New Delhi, October 23, 2008 
Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman of Cognizant Technology Solutions was presented with corporate India’s prestigious ‘Dataquest IT Person of the Year’ award 2008, for his stellar role in leading and growing Cognizant Technologies. 

The award was presented to Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan by Mr. Ajai K Chowdhry, Chairman and CEO of HCL Infosystems and Dataquest IT Person of the Year 2007, and Dataquest publisher and CyberMedia group chairman Pradeep Gupta, in a glittering ceremony in the presence of leaders from all sections of the IT industry on Wednesday night. 

The awards jury also acknowledged the leadership provided by Mr. Narayanan’s to Nasscom, India’s largest IT industry body. He was the chairman of Nasscom in 2007 where he played an important role in bridging the gap between industry and academia and worked towards forging closer ties between them. 

Building on Cognizant’s strengths in human resources, technology expertise and state-of-the-art delivery centres, Mr. Narayanan grew the company three-fold in his three years as the CEO. Cognizant, the first IT services company to be inducted in NASDAQ 100 is a Fortune 1000 company. 

Delhi CM receives the best e-Governed State of India award
The ‘Best e-Governed State of India’ award went to the NCT of Delhi. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit received the award for making Delhi the Best eGoverned State by setting up a series of citizen centric services from Mr. Wajahat Habibullah, Chief Information Commissioner, and Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman of CyberMedia. Delhites were the most satisfied with e-governance initiatives as Delhi topped nine of the fourteen parameters in this category, according to a survey conducted IDC India for Dataquest. Delhi spent Rs 10,982 for every citizen on building its IT infrastructure and maintaining citizen-centric IT applications.

Delhi has done exceedingly well in certain services including state transport services, power utility, agriculture, municipal corporation. Delhi also scored well when it came to e-Gov satisfaction on the business services front. This was an achievement in a year when businesses were hard hit following the MCD sealing drive. Delhi’s judicial system was also rated highly by businesses, indicating that the efforts to modernize local courts in Delhi have started paying off. 

Earlier in the year, at the Dataquest regional e-Gov summit in Delhi, the state IT Secretary received the regional award for the best e-Governed state in the northern region. This, now, is the national award. 

The Lifetime Achievement Award for IIT Bombay's Dr. D. B. Phatak 
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dr D. B. Phatak, the Subharao M Nilekani Chair Professor and Head of IIT Bombay-based Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT) for making an indelible mark on the Indian IT industry by inspiring a whole generation of young students, who have in turn transformed into big thought leaders. 

In addition, a dozen awards were given to the top manufacturers and service providers in the industry. 

‘Pathbreaker of the Year 2008’ award for Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani of Naukri.com
The ‘Pathbreaker of the Year 2008’ award went to the young entrepreneur Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani for establishing a successful online business model and creating an unmatched mindshare among web users looking for jobs. Having founded Naukri.com about 10 years ago, the company’s new properties include jeevansaathi.com and 99acres.com. 

In addition to building a great global brand, Mr. Bikhchandani has been able to create, retain and maintain a great team.

The Dataquest annual awards, now in its 16th year, have honored IT leaders like N Vittal, Ashok Soota, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, Rajendra Pawar, Kiran Karnik and S. Ramadorai over the years. 

Speaking on the impact of global meltdown on India's information technology industry Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman of CyberMedia said, "The current financial crisis presents an opportunity for Indian services providers to grow their market share across sectors and geographies. 

“I am confident that the entrepreneurs will use this opportunity to sharpen their offerings by leveraging technological strengths and abundant manpower pool,” added Mr. Gupta.

The winners were chosen by a panel of experts like Ajai K Chowdhry, Chairman and CEO of HCL Infosystems and Dataquest IT Person of the Year 2007; Deep Kalra, Founder, Makemytrip.com; Krishan Dhawan, Chairman, Oracle India; Akshaya Bhargava, CEO of UK-based Butterfield Fulcrum Group; Ajay Dhir, CIO, Jindal Steel; Padma Ravichander, of Mercer; Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia; and Shyam Malhotra, Editor in Chief of CyberMedia Publications.

