With
pomp and grandeur, VARIndia organized
its fourth Star Nite Award 2005 at
Hotel Eros (ParkRoyal) InterContinental,
Nehru Place, New Delhi. Attended by
650 people from the entire IT fraternity
in India, more than 65 awards were
presented to the top performers of
the IT industry in various categories.
Speaking
on the occasion, the Chief Guest,
Dr. N. Vijayaditya, Director General,
National Informatics Centre (NIC),
urged the Information Technology
(IT) industry to further bring down
the cost of Personal computers and
at the same time develop Laptop computers
below Rs.10,000, as in the case of
Desktop computers.
He said that the
development of laptop below Rs.10K
will help students and research scholars
to work better.
He also urged the IT
industry to develop appliances which
can be used in rural India. The biggest
problem of installing computers in
villages was irregular power supply.
He urged the industry to develop
personal computers, which can have
their own solar-powered backup systems.
He
said that a citizen-focussed approach
along with Public Private Partnership
(PPP) can only provide an integrated
platform for achieving the true vision
of e-Governance in the country. Government,
on its part, can only provide basic
infrastructure, including Internet,
window facilitation centre and last
leg connectivity for implementation
of e-governance, but PPP is the major
key factor for providing totally transparent
services to the public, he added.
He
said that for successful implementation
of National e-Governance Action Plan
(NEGP), the role of private sector
is equally important. The government
services like birth and death certificates,
payment of various bills, taxes,
online submission of applications,
land and revenue records can be accessed
from a small STD booth or photocopying
shop.
He said that the Government
was committed for implementing e-governance
till the last mile. For providing
connectivity to remote areas, the
government has planned to use wireless
and Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access (WIMAX) technology.
The
highlight of the awards was that
HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd. received
awards in the Best Product categories
- PC International Brand, Notebook,
Storage Solution, Server, Inkjet
Printer, Laser Jet, CLJ, AIO, MFD,
Scanner, etc. Canon India received
awards as the Best Imaging Solution
company and for the Best Digital
Camera. Similarly, HCL Infosystems
bagged the award for the Best PC
Indian Brand.
Another major vendor,
Samsung India, received awards in
various product categories, including
CRT, TFT, Large Format Display, OMS,
the Best HDD (Pata), etc. The keyboard
and mouse major, Logitech Electronics
India, won Best awards in the categories
of Cordless Mouse, Keyboard (Membrane),
Gaming Hardware, etc. While the Chennai-based
TVS Electronics Ltd. received awards
for the best Keyboard (Mechanical)
and DMP, another Chenni-based company,
HCL Peripherals, received the award
for the ThinClient Technology Provider.
And,
Microsoft India received awards for
Best Laptop Mouse, Gaming Software
and Software Suite for SMBs.
Intel
once again became the undisputed
leader to win Best Processor and
Motherboard awards. Two Bangalore-based
companies, Epson India and APC India,
received awards as the Best Projector
and Best Power Management Solutions
companies, respectively.
In the networking
category, D-Link received the award
as the Best Networking Vendor and
Cisco Systems received the award
as the Best Networking Solutions
Company.
In the Best Memory Module
category, Simmtronics Semiconductors
Ltd. received the award. In the Technology
Management space, Tivoli (Ibm Global
Services India) received the award
as the Best Technology Management
Solutions Company. SAP India Pvt.
Ltd. bagged the award as the Best
ERP Solution Company. Similarly,
Oracle was the winner of the award
in the Best Database Management S/W
category. And, eSys Information Technologies
Limited was adjudged as the fastest
growing distribution company in India.
There
were six awards for the Most-Trusted
Company category, and the winners
were Cisco, Samsung, EMC, SES and
Trend Micro and Emerson and five
awards for the best network integrators
from five metros. And, two VARIndia
user choice awards had gone to BPE
and Simmtronics Semiconductors Ltd.
for UPS and USB repeatedly. Besides
these, thirteen awards were bagged
by the resellers in different cities
for their outstanding performance.
While
vendors like HP, Canon, APC, Samsung,
Trend Micro, Hughes DiRECWAY, eSys
and BPE put up stalls to demonstrate
new technologies and products, HP,
Hughes DiRECWAY, Samsung and SAP
gave presentations on their respective
products.
The partners for bringing
about this grand event were HP, Samsung,
Canon, EMC, SES, Hughes DiRECWAY,
Microsoft, APC, Intel, SAP, TVS-E,
Trend Micro, eSys and SES Technologies.
While Mr. Deepak Sahu, President,
VARIndia, welcomed the guests and
Mr. Sanjeev Mahapatra, Publisher,
VARIndia, gave a vote of thanks,
Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra, Editor, VARIndia,
commended the responsiveness of the
readers of VARIndia.
Finally, the
event concluded with a happy note
with Canon giving away a printer
based on the lucky draw from the
shuffled visiting cards of the attendees.
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