Comes with Music' service.
Users will be able to download tracks DRM-free for a fee, and Play Now Plus will allow unlimited downloading of millions of songs.
No more DRM... please!
However, these will be copyright protected to the hilt (boo!) and users will only be able to keep 300 of them after their contract ends.
Which is traditionally the time when you STOP using the phone... we hope SE has thought of that before it happens.
The service is initially going to launch in Sweden, with more countries serviced in early 2009. Only the Sony Ericsson w902 will support the service initially, but will likely be expanded to further models in the future.
The service will cost around £10 a month to keep up during your contract, which may seem like a lot but compares to services like 'Napster to Go' for £15, plus the added convenience of not having to sync the music from your PC.
By Gareth Beavis

ICL or IPL??

Icl vs ipl or ipl vs icl ..... the War ! ! ! !

In this article I am going to explain the difference between Indian premier League and Indian Cricket league or as they call it difference between IPL and ICL cricket leagues of the twenty20 cricket league.

What is IPL and ICL : How IPL works and How ICL works ; the difference between icl & ipl

Indian Premier League Governing Council : IPL India Cricket or Indian premier is primarily backed up by BCCI. Lalit Modi the governing council consists of Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi, Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi and Ravi Shastri, Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, Inderjit Singh Bindra and Arun Jaitley.

Team Composition :
Each team will have a pool of 16 players, with a maximum of eight foreign players and a minimum of four under-22 players. Additionally, at least four players must be from the catchment area where the team is based. These are some of the rules for Indian premier league
franchises.

Indian Premier Matches Schedule : IPL is scheduled to start in April 2008 and will last for 44 days, involving 59 matches. The prize money for the league will be around Rs 13 crore (US $3million).

Television rights:
The televison rights went to India's Sony television network and Singapore based World Sports Group(wsg).The deal is for the duartion of ten years and the consortium will pay the BCCI $918 million for telecast rights and US$108 million for promotion of the tournament.The BCCI announced that the bulk of the proceeds from this deal would initially go to the IPL franchises themselves, gradually reducing this amount over the life of the contract

Australia rights went to network ten for AUS$10-$15.Setanta Sports have secured the UK rights in a 5-year deal. All 59 games will be shown on their subscription channels

TITLE Sponsor Rights went to DLF Universal worth INR 200 crore (over US$50 million) for five years

Team Franchises for Twenty 20 20 cricket league and 20/20 ipl

The official list of franchise owners for indian premier league series of 20/20 teams announced and the winning bids were as follows.

Bangalore Royal Challengers : Dr. Vijay Mallya / UB group $111.6 million
Coach : Venkatesh Prasad

Chennai Super Kings : India Cements / N Srinivasan $91 Million
Coach: Keppler Vessels

Delhi Daredevils : GMR Holdings $84million
Coach : Greg Shipperd

IPL Hyderabad : Deccan Chronicle $107 million
Coach : Robin Singh

Jaipur Rajasthan Royals : Emerging Media :(Manoj Badale, Lachlan Murdoch, Suresh Chellaram) $67 million
Coach: Shane Warne
IPL Kolkata : Shah Rukh Khan,Juhi Chawla Mehta and Jay Mehta $75.09 million
Coach: John Buchanan

IPL Mohali Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia , Karan Paul (Apeejay Surendera Group) and Mohit Burman (Dabur) $76 million
Coach: Tom Moody

Mumbai Mukesh Ambani/ Reliance Industries Limited $111.9 million

The franchises will be free to run the teams as they want as well as bring their won sponsors as well as will be free tolist them on the stock exchanges.

Franchisee Revenue Generation according to IPL tender document :
Centralised revenue : title Sponsorship, media rights, official umpires sponsorship.
Franchisee revenue : team naming rights, team shirt sponsorship and ticketing revenues

indian premier league vs icl is a war and it will continue tillone loses the money and give up.. Continue reading ..

Prize Money
Over all prize Money : US $5million and winners take home $2 million

Bidding process and how IPL works :
The auction was held on February 20th. IPL cricket league said that four players will be in the "ICON Status"
The players were presented in lots of six, with the marquee names first to go under the hammer.

