British Airways (BA) is planning to shift its corporate data processing work to India to take advantage of the advanced computer software and skilled workforce available in the country.

The airlines would be the second one in Europe after Swiss Air to shift its corporate affairs to India.

According to aviation experts, India is fast becoming an increasingly attractive destination for data processing for most of the major European airline companies. The country offers the most advanced computer software programming, next only to the US, and at a cost almost 15 times lower. India’s location midway between the Far East and the American Continent makes it ideal for "data processing locations".

Swedish Telecom giant Ericsson has set up a 100 per cent Indian subsidiary, Ericsson Communications (India) Private Ltd., to supply equipment for the growing cellular business in the country.

The company’s existing joint venture with the Jiwarajka group will now concentrate on equipment for basic telephony.

Industry experts see this as an attempt to go it alone in future, which will mean less importance to the joint venture. New product introductions in India will now be through the new venture, they said.

The wholly-owned subsidiary has commenced operations during July 96, and will initially concentrate on marketing and administrative aspects of the cell-phone equipment business. Plans are to make it into a manufacturing company that would assemble cell phones and related equipment. When contacted, Ericsson’s chief in India said the joint venture with the Jiwarjka group, in which the Swedish company has a majority stake, had its business clearly chalked out and there was no question of the newly created wing taking control of it at some future date. He said his company viewed India as an important market for telecom equipment, and the subsidiary was set up to tap this potential.

Ericsson recently won a $17.8 million order of the RPG-AirTouch venture for cellular services in Madhya Pradesh, India. It will supply equipment and install the system on a turnkey basis. It has executed a similar deal for one of the cellular operators in Madras. The company claims it has orders to install four such systems for cell operations in other regions.

Scotland-based BICC Brand Rex, a leading supplier of data communication cable systems, has set up a sales office in Bombay to cater to the Indian market. The Band Rex range will be marketed under the brandname Millennium.

Growth of datacom cabling systems in India is running at round 150% per annum currently, and initially the company concentrated on India’s 16 metropolitan cities. There is a great potential for the new Millennium system throughout India.

The US-based Digital Equipment Corporation commissioned its $2.3 million state-of-the-art technology expertise centre for the Asia-Pacific region in Bangalore on 18 June, 1996 to facilitate the demonstration and evaluation of the latest technologies within the region.

The $2.3 million investment by Digital is in keeping with its commitment to provide its technology expertise to prove its continued leadership in the high-end commercial and technical computing market.

System Software Associates Inc. (SSA) of US is planning to outsource software from India. It will set up its development centre early in 1997, most likely in Bangalore.

The company, which operated earlier from Singapore, has set up an office in Bombay recently. Two more offices - one in Madras and another in Delhi - are also planned.

An initial investment of about Rs 3.00 crores ($900,000) will be made for setting up the full-fledged software development centre. The India centre will mainly work on the single byte (English language) development.

Motorola Information Systems Group (ISG) is zeroing in on India to set up a manufacturing facility for the entire Asian region. Motorola ISG, part of the $27 billion Motorola Group, provides complete range of data networking products such as modems, routers, multiplexers and all component devices for data networking. The complete manufacturing facility will be costing anywhere from $5 to 12 million.

According to estimates, the data networking market in India at present is worth around Rs. 85 crores ($24 million) and is growing at a rate of nearly 45 per cent. Motorola has adopted the ‘Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM)’ strategy focused on vertical applications to expand its presence in the world-wide market.

Supporting Motorola ISG is also a software research centre in Bangalore to develop software for integration into Motorola’s products. Motorola ISG is also a leading supplier of network products and integrated network solutions.