Source: www.nytimes.com

Indian outsourcers already have a large share of outsourced application development and maintenance and are dominant in business process outsourcing. The country is now targeting a larger share of the market for remote infrastructure management services (IMS), and is planning to more than double revenue from these services to US$15 billion by 2013.

IMS involves managing an enterprise’s core IT systems, including hardware, software, connectivity and people. The IMS industry is moving towards a remote delivery model where services are increasing delivered from low-cost locations by service providers and wholly-owned services subsidiaries of user companies, according to a report released Thursday by India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

Customers in the US and Europe are increasingly willing to outsource IMS to offshore locations, because the data does not move out of the home countries, and is only managed remotely, said Siddharth Pai, a partner at sourcing consultancy firm,Technology Partners International (TPI) in Houston, Texas.

In India, IMS business is going both to Indian outsourcers, and the Indian operations of large IT services companies, Pai said. Because of the large staff component involved in IMS, there are cost benefits in outsourcing IMS to low-cost, offshore locations like India, he added.

Research done by management consultancy firm McKinsey for Nasscom, suggests that the IMS business could generate between 325,000 to 375,000 jobs in India by 2013, as 70 to 75 percent of the roles in IMS can be moved offshore.

Low-cost locations, including India, have so far captured a mere $6 to 7 billion [b] of the IMS opportunity.

Indian outsourcers have so far learned to price their services on the basis of staff time utilized. They now have to learn more sophisticated pricing that takes into account other parameters like amount of computing power being managed, if they are not to risk losing money in the business, Pai said.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Warner Bros Motion Picture Imaging (MPI), the Hollywood studio’s 4k post production facility, with films like Ocean’s 13 to its credit, has entered into a strategic alliance with Prime Focus, the India-based post production house with operations in UK, US, Canada and India.

The tie-up will allow both companies to move content seamlessly from facility to facility, using the most cost efficient method, which will allow them to process work in the time zone that most closely meets individual filmmaker’s needs and schedules.

Prime Focus has 1,500 people and operations out of facilities in India, London, New York, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Los Angeles. Warner MPI is based in Burbank.

With this alliance, Prime Focus could very well be bidding for the next Harry Potter movie through its high-end UK subsidiary, VTR, which last month acquired Machine Effects, a boutique firm with experience on Warner films like Harry Potter. Prime Focus UK is reputed for its expertise in high-end digital work.

”Outsourcing to India is one of the aspects but it is our facilities across the world which attracted Warner,” said Prime Focus MD Namit Malhotra told ET.

The deal will give Prime Focus a leg up into its global ambitions of attracting high-end Hollywood work, through its international subsidiaries. Last December Prime Focus acquired Post Logic Studios and Frantic Films which are the two specialised post production and visual effects companies in North America.

This new alliance will work on Warner’s first Indian production, Made in China, with Ramesh Sippy Productions, starring Askhay Kumar. It also allows both companies to manage their workflows more efficiently between Warner Bros. MPI in Burbank, and Prime Focus’s facilities throughout multiple locations in India and London as well as in New York, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Los Angeles.

Warner Bros Home Entertainment Group executive vice president Chuck Dages said the alliance gives MPI a global footprint and “allows both our companies to provide our clients, wherever they are working, with convenient facilities and expanded capacity.” It also allows both companies to manage their workflows more efficiently between Warner Bros. MPI, located in the Warner studio in Burbank, and Prime Focus’s facilities.

“Filmmakers will know their work is being handled with a high standard of quality that they deserve,” Mr Dages added. Besides Prime Focus, last December, MPI also partnered with India’s Prasad Corp to provide digital post production and restoration services.