Top of the list was India's one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, signed for an astonishing $1.5m, $1.1m more than his reserve price, by the Chennai franchise owned by Indian Cements. Chennai also captured Muttiah Muralitharan for $600,000, well above his $250,000 reserve price.
Franchises have a minimum spend of $3.3m and a maximum of $5m for their squads, with players signed for an initial three years, but the restrictions do not appear to have occurred to some franchise owners.

Mumbai is already guaranteed the services of Sachin Tendulkar, who under IPL regulations must be paid a salary amounting to 115% of the next highest-paid player in the franchise
Here is the complete list ..
Top 10 players sold
1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India - Chennai, $1.5m
2.Andrew Symonds, Australia - Hyderabad, $1.35m
3. Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka - Mumbai, $975, 000
4. Ishant Sharma, India - Kolkata, $950,000
5. Irfan Pathan, India - Mohali, $925,000
6= Brett Lee, Australia - Mohali, $900,000
6= Jacques Kallis, South Africa - Bangalore $900,000
8. RP Singh, India - Hyderabad, $875,0009. Harbhajan Singh, India - Mumbai, $850,000
10= Chris Gayle, West Indies - Kolkata, $800,00010= Robin Uthappa, India - Mumbai, $800,000

Players by franchise

Bangalore
Rahul Dravid, India, icon
Jacques Kallis, South Africa, $900,000
Anil Kumble, India, $500,000
Cameron White, Australia, $500,000
Zaheer Khan, India, $ 450,000
Mark Boucher, South Africa, $450,000
Dale Steyn, South Africa, $325,000
Nathan Bracken, Australia, $325,000
Shivnarine Chanderpaul, West Indies, $200,000
Wasim Jaffer, India, $150,000

Kolkata
Sourav Ganguly, India, icon
Ishant Sharma, India, $950,000
Chris Gayle, West Indies, $800,000
Brendon McCullum, New Zealand, $700,000
David Hussey, Australia, $625,000
Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistan, $425,000
Murali Kartik, India $425,000
Ricky Ponting, Australia, $400,000
Ajit Agarkar, India, $350,000
Umar Gul, Pakistan, $150,000

Chennai
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India, $1.5m
Jacob Oram, New Zealand, $675,000
Albie Morkel, South Africa, $675,000
Suresh Raina, India, $650,000
Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lanka, $600,000
Matthew Hayden, Australia, $375,000
Stephen Fleming, New Zealand, $350,000
Mike Hussey, Australia, $350,000
Parthiv Patel, India, $325,000
Joginder Sharma, India, $225,000
Makhaya Ntini, South Africa, $200,000

Delhi
Virender Sehwag, India, icon
Gautam Gambhir, India, $725,000
Manoj Tiwari, India, $675,000
Mohammad Asif, Pakistan, $650,000
Daniel Vettori, New Zealand, $625,000
Dinesh Karthik, India, $525,000
Shoaib Malik, Pakistan, $500,000
Glenn McGrath, Australia, $350,000
AB de Villiers, South Africa, $300,000
Tillekeratne Dilshan, Sri Lanka, $250,000
Farveez Maharoof, Sri Lanka, $225,000

Hyderabad
Andrew Symonds, Australia, $1.35m
RP Singh, India, $875,000
Rohit Sharma, India, $750,000
Adam Gilchrist, Australia, $700,000
Shahid Afridi, Pakistan, $675,000
Herschelle Gibbs, South Africa, $575,000
VVS Laxman, India, $375,000
Chaminda Vaas, Sri Lanka, $200,000
Scott Styris, New Zealand, $175,000
Nuwan Zoysa, Sri Lanka, $110,000Chamara Silva, Sri Lanka, $100,000

Jaipur
Mohammad Kaif, India, $675,000
Graeme Smith, South Africa, $475,000
Yusuf Pathan, India, $475,000
Shane Warne, Australia, $450,000
Munaf Patel, India, $275,000
Younis Khan, Pakistan, $225,000
Justin Langer, Australia, $200,000
Kamran Akmal, Pakistan, $150,000

Mohali
Yuvraj Singh, India, icon
Irfan Pathan, India, $925,000
Brett Lee, Australia, $900,000
Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka, $700,000
Shantakumaran Sreesanth, India, $625,000
Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka, $475,000
Piyush Chawla, India, $400,000
Ramnaresh Sarwan, West Indies, $225,000
Simon Katich, Australia, $200,000
Ramesh Powar, India, $170,000

