The Hindu Business Line : Guess who's placing the orders

CONSIDER a college wanting its students to walk into the campus with a laptop in hand or a university booking desktops in bulk so as to reach education effectively to each of its students.

This might not seem out of place in a metro or even in one of the `happening' places when it comes to IT.

But when it starts happening in B and C cities and towns, one sits up and takes notice.

But first, why is it happening?

"It has become mandatory for these educational institutions to offer a value differentiation through technology and a lot of IT development is happening in these cities," says Ravi Kumar, Country Manager, VFB (Very Focussed Business) IBM.

That's not the only reason. Companies, faced with dearth of talent in metros, are looking to these cities too to nurture skills. To do that, they need to provide the latest IT tools to students.

Ravi Kumar isn't the only one voicing such an opinion.Vinit Kshirsagar, Industry Manager for education, Microsoft, says it is a definite trend that is being seen across the mini metros and more so because an educated skillforce has become the norm of the day.

The numbers of computer purchases by academic institutions in such cities were, however, not available.

Is the trend restricted to only the engineering colleges?

Chandramohan of Bharatplanet.com feels that it's mostly the engineering colleges who are into it. "Technology is something these institutions will showcase — you can find the photograph of the computer lab in all the brochures."

And catering to their needs are IT companies with education programmes - such as Shiksha Abhiyan from IBM, an exclusive programme for Technical Colleges in India that seeks an opportunity to build long-term relationships with colleges and students. Recently rolled out, this programme targets 1,200 colleges.

The beginning of a new academic year in India is the time when most technical colleges take decisions on purchase of IT products, says Ravi Kumar.

Taking advantage of this, VFB launched this programme that covers Gurukul - IBM College Connect Program, targeting the overall personality development of students.

There's also the IBM Software Academic Initiative, a program to partner with colleges and universities to work towards building skilled and competitive IT professionals.

Under this, a broad range of resources such as the latest technologies in IBM software, course materials, training and support, are provided to students, faculty and institutions.

Apart from providing guidance through workshops, "we also aid student development through our speedstart CDs and Developer Works subscriptions."

There are offers from IBM's Systems and Technology Group for the OpenPower, pSeries and xSeries range of eServers.

To top it all, "if the college has a lab which has only IBM hardware, IBM will provide them with the "Lab of Excellence — powered by IBM Technologies," tag, he says.

Microsoft has developed its own educational programmes and true to the spirit of `catch `em young', the company is implementing such programmes right at school level. For college students, different MS technologies are being offered.

Is the whole thing finally just a promotional initiative? No, say the tech players. They also point out that such IT offerings to educational institutions come at considerable cost reduction.

Whatever the viewpoint, this initiative will help companies access more talent.

And the student gets an early start when it comes to exposure to IT.

savitharin@gmail.com

Picture by G.R.N. Somashekar