Lucknow witnesses no slowdown

Lucknow : The IT market of Lucknow hasn't seen much of a slowdown
despite the much-hyped credit crisis and reducing rate of returns on investments
(RoI). On the contrary, there has been a positive response from IT channel
partners in the city. The major reason for the feel-good factor is the large
number of government employees residing in the city. With UP government
announcing salary hike for employees pumping the cash reserves with the local
consumers, the sales in IT sector have seen no change. In fact, according to
sources, the sales of laptops and desktops have actually gone up. Surinder of
Sagar Infosystem said, "Computers and its accessories haven't seen any change in
its demand. Laptops are gaining popularity over desktops now. Local consumers
prefer to go for branded laptops instead of desktops, as the price difference is
reducing. A trend that is expected to follow in future too."

Pankaj Kumar Agarwal of Docket Care Systems said, "Local customers prefers
only branded products, specially laptops and desktops. This is a bad time for
new products being launched in the market, as people don't trust them. Local
customers are looking for returns on every single rupee that they spend."

He further added, "There is no scope for new products in the market with
innovative features. Consumers are skeptical about spending money on any such
thing from which they are not sure of getting adequate RoI. That is where brand
positioning has an advantage and vendors like HP/Compaq, Sony, Dell are
scoring.hHB"

For partners in Lucknow big brands are still very easy to sell as compared to
non-branded products. For any brand, apart from the pricing, advertising and
promotion of their products also plays a key role in defining the demand. Hence
reducing price rates and an increasing need for computers is only pushing the
sales further.

"Demand is certainly going to increase in future. We depend a lot on
computers these days and this trend will only increase in the future," added
Surinder.

On the demand for IT solutions in Lucknow, Pankaj Kapoor of Computer Shack
said, "Opportunities on the solutions front are also gearing up with time.
Industry is moving towards the solutions side with their rising requirements.
For example, Lucknow University is looking forward to its complete
computerization, building campus networks, connectivity establishment between
both the campuses of the university. SGPGI is planning to set-up its own
Hospital Information System (HIS) and establishing Tele-Medicine system for
video conferencing while another hospital in the city-KGMC, is coming up with
its own Hospital Management System (HMS). Those are a few instances of how
requirements are coming up within the city."

Kapoor felt that there had been no slowdown within the city on the IT
solutions part. He informed that brands like IBM, Microsoft and Symantec are the
most trusted brands when it comes to the demands for the IT solutions within the
city.