Mumbai
Sachin Tendulkar, India, icon
Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka, $975,000
Harbhajan Singh, India, $850,000
Robin Uthappa, India, $800,000
Shaun Pollock, South Africa, $550,000
Lasith Malinga, Sri Lanka $350,000
Loots Bosman, South Africa, $175,000
Dilhara Fernando, Sri Lanka, $150,000

Unsold players
Mohammad Yousuf
Ashwell Prince

I will talk about India Cricket salaries in the next article.
Media Management : The media management was done by IMG and commissioner Lalit Modi.
indian cricket league vs indian premier league and the most valuable player for Indian premier League Kapil dev is nowhere with IPL but with Indian Cricket League ... War Continues

First IPL match on April 18 ...Indian premier league to begin

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

icl vs IPL
Here is what is said about the teams
Vijay Mallya's Royal Challengers - very flamboyant
Deccan Chargers - Power and confidence
ShahRukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders - Fiery
Rajasthan Royals - very demure and majestic - Shane warne His majesty
Preity Zinta's - Eleven Team Mohali - Punjab power
GMR's Delhi Daredevils - dynamic

Shah Rukh is main actor supporting the Kolkata team of course he is the owner .
Akshay Kumar will be cheering for the delhi team Delhi Daredevils
Hrithik Roshan is rooting for Mumbai Indians
Chennai Superkings - Nayanthara and Vijay, where as in the video theyhave GV Prakash directing the music while Rajiv Menon is directing thevideo.

Team Songs - Dale Mehndi is singing for Mohali alongwith preity Zinta
Sandeep Chowta is behind the Bangalore song.
Lahiri, Usha Uthup and Ganesh hedge are for Kolkata's KnightRiders
Chennai's Super Kings has Krishnamachari Srikanth as ambassador.

Royal Challengers have Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone as star cast
Deccan Chargers have Sameera Reddy as the star cast.

Talking of logos for the twenty20 league tournament called IndianPremier League. Here are the logos for the teams and they are mostlylions.
Chennai's Super Kings has a roaring lion
Rajasthan Royals has lions blowing trumpets
Deccan Chargers a charging bull
Knight Riders have fire in their logo.
Royal Challengers clothes have been designed by Louis Philippe
Kolkata Knight Riders have been designed by Manish Malhotra
Reebok has designed the clothes for Chennai Super Kings and RajasthanRoyals

What is Champions Twenty20 league?

The Champions Twenty20 League is expected to feature the top teams fromthe domestic Twenty20 tournaments in India, South Africa, England andAustralia.And Bindra said "Before we launched the IPL and the Champions League,the idea was to have separate league in each country. Now that Englandis planning one, I think this would make the Champions League [scheduledfor October] more interesting and competitive,".Wait for October twenty20 league championship.

.

War between ECB and Players about IPL

Now the war between ECB and Players. The ICL Vs IPL war is still in theopen.
The players centrally contracted by the ECB have not been allowed toparticipate in the IPLHere is what IS Bindra had to say "That solution is not acceptable tous," Bindra told BBC Sport. "We will not have any player revoltingagainst their establishment and becoming part of the IPL"

And here is Michael Vaughvan ""I've heard so many people say that allthe best players are in the world are there and you want to go and playin it," Vaughan said. "So I think we're all naive if we don't think thatEngland players are going to end up playing in the IPL."The only English player participating in the IPL is Dimitri Mascarenhas,who's not contracted by the board.

Very good Dimitri.Bindra said that he will like to have players such as Pietersen andAndrew Flintoff in its ranksAlso now we have the English premier twenty20 league. Now apart from iclvs ipl or ipl vs icl we will have English premier league vs the Indianpremier league as the twenty 20 league.
Ryan Sidebottom has admitted he would be tempted to play in the Indian Premier League if the ECB can strike an agreement over player participation.

Shane Warne - IPL contract: War of words

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

IPL vs ICL
Shane Warne has said that players should put their countries first and then Indian premier league would be no threat to the International Shane Warne Ipl contract
cricket

Now since ICC has approved Twenty 20 Indian premier league tournament it should be in everybody's calendar for sure and a permanent fixture I think that's here to stay, that isn't going anywhere," Warne told the Nine Network

If the players make sure that their country's the number one priority then I don't think we can go wrong."We should enjoy it, we should embrace it and it should be a lot of fun."Warne had an IPL contract and then an auction price of $US450,000 to play for Jaipur in the inaugural IPL tournament.


