HCL COMPLETES 30 YEARS IN INDIA
'To spearhead PC penetration & Digital Lifestyle in the nation as it moves forward'
New Delhi, August 24, 2006 -- HCL Infosystems Ltd., nation's premier information enabling and integration company, completed its 30 years in August 2006. HCL, India's original "IT garage start-up" was started by Mr. Shiv Nadar, Mr. Ajai Chowdhry and few other passionate entrepreneurs in 1976 and has come a long way in chalking the course of IT growth in the country. From giving India its first-ever indigenously developed PC to spearheading the digital lifestyle revolution - HCL has come a long way, setting several milestones and keeping the country at pace with global technological developments.
Showcasing the key milestones of its 30-year-old journey as well as displaying some of the latest technology solutions, which hold the potential to strongly empower the information & communication technology network in & around Patna - HCL today shared its future strategy with select media representatives. Further, it also organized 'HCL Mindia Conclave' - an HCL initiative, wherein they invite some leading intellectuals and personalities from different walks of life, to deliberate on the spirit of 'Indian-ness' and how can India sustain its intellectual leadership.
Speaking on this occasion Mr. Ajai Chowdhry - Chairman & CEO, HCL Infosystems Ltd., said, "In it's 30 years history, it is worth pointing out that HCL has participated in virtually every significant inflection point in the industry with invention, creation, innovation, and path breaking initiatives. But looking back, we believe that there is still much to cover. Though we have spearheaded PC penetration to Indian rural sectors - wherein resides nation's 70% population and which hold the potential to actually transform India into a technology nation - we believe that we have just skimmed the surface. Similarily, as the young India becomes more technology savvy, we have to ensure that they get all their required solutions, which are world-class as well as cost-effective. Hence, while the previous 30 years focused on 'bringing technology' to the country, the next step would be 'facilitate technology adoption' across the nation - while ensuring that it keeps the pace with its global counterparts."
It was HCL, back in 1983, that came up the with campaign 'Even Typists can operate a PC' to popularize the use of PCs in the nation as well as foresaw the fact that home PC will be the real enabler of PC revolution in the nation. Pioneering power solutions with an aim to make PC technology more adaptable to Indian rural sector - wherein lies the most potential untapped market for PCs in India, HCL has initiated indigenous technologies like RP2 and propagated the use of multi-lingual software, which comes pre-loaded in HCL PCs. As such, HCL today is the largest manufacturer and marketer of desktops in the country.
Product Inventions, some of the firsts:
- In an era when 'technology' & the 'world' were an enigma to India, six enterprising entrepreneurs formed HCL and developed India's first PC in 1978 - the same year when Apple launched their first prototype and three years before IBM. So indeed, while the world thinks that PC was born 25 years ago by IBM, the truth is that it was developed much earlier and that too in India! This microcomputer, named HCL 8C, used a mini floppy drive as the storage device and matrix printer as output device. HCL also wrote its Operating System and a Basic Interpreter language.
- Working ahead of global majors such as Oracle, HCL was the first to develop & venture into Relational database (RDBMS) in 1983.
- In the same year , 1983, HCL developed the first Networking Operating System in the world , ahead of Novell and released in India . HCL's practices in Networking and Telecom Technologies owe their origin to this development.
- HCL , developed Multiprocessor Unix in 1988, named Magnum. HCL was clearly three years ahead of HP and Sun.
- HCL's Word Processor in 1983 and Commercial Unix in 1985 are also amongst the first in the world offering more powerful and cost effective open systems as compared to proprietary ones.
The Future Roadmap:
- Unleashing Digital Lifestyle: Proactively reading the markets have been just one of the legends of HCL. Strengthening the same, HCL is now pioneering new initiatives to bring digital lifestyle era in the country. From offering a wide range of product offerings - ranging from media center PCs, office automation equipment, digital cameras, DTH & even iPods - to venturing into launching nation's first-of-its-kind 'Digital Lifestyle' stores, which would re-define retailing of technology products.
- Enabling to fulfil each technology need of every individual: From high-end servers to thin-client PCs, from contact-centre solutions to iPBX systems; from multi-use printers to desktop printers; from integrated audio-visual boardroom solutions to high-end physical & data security systems - today, HCL perhaps offers the widest & most extensive range of ICT products under its umbrella. With a ever-evolving range of products - HCL is enabling to fulfil each technology need for every individual.
- Co-creating products: Creating yet another industry benchmark, HCL has been 'co-creating' specific technology products to suit the specific needs of various industries. It has already created special products for the retail sector, BPO sector - even launched nation's first range of segment specific laptops.
- Extensive service & support network: HCL, perhaps, has the widest & deepest reach of its service & support infrastructure across the nation. With the largest support team of around 3000 service engineers and direct presence in over 300 centres, HCL has ensured that a technology savvy nation gets world-class service support to sustain its steam. It has also recently announced setting up of 'Enterprise Response Centre' - a state-of-the-art technology center, capable of remotely monitoring & resolving any technological problems, faced in mission-critical operations of its clients.
About HCL Infosystems
HCL Infosystems, India's premier information enabling and integration company offers its customers technology solutions across multiple platforms. It has partnerships with some leading global player like Intel, AMD, Toshiba, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Apple and Zee among others.
HCL Infosystems has direct customer services center across 300+ locations and two ISO 9001 certified state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. With a mission to provide world-class information technology solutions and services to enable its customers to serve their customers better, HCL Infosystems is forever setting new standards of IT in the country. For more information please visit www.hclinfosystems.in
About HCL Enterprise
HCL Enterprise is a leading Global Technology and IT enterprise with annual revenues of US $3.5 billion. The HCL Enterprise comprises two companies listed in India - HCL Technologies & HCL Infosystems. The 3-decade-old enterprise, founded in 1976, is one of India's original IT garage start ups. Its range of offerings span Product Engineering, Technology and Application Services, BPO, Infrastructure Services, IT Hardware, Systems Integration, and distribution of technology and telecom products. The HCL team comprises of 32,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate from 15 countries including 300 points of presence in India. HCL has global partnerships with several leading Fortune 1000 firms, including leading IT and Technology firms. For more information please visit us at www.hcl.in