Speaking on the occasion, Dataquest Chief Editor Mr. Prasanto K. Roy said, “The awards reflect the highlight of the year gone by, a trend that continues in 2008-09: the rise of the domestic market and technology industry. Indian market growth overtook exports growth for the first time in a decade, and with the global recession, the home market is going to be even more interesting for every technology player.”

“There is also this large untapped market for services companies, both in India and abroad - a long tail of companies and processes - that do not outsource yet--but may now be forced to look outside to reduce costs," he added. 

Top Corporate Awards for TCS, HP, NIIT, Microsoft and 8 others
The corporate awards were given to the following companies on the basis of various annual surveys that Dataquest conducts on the IT industry. 

Top Systems Company Award: Hewlett-Packard
HP emerged as the clear leader in almost all categories of computer systems: desktops, commercial as well as consumer, notebooks, and servers, both x86 and non x-86 categories. 

Top Networking Company Award: Cisco Systems
Cisco overwhelmingly dominates the networking equipment market in India, with 80% share. It retained lead in the key segments of routers and switches, with over 75% share in each, and also WLAN products.

Top Training Company Award: NIIT
NIIT has been the training leader from the beginning, retaining 35% share of a rather fragmented market--with training revenues of over Rs 900 crore, growing at 27%. It also completed a decade in China, where it is growing consistently. 

Top Growth Company: SAP India 
SAP’s global headquarters declared the India operation its “Jewel in the Crown”, for being the fastest growing subsidiary--growing 84% in last year to over $800 million. 

Top IT Company & Top Exporter: TCS
TCS topped this category again, growing 22% to over $5 billion in revenues, and growing beyond one lakh employees. It also diversified, with 45% business coming from outside North America. It also struck a $1.5 billion deal with Nielsen, the largest in offshoring history. 

Top Services Company (India Market) Award: IBM India 
IBM increased the gap between itself and the #2 in strategic outsourcing, winning Vodafone as a customer, after Airtel and Idea. It also built up momentum on its SMB strategy, doubling its customers to 27. 

Top BPO Company: Genpact
Genpact continued its strategy of focusing on large clients and growing these accounts, and managed to nearly double its non-GE business. It also got listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. 

Top Distribution Company: Ingram Micro
Ingram Micro grew well, crossing $2 billion in India, and adding new principals such as VMWare, Business Objects, and Hitachi; it also managed to grow its PC business by 30%. 

Top Software Company Award: Microsoft 
Microsoft led this category and grew 25%, despite pressure from piracy and open source, helped by Vista, which crossed 2 million unit sales. During the year, 35 mobile phone models in India adopted the Windows mobile platform.

Top T-School Award: IIT Kharagpur
IIT-Kharagpur drew the maximum IT and BPO companies as recruiters, and was clearly ahead of other institutes including IITS, in the average salary drawn through campus placements.

Top Imaging and Printing: Hewlett-Packard
HP remained the overwhelming market leader in imaging and printing, with the fight on for the number two slot. It topped the inkjet market with over 67% revenue share, and laser printers with over 76% share 

Top IT Employer: iGATE
iGATE was the best employer as per the DQ-IDC Best Employer Survey 2008, continuing its run from of last year, where it jumped 36 places to reach the 3rd position. It scored high on company image, culture, content, and training. 

Top BPO Employer: vCustomer
vCustomer emerged as the top BPO company in the BPO-Employee Satisfaction 2008 survey, because of its employee empowerment agenda and sharp drop in attrition. It focused on bringing behavioral changes and skills enhancement through training, and took performance management completely online. 

About CyberMedia 
CyberMedia is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with 15 publications (including Dataquest, PCQuest, Voice&Data, BioSpectrum (India & Asia), Living Digital, Global Services, DQ Channels, DQ Week, Voice&Data Connect, Dare and Halsbury's Law Monthly) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics and biotech areas, and is media value chain including the Internet (www.ciol.com), events and television. The group's media services include market research (IDC India), content management, multimedia and media education.

CyberMedia' BioSpectrum Asia from Singapore and Global Services from the USA are the first Indian magazine titles to be published from outside the country for a global audience. CyberMedia has recently tied up with MIT to launch conference and publication for Emerging Technologies in India.

For media inquiries, please contact: 
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‘shyamanujad at cybermedia dot Co dot in’