"The money side of things, obviously it's fantastic, it's a real bonus for six week's work. Whatever you get is fine by me

Well here's what is happening everybody is talking about Shane Warne but nobody is talking about our own bolwing legend Anil Kumble.

Now with icl vs ipl war I am sure Anil Kumble should be picked by Indian Cricket League or Anil Kumble should start making controversial statements Shane Warne is obviously the greatest because he has some amazing bowling arsenal in his repertoire and his Shane Warne video will attest to that or his interview on ninemsn video

Shane Warne Ipl contract

Shane Warne Signed on the most expensive contract with Indian Premier League at a cost of US$400,000 for the first season, set to kick off in April 2008 The fee quoted for Warne is the signing amount for him to be part of the player pool from which franchises will bid for the rights to employ players within their ranks.

Brian lara was signed by Indian Cricket league for US $1million and now Shane Warne has an IPL Contract.The War of IPL ICl Contracts is definitely on.

The second-highest signing-on fee has, not surprisingly, been paid to Glenn McGrath, whose nifty line-and-length bowling see him join up for US$350,000
Mohd Yousuf IPl Contract is worth US$330,000.
Shoaib Malik, who is guaranteed US$300,000.
ICL is ending the inaugural season with a hand out of approx 18 crores for the 16-day tournament.

Here are the fees of others who have signed the IPL contracts.
Australia
Justin Langer 175,000

Sri Lanka

Farveez Maharoof: 150,000, Kumar Sangakkara: 250,000, Mahela Jaywardene: 250,000, Muttiah Muralitharan: 250,000, Sanath Jayasuriya: 250,000, Nuwan Zoysa: 100,000, Dilhara Fernando: 150,000, Chaminda Vaas: 175,000, Lasith Malinga: 200,000

Pakistan

Mohammad Asif 225,000, Shahid Afridi: 225,000, Shoaib Akhtar: 225,000, Younus Khan: 225,000

West Indies

Shivnarine Chanderpaul 175,000

New Zealand

Daniel Vettori 225,000, Jacob Oram 200,000, Scott Styris 150,000, Brendon McCullum 175,000

South Africa

Loots Bosman 150,000, AB de Villiers 175,000, Albie Morkel 200,000, Graeme Smith 225,000, Herschelle Gibbs 225,000, Shaun Pollock 200,000, Ashwell Prince 150,000, Makhaya Ntini 175,000, Mark Boucher 175,000, Jacques Kallis 200,000.

Players salaries are definotely astronomical and what ICL will have to do to attract people over ! ! ! Keep and eye on the war and there in lies the difference between indian cricket league and indian premier league

Shane Warne - Captain and Coach of Rajasthan Royals, Jaipur IPL Team

Shane Warne and IPL contract .. and now captain and coach..
Australian spin legend has been names as the captain of the Jaipur team which has been names Rajasthan Royals.

Here is what the owner of the Jaipur Rajasthan Royals team , Emerging media said ""Shane Warne's extraordinary achievements on and off the field, combined with his unique understanding of the game, has made him a living sporting legend, leading to the strategic appointment as captain and coach of the Rajasthan Royals

It is this leadership and experience that will develop the success and spirit of the Rajasthan Royals. All the players will look upto and Shane's commitment and astute cricketing brain," said Emerging Media CEO Fraser Castellino.

"Shane has been a winner throughout his career and has made it clear that he is coming to India to make the Rajasthan Royals win. His experience of over 15 years in international cricket will be invaluable to a team of players from different countries, cultures, and ages."

Shane Warne has been highest wicket taker before Muttiah Muralitharan overtook him and also he has been captain of the English county team HampshireWarne was quoted as saying that he was looking forward to lead the side in the twenty20 IPL league matches beginning April 8 .

Here is what he said "Our main goal is to build a winning 20/20 cricket team. I'm very happy with the list of players chosen in the auction. I'm looking forward to leading the Rajasthan Royals, to playing with the boys and to a successful season," said the champion spinner"

Keep it up Shane and where is Anil Kumble ????

Mumbai Auction and Bidding of Indian premier league twenty20 league

War of salaries and lucrative contracts continues ... IPL vs ICL

Here is the lowdown of the auction and the bidding for players held in Mumbai. For IPL Cricket league.

