New subject: Natl conf on 'Open Source software: a new direction for India?'

20 Feb 2003


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PRESS RELEASE
MAIT ORGANIZES
                          NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
            "OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: A NEW DIRECTION FOR INDIA?"
                        Sponsored by IBM India Ltd.
                               at Bangalore
�     The Event is to explore and pave a new direction for the Country in
its stride towards e-enablement and e-Governance.
�     Exhibition by leading Vendors coinciding the Conference
Bangalore, February 20, 2003:  MAIT, with the support of IBM India Ltd. and
Department  of  IT  &  BT,  Government of Karnataka is organising a one-day
National  Conference  on "Open Source Software: A New Direction for India?"
on the 26th of February, 2003 at  Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore.
The  Conference  will be inaugurated by Mr. R V Deshpande, Hon'ble Minister
for  Large  &  Medium  Industries,  Government of Karnataka and the Keynote
address  and  Valedictory  address will be delivered by Mr. Abraham Thomas,
Managing   Director,   IBM  India  and  Mr.  Ashok  Soota,  President,  CII
respectively.
The  event  would witness a Panel Discussion on "Proprietary Vs Open Source
Software"  where  the  IT  Secretaries  of  leading  States and other Govt.
officials  who  drive  the  IT  in  their  respective  States  will  be the
Panelists.   To  name  some of them would be, Mr. Rajeev Chawla, Secretary,
e-Governance,  Govt.  of  Karnataka;  Mr. Vivek Harinarain, Secretary ? IT,
Govt.  of  Tamil  Nadu, Mr. Sanjay Singh, Secretary to CM & Secretary ? IT,
Govt.  of  Madhya  Pradesh and Dr. Harbakhsh Singh, Secretary ? IT, Govt of
Haryana.  Mr. Vinay Deshpande, Managing Trustee, Simputer Trust will be the
Moderator of this discussion.
The eminent speakers at this Conference also include Dr. Nadadur Janardhan,
e-Governance  Advisor  &  Program  Integrator,  DCA21;  Prof.  S Sadagopan,
Director,  IIIT  Bangalore;  Mr. Sandeep Menon, Linux Business Manager, IBM
ASEAN/SA;  Prof. D B Phatak, Head-KRSIT, IIT Mumbai; Mr. Sachin Dabir, Head
Enterprise  Sales,  Red  Hat  India;  Mr.  Ashok  Pandey,  President  & GM,
Turbolinux  Inc.,  Beijing,  China;  Mr.  Frank  Luksic,  Country  Manager,
Software   Group,   IBM  and  Mr.  Srikant  Sundararajan,  Vice  President,
Professional Services & CTO, HCL Infosystems Ltd.
The  implementation  Case Studies from prominent foreign countries and also
by NIC and C-DAC will be featured at this Conference.
Coinciding  the  event,  leading  vendors  like  IBM, HCL, Red Hat, Netcore
Solutions, Turbolinux, Altosys, etc. will be exhibiting their products.
Describing the objectives of this Conference, Mr. Venkat Kedlaya, Chairman,
Southern Region, MAIT, told ? "the event is to emphasise the importance and
usage  of Open Source Software as a viable alternative for rapid deployment
of  e-Governance  in  Government  departments  and  other  Government owned
organisations.  One  of  the key issues in deploying Information Technology
solutions  to  improve  Governance  is  the  need for using non-proprietary
software  platforms.  The  Government  agencies  in Japan, France, Germany,
China  and  the  United States are adopting Open Source Software (OSS) in a
big way. Developments and advances in OSS have helped user agencies to move
to Open Source. Even big companies like IBM, Sun, and HP are supporting the
OSS platform.
He  also said that the added benefit to Government is the ability to reduce
Total  Cost of Ownership when OSS is chosen. Government can now specify OSS
as an alternative to proprietary software.
Mr.  Abraham  Thomas, Managing Director, IBM India said, "As the importance
of  open  source grows in the marketplace, governments around the world are
increasing focus on Linux. Linux brings together all the essential features
for  an  operating system like security, flexibility, independence, reduced
cost,  good performance, reliability and ease of migration. The use of open
computing  in  the  Government  IT  infrastructure would result in improved
service to the citizen. We at IBM India have undertaken various initiatives
to build awareness and encourage government policy makers to understand the
value open computing brings to the national IT strategy"
The  conference  would  debate  on  issues and concerns like support, local
language  interface,  stability, inter operability with legacy applications
and the viability to use OSS in desk top environment.
More  than  200  delegates  from  Central and State Government Departments/
Agencies,  Public  Sector Undertakings, Corporate Sector and other Users of
OSS  and  representatives  from  both  IT and Developer communities will be
taking part in this Conference.
About MAIT:
Set  up  in  1982  for  purposes of scientific, educational and IT industry
promotion,  MAIT  has  emerged  as  an  effective,  influential and dynamic
organisation.   Representing hardware, training R&D and associated services
sectors  of  the  Indian IT Industry, MAIT's charter is to develop a global
competitive  Indian  IT  Industry,  promote  the  usage  of  IT  in  India,
strengthen  the  role  of  IT  in national economic development and promote
business through international alliances.
For more information on MAIT please visit www.mait.com
Thanks and regards,
Vandana
_________________________________________________________________
Vandana Rao
Corporate Communications, IBM India Limited, 1st floor, Express Building,
Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi  110 002 (INDIA)
ph # 91-11-23702020 Extn: 573       fx # 91-11-23702021
E-mail: vandanar@in.ibm.com