According to the recent IDC India survey, 66 percent of the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of 467 mid-sized and large companies surveyed expressed the hope that the ongoing global economic crisis will come to an end by December 2009.

As per the CIOs surveyed, the key investment priorities in 2009 would include software-as-a-service; unified communications; business outsourcing and data warehousing; virtualization and open source.

Carrying forth its gains into the fifth week, the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex was up 186 points on Monday, and closed at 10,534, while the Nifty was up by 45 points to close at 3,256. With the Indian markets consolidating, the index traded between 10,654 and 10,411.

The figures marked the highest level of the benchmark index since 10 November, 2008; thanks to the rising sanguinity about the global economy, and metals and capital goods, and auto stocks showing robust gains.

The 59th PTC India Ltd Board Meeting on Monday, April 5, was marked by the amendment of the decision taken by the company's board at the 57th meeting. The previous decision went thus: "subject to the approval of shareholders raising of funds up to Rs. 12 billion through the Qualified Institutional Placement - NCDs upto Rs. 4 billion; plus warrants of upto Rs. 8 billion."

The bigwig information technology service provider HCL Technologies has signed a $100 million six-year transformation deal with document management firm, Xerox Corporation, for the outsourcing of data-center services. The two companies already entered into a partnership in November, according to which HCL would facilitate companies in the incorporation of Xerox's manage print services into their systems.

Going by a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directive, as many as 250 lakh mobile subscribers, who use handsets that are without the valid IMEI - International Mobile Equipment Identity - number, face the likelihood of disconnection of services from April 15, the extended deadline after the earlier set December 31, 2008 cut-off date!

In accordance with the DoT instructions, GSM service providers - including Airtel and Vodafone - are all set to deny connectivity to mobile phones which do not have the essential IMEI number, which is 15-digit code appearing on the operator's network when a call is made.

In a press release on Sunday, the state-run Power equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) announced that the annual 2008-09 turnover figures of its boiler auxiliaries plant marked a record high of Rs. 2,000 crore!

The turnover for exports also showed an increase of 40 per cent, as compared to the year-before figures, yielding Rs. 28 crore for the year on the whole. In case of the value addition per employee also, the figures depict a year-on-year increase of 19 percent to Rs. 19.79 lakh.