1.5 million dollars for India's Twenty20 captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni
100,000 dollars for Sri Lankan youngster Chamara Silva
675,000 dollars for MAnoj Tewari for Delhi team
4,00,000 dollars for Ricky Ponting for Kolkata
1.35 million dollars for Andrew Symonds
David Hussey for $675,000 and
$500,000and Cameron White $500,000

Here is what Lalit Modi Said "Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya and movie stars Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta, will get handsome returns for their combined investments of around 800 million dollars"When you go out to set up a business, it takes you a few years to plan the same," said Modi. "The franchisees have bought a team, which is an asset for life. If they build it correctly, the sky's the limit."eight IPL franchise owners spent $36.6 million on buying 75 players at the auction in Mumbai on Wednesday

ICl it seems lost out on the first mover advantange .. the icl vs bcci and zee vs bcci war goes on with battles being won by IPL

IT boom in INDIA

5 big reasons for Indian IT Boom!!!

Wipro Technologies vice president for strategic marketing Sangita Singh has been winging her way around the globe. She is just back from Japan and the United States. So far in 2004, she has travelled overseas 12 times to the US, Europe and Japan. She is off again this month on another trip to the US. Clearly, business is booming.

In contrast, Singh flew overseas just thrice, and only to the US, in 2002.

Wipro's Singh is not the only IT company executive who's on the move.

Suddenly, India's IT companies have discovered that there's business for the taking again overseas. The industry is clocking big buck profits. In the second quarter of this financial year, the revenues of 58 IT companies shot up by 37.14 per cent, while profits were up by over 40 per cent -- reminiscent of the go-go years of 2000 and 1999.

And as business and cash flow in, most of them have embarked upon a remarkable hiring spree. In the quarter that ended on September 30, 2004, the top five Indian companies added close to 18,000 employees, the National Association of Software and Service Companies reports. That number is close to the 20,000 people the five hired in all of 2002-2003.

Just how dramatic all this is is illustrated by the fact that two years ago the Indian IT industry was singing a dirge. IT companies had stopped hiring, were reneging on offers made at engineering campuses to students and bottomline growth had slowed to a crawl.

The IT boom is back with a bang. So what's fuelling it?

Well, software outsourcing and offshoring have become mainstream. And the top IT companies have done a lot of small things right. Look closer at what companies like Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant Technology Solutions have been doing in recent times.

Scale begets scale: One of the biggest reasons for the current boom is the increasing scale of operations of Indian companies.

"The outsourcing boom was something waiting to happen for companies that work and think smartly," says Sridhar Mitta, managing director of the $100 million e4e Inc, a technology holding company.

Mitta argues that the top-tier Indian companies and some multinational companies with big Indian operations have managed to benefit from the sheer scale of their operations.

Agrees Kris Gopalakrishnan, deputy managing director and chief operating officer at the $1billion Infosys: "As Infosys became bigger in terms of its operations, we found that clients were more than agreeable to increasing their outsourcing portfolio to us. Size clearly allows you to get the largest contracts."

Gopalakrishnan continues: "Managing growth is very challenging but is in a good position to be in. When you become bigger in the size and scale of your operations, from a customer point of view it minimises risk." Infosys has doubled the number of its employees over the last two years from about 16,000 to about 32,000 now.

The point is echoed by Sudip Banerjee, president of enterprise applications at Wipro and the man who runs a Rs 700 crore per quarter business: "Scale is important and today the Indian story is becoming more robust and clients are confident of work being done to exacting standards by companies like Wipro."

Wipro has in the last two years added about 17,000 employees to its work force of about 37,000.

Scale has helped TCS too. The first Asian company to breach the $1 billion mark is expected to post revenues of about $1.5 billion plus this year. Revenues in the first half of the year have already touched $1 billion.

TCS executive vice president Phiroze Vandrewala points out that the pull towards India from clients abroad too has helped. "TCS as a company is experiencing faster growth partly because clients also want to ramp up faster. Today at TCS, it is not uncommon for a client to grow to about 800 people in about six months. Earlier it would have taken a client at least two years to grow to this scale of engagement with us," Vandrewala points out.

Project delivery excellence: And all of this has been aided by the quality of the delivery of projects that Indian companies have managed.

