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Microsoft bags Rs 8.7 million DoP order

This is part of the proposed local-area network implementation in every circle of the department.

T O D A Y

• Tooth extraction • Consumers polled • MS bags DoP order • The MAIT bait

The initial order for the 180 licences is worth about Rs 8.7 million and the whole project for DoP would be around Rs 50 million. "This is the first phase of the project and we expect to supply 150 more licences within this year," said Sanjiv Mathur, marketing manager, SQL Servers (for Indian subcontinent), Microsoft.

The total order is expected to be for around 6,000 licences. The DoP has about 14,000 circles.

"Currently there are different applications running on different platforms and this is a move to standardise the front and back end throughout all the circles by the Ninth Plan," said Mathur.

While Mathur does not feel that all 14,000 circles will be put on a standardised LAN by the Ninth Plan, he estimates that a total order of about 6,000 licences would come through.

While Microsoft is providing the SQL and NT software, NIIT Limited would do the system integration and training and the Bangalore based DataNet would develop the standardised savings bank application.

"A standardised front-end application is very crucial here as the postal employees are not very computer literate. And given the frequent transfers, an employee is most comfortable when he sees the same icons and tools on the screen in any circle," said Mathur.

Currently there are about seven versions of the same savings bank application.

DataNeT, which has been developing the applications for the DoP on Sybase, will now port the application on the SQL server.

The order may be significant for Microsoft as 1,200 SQL servers a year would amount to almost 20 per cent of the total database sales in the country last year by units, Mathur said.

International Data Corporation India figures show a 4 per cent share for SQL server in 1996-97 by revenue of the Rs 980 million RDBMS market. And it had no presence in 1995-96.

But Mathur said that if looked at from the number of units, SQL server currently has about an 18 per cent market share in the overall database market and about a 50 per cent market share in the NT market.

"One fact is that NT works best with SQL server. Another is that the cost of an Oracle RDBMS works out to almost eight times that of SQL," he claimed.

Earlier:

Post-mortem
Is there life after death? Yes. The postal department can be resurrected if infotech plays Jesus Christ.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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