The World Bank has agreed to assist in setting up distance-learning projects in Andhra Pradesh and re-examine its procedures for financing information technology projects; while Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Cisco Systems, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corp are among US telecom vendors which have offered to participate or invest in the IT and telecom development in the state.
The offers from the multilateral institution and telecom vendors were made during the Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu's visit to the US. Naidu returned from the trip _ described as highly successful _ on Sunday.
Lucent Technologies, Motorola and Cisco Systems have offered to prepare a blue-print for a high-bandwidth data communications network in the state. The high capacity data network is part of Naidu's plans to make the state a hub for IT and telecom industries.
Cisco Systems has offered to make a blue print for providing fibre optic connectivity in Andhra Pradesh and Motorola is to assist the state in the use of wireless technologies for networking. Discussions with Lucent Technologies for setting up high-bandwidth data communications backbone in the state are also on. Lucent, in addition, has also agreed to set up a school for telecom sciences in Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Hyderabad, a research and development centre and a software development centre in the state. The telecom vendor is already setting up the infrastructure for Tata Teleservices.
Other computing majors have also made commitments to the state. IBM has agreed to set up a Centre for Electronic Government; Hewlett Packard proposes to set up a computer laboratory; chip-maker Intel Corp has offered to participate in the IIIT; and General Electric is considering investing in IT-related backoffice operations in the state. Sun Microsystems, Motorola and Orcale Corp have also evinced interest in doing business in Hyderabad.