Leading research groups like Meta have put the delivery excellence of Indian software companies like Wipro, TCS and Cognizant on a par with that of the best multinationals like EDS Corporation and Accenture and at times ahead of them.

Says R Chandrasekaran, managing director of the New Jersey-headquartered Cognizant: "The most important reason for this kind of growth is that companies like Cognizant have shown excellent delivery capabilities. Once you have such a platform, healthy growth follows."

Expansion into new markets: Indian software services companies once used to focus on North America but many have now expanded operations to China, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America.

Says a research analyst at an international data tracking company: "From a revenue standpoint, companies like TCS, Infosys and I-flex have started to look at South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. From a development perspective, companies like Satyam, Cognizant, TCS, Infosys and Wipro are looking at setting up operations in Brazil, Hungary, China, Australia and even the Benelux region."

New services are being offered: At the same time Indian companies have been consciously expanding the services that they offer clients. The new services include consulting, infrastructure solutions, package implementation, business process outsourcing and even testing, apart from increasing the quantum of bread and butter engagements like software application maintenance and development.

Says Wipro's Banerjee: "During the downturn Indian companies looked at newer services to increase revenue flow. In the case of Wipro in the last two years we added BPO, consulting and testing services to our portfolio of services. This makes us a compelling candidate for clients that want to outsource."

This applies to TCS, Cognizant and Infosys. Says Vandrewala: "Expanding our portfolio of services has definitely helped and all this is because of the strategy we put in place in 2002-2003. We took a conscious decision to aggressively market lines like engineering services, infrastructure outsourcing and facilities management."

The gambit makes sense. According to Forrester Research, the value of the total North American IT market could touch $250.9 billion by 2008, up from $194.7 billion in 2004.

Of this, IT consulting alone will contribute $28.9 billion in 2008, up from $23.8 billion in 2004.

Systems integration (this includes packaged implementation, customised application development and application integration) will contribute $100 billion in 2008, up from $86.2 billion in 2004. Software application-related outsourcing will contribute $112 billion in 2008, up from $86.8 billion now.

Gartner, the IT tracking company, points out that even now, despite all the hype, the amount of outsourcing is relatively low and will only gather steam. Gartner reckons that under three per cent of global IT services - related spending of about $606 billion will be on globally sourced services in 2004. By 2007, Gartner estimates that this will shoot up to about 7 per cent or about $50 billion.

Customer mining: Indian companies are not only acquiring more customers but are also selling more IT services to existing customers. Cognizant believes so much in mining its customers that it has more relationship managers than sales and marketing professionals.

Last but not least, more and more outside the Fortune 100 fold today are looking at outsourcing and offshoring to India.

"Clearly, companies in the US have realised that technology investments can give them only limited results. Beyond that one has to focus on costs and for that you need to have an India story," notes Vandrewala.

But Mitta has the last word: "Indian companies still have to master the sales side of the business and bring in the same levels of finesse to selling and marketing," he notes.

loss of lehman's kingdom...

Once mighty, Lehman Brothers shares now trade at less than a quarter. As the company shreds jobs and gets closer to reaching a stock price of zero, many are asking what's next for the stock that was once a bedrock of many 401(k)s.

For starters, Lehman's days on the New York Stock Exchange are numbered. It's already been moved from the Big Board to the NYSE Arca because it dropped below a dollar, according to NYSE officials. It will officially be below the exchange's compliance standards once the price remains below $1 for 30 consecutive days. Then the exchange will move to delist it for being out of compliance with its minimum standards.

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"There's no magic number or particular timing," for how long that will take for the exchange to remove the stock, said Rich Adamonis, a spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange.

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Once delisted, Lehman Brothers will immediately start trading on the electronic OTC markets, commonly known as the Pink Sheets. It will receive a new ticker, which will be issued by NASDAQ. Brokerage firms that bought Lehman stock from the NYSE will still use the same basic system for buying the stock under its new ticker on the OTC because the computer system and technology share a common backbone.

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The OTC hasn't received any word yet on when Lehman will start appearing on its market, according to R. Cromwell Coulson, OTC chairman. But he expects it to happen soon. "For the most part it's designed to throw them off very quickly," he said.

Investors in Lehman stock will retain ownership of their shares if they are unable to sell them (which is extremely likely) as the company moves to various exchanges. But don't look for any silver lining. When a company declares bankruptcy, common shareholders stand at the end of the line.