BASIS Softexpo to begin in Dhaka February 14
Local software companies expect the upcoming BASIS Softexpo 2008 to yield a good number of outsourcing and joint venture initiatives with the largest number of foreign companies and delegates participating in this year’s fair.
The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, the national trade body of software and ICT service companies, is going to organize the five-day event from February 14 at the Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Centre in association with international trade bodies.
Organisers said at a press conference on Tuesday that about 50 foreign companies and delegates from five countries will take part alongside the local companies at this year’s fair.
The convener of the exhibition, TIM Nurul Kabir said that they are expecting a good number of match making session with the delegates and local companies, during which local software companies will get an opportunity for outsourcing and partnership with foreign companies.
Rafiqul Islam Rowly, president of BASIS, said, ‘we have a serious image problem in the international market and our strategy is to bring the potential foreign companies to the country through this fair so that they can see for themselves the progress in our ICT sector’.
Denmark will be the theme country for this year’s event and IT Industry Association of Denmark will be the association partner of BASIS Softexpo 2008.
Danish Federation of Small and Medium Industries, Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, UK Trade and Investment, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), will all be strategic partners of the exposition.
Rafiqul Islam said, ‘Denmark is the theme country for this year because they are emerging as the engine of our joint venture and outsourcing businesses in the software industry.’
Natahalia Feinberg, chargé d’affaires of Danish Embassy in Dhaka, said around 15 Denmark-Bangladesh joint ventures had been established in the country and many Danish companies are also outsourcing software development mainly in architecture, graphic design and 3D animation to Bangladesh.
She said about 15-20 Danish firms are coming to the expo and she hoped that the number of partnerships and joint venture will increase this year.
Tomohiro Kinomoto, representative of Japan External Trade Organisation in Dhaka, said Japanese companies are looking for outsourcing partners in Bangladesh. He said a total of six Japanese companies will participate at this year’s exposition in their bid to find outsourcing partners.
Kevin Ringham of the UK Trade and Investment at the British High Commission in Dhaka said there are opportunities for UK and Bangladeshi companies to work together. UK Trade and Investment will promote UK companies that collaborate with Bangladeshi ones, he said .
Shakhwat Ali, director of Export Promotion Bureau, Feroz Mahmood, country representative of Microsoft and Mostofa Jabbar, president of Bangladesh Computer Samity were present at the press conference.
The theme of this year event is ‘Get, Gain and Grow’.
Around 200 software and IT service companies are expected to participate at the fair. The exhibition will be categorised into zones such as business software, outsourcing, multimedia, animation and games, e-commerce, e-governance, hardware technology solution, telecommunication and networking, and a number of other categories.
The expo will also feature a Best IT Use Award, IT job fair and seminars on IT issues like e-commerce, e-governance, cyber laws, access to finance, and human resource development.
Organisers expect about one lakh visitors at the exhibition.
Source: Newage
Sale of notebook PC on the increase at Dhaka
The sale of notebook personal computer is on the rise although computer hardware is seeing a dull business in local market at the beginning of this year, said traders at BCS Computer City, the largest computer market in the country. Students are the main buyers of notebook PCs these days besides increasing number of corporate users in the country.
Computer traders said the people are turning their eyes to notebook PC as it is more
user-friendly than desktop computer. According to information of different ICT professional trade bodies, at present there are about five million PC users and three million internet users in the country and the number of users is gradually increasing.
Some large computer shops at the BCS computer market said they are selling, on an average, 5-8 personal computers per day and 80 per cent of them are notebook PCs.
Momenoor Rashid, marketing officer of Computer Source Limited, said they are selling different configuration notebook PC of HP brand at prices ranging between Tk 48,750 and Tk 1,20,000.
HP Compaq Presario, model C702TU notebook PC, is priced at Tk 48,750, HP model V6602TU at Tk 68,900 and HP 520 at Tk 56,200, he said, adding that these are selling well.
‘Our company is selling some HP business series laptops like HP Compaq nx8420, at Tk 1,03,000, HP Compaq nc6400 at Tk 1,03,500 and HP Compaq nx6310 at Tk 81,500.’
Other brand laptops also selling well are Asus, Accer, Dell and Toshiba.
Daffodil Computer has also started selling Daffodil brand laptops recently.
Mohammad Ferdous, assistant manager (sales) of Flora Limited, said the trend of
using computer has been changed these days; people are not using computer for multimedia purposes like playing games or watching movies at home.
Many students particularly at graduate level are using computer for study purposes, said, adding that the number of users is also increasing in business sector like short and medium enterprises as well as in the government body at union and upazila levels.
Ferdous said that they are getting more order from the government bodies at union and upazila levels, LGRD ministry, different UN offices, NGOs and short and medium enterprises apart from large corporate users.
Users prefer clone PC to brand PC because they can change different hardware according to their demand in the clone PC, said the computer traders.
Desktop computer mainly clone PC is selling at prices ranging Tk 25,000 and Tk 35,000 while the prices of brand desktop computer vary from Tk 35,000 and above.
The prices of different computer hardware like hard disk, processor, RAM, AGP card, DVD writer, monitor, key board, mouse and other accessories fluctuate from Tk 100-Tk 500, said the traders.
Ferdous said computer business was dull at the beginning of the year but the traders hoped that it would get momentum from the next month as the computer fair is going to take place in the 3rd week of February.
Mofizur Rahman of Dolphin Computers said, ‘We make a good sale every year during the fair season as people wait for the computer fair to get discounts and offers.’
Computer traders said
there is growing demand for scanner, printer, digital camera, photocopier, MP3 and MP4 players and pen drives both from businesspeople and individuals.
Source: Newage
IT and telecom spending in Bangladesh tops $380m – Increasing use of computers by small and medium businesses
Small and medium businesses in Bangladesh spent nearly $380 million on IT and telecom solutions in 2007, said a study conducted by the New York-based Access Markets International Partners.
‘SMBs in Bangladesh may have started off a bit slower than their counterparts in the Indian subcontinent in terms of overall IT adoption,’ says Dev Chakravarty, senior analyst at AMI Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in IT, internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital and actionable market intelligence, with a strong focus on global small and medium business enterprises.
‘However, their IT adoption is set to take off more rapidly in the near future.
That is because SMBs in Bangladesh are becoming more aware of the advantages of IT in increasing business process efficiencies and enabling them to move up the growth ladder,’ he said.
SMBs are also being supported by promotional measures taken by the government for enhancing technology deployment.
They are also being wooed by the increased sales and marketing efforts by leading IT vendors in Bangladesh.
SMBs typically go through three distinctive phases of IT deployment — from building infrastructure solutions to deploying connectivity solutions and ultimately enter-
prise solutions for extending business reach to remote locations, customers and business partners.
Most of Bangladesh’s SMBs are still in the first wave of technology adoption (building the basic infrastructure) and are yet to progress to the second wave (connecting the enterprise), as is evident from their technology penetrations.
They have already reached substantially high usage levels in technologies like desktops, printers and basic productivity software applications, anti-virus and, to some extent, even internet.
‘Only around one in ten SMBs in Bangladesh have adopted computers at present,’ says Chakravarty.
‘Nevertheless, this is more an opportunity rather than a shortcoming. Personal computer vendors can focus on this huge,
relatively untapped, SMB market in this country to gain
significant returns. PC adop-
tion plans are quite positive,’ said the study, released on Monday.
‘About 30 per cent of PC-owning SMBs indicated that they intend to purchase new PCs in the next 12 months. A sizeable proportion of first-time PC buyers are also likely to join in, thus boosting the overall SMB market for PCs,’ concludes the report.
Source: New Age.
