Philips NV of Netherlands is all set to launch a series of software-driven health care products in India from the middle of 1997. The Director, Philips Medical systems International BV, said that the first product which is a radiology information system will be launched around June 1997 followed by software-based diagnostic radiology equipment. As hardware components become more and more standardised, it is the software that will differentiate one product from the other. Philips' products will be 60% software-driven. After the software development, unit and system testing will be done in India, the integration testing with equipment and hardware will be done in Netherlands.

According to the general manager of Philips Medical Systems, the software developed for diagnostic equipment will be the first of its kind in India. Over the next two years, such software-driven systems will be available in other fields of medicine as well.

Philips Software Centre Private Ltd., which was set up in Bangalore recently with an investment of $ 2.5 million earmarked for 1996-98, is currently developing software for health care products. The centre, which is Philips NV's first global centre for multi-divisional software, will cater exclusively to the company's world wide operations, and design and develop software to support its next generation products.

Indian software major, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is to launch a package for the apparel industry world-wide in 1997.

The package is predominantly aimed at the US market and is in an advanced stage of development. It would be tightly integrated for styling and other composite functionings of the apparel industry.

According to the senior vice-president of TCS, the software engineers at the company's Pune centre have been instrumental in the development of this package. With the existing generation differential between this package and other existing packages in the market, its apparel software is expected to perform well internationally. The software would be priced between Rs. 600,000 to 3,000,000 ($17,000 to $85,000) each.

One more package, aimed at the upper-end European and Swiss investment bankers, is also ready. The company has already two undisclosed customers for this package in the European market. The first of these packages would be off-loaded during the first quarter of 1997. TCS has linked up with Financial Objects, a UK-based company specialising in package marketing, for pushing this product priced at $ 1 million.

The company is planning major investments on expanding its existing facilities. it is also building a new facility at the Santa Cruz Electronic Exports Processing Zone (SEEPZ), Bombay, to cater to the needs of General Electric, one of its major clients.

The Bangalore - based Infosys Technologies Ltd., one of India's leading software companies, plans to release the commercial version of its Internet-ready banking application - ViKing shortly.

The product has been developed using the Java programming language. Infosys is currently incorporating suggestions from prospective customers into the software. Even though the product will initially be sold as a 'shrink-wrapped' package, Infosys is actively exploring the option of making it available through the world wide web portion of the Internet.

ViKing is designed to help banks and other financial institutions (FI) provide their customers with remote self-service financial applications. The software can display the banks' products and services, answer questions, accept applications forms and do 'what-if analysis' on loans and deposit products. It also supports on-line account inquiry and funds transfer.

ViKing can be used by any financial institution which has a web site on the Net by embedding its Java applets in its web pages. This process is made easy by the customisable nature of applets.

Apart from Internet, the software can also be used on individual PCs and enterprise-wide Intranets. As the Java code is architecture neutral, ViKing is ideal for the networked environment. Thus the same application will run on a Windows PC, a Solaris workstation or a Macintosh.

Infosys says that the use of the product in a network will enable banks to distribute their products and services on a real-time basis. ViKing can be stored on a central server and is available on an on-line real- time basis to all clients. Banks can introduce a change in an existing product or introduce a brand new product and it can be instantly made available to all locations anywhere in the world. The product incorporates financial modelling applets which will enable a bank's customer to compare different financial models or scenarios on the fly. Infosys has used the 3-D capabilities of the Java language to present this information in the form of graphs and charts. Viking also displays interactive screens developed using the scroll and message rotation capabilities of Java to display personalised marketing messages.

Infosys has also incorporated sound and image applets into ViKing by exploiting the multimedia capabilities of the Java language.