In a significant move, the state run Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has announced that it has awarded Rs. 1,182 crore outsourcing contract to IT major, Wipro Infotech.

ESIC is a constitutional firm which works under the Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India. It is considered as the main implementing agency of social security scheme in the country.

Before making any modifications in price or composition of the consumer’s subscription package, the providers of Direct-to-home (DTH) service have to give prior notice of fifteen days to their subscribers.

The decision is a part of amended Quality of Services (QoS) standards and redressal of complaints regulations for DTH, which TRAI, telecom and broadcast regulator, announced on Thursday.
 
The amended rules also prohibited DTH operators from charging any fee towards visiting charges or repair and maintenance of equipment that has been bought by a consumer, during the period of warranty.

US-based $2.8 billion Perot Systems would open a new facility in Chennai and one in Coimbatore in a bid to expand its business in the country. The new facility is aimed to bring the company's worldwide BPO (business process outsourcing) operations in a single floor to deliver efficient results. The company has already invested about $2 million for these facilities to make them operational by the end of March.

San Francisco - Not content with dominating the internet, Google is looking to take on the traditional phone companies and Skype by offering a free new phone service that manages your voice communications and allows all your different phones to ring on one number.

San Francisco  - National Semiconductor Corp, one of the world's largest manufacturers of mobile phone chips, will cut over 1,700 workers, or about a quarter of its work force, the company said Wednesday.

The layoffs will hit all areas of the company and will be carried out in two phases with 850 redundancies occurring immediately and 875 taking place over the coming months, the Silicon Valley-based company said.

With the IBM - International Business Machines Corp. - stock having done better than the company's large-capital technology contemporaries,

Chairman and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, in a letter to the stockholders, expressed optimism that IBM is "positioned to lead in the era that lies on the other side of the present crisis."

Saying that IBM is confident of thriving despite the economic downturn, as the company plans to develop money-saving computer services, and spread out further, by the way of the so-called 'cloud computing' concept of delivering software, data and computing power over the Internet.