Accepting the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award, Premji paid tribute to the legendary Tata. "A century later", he said, "we are in the middle of another powerful shift from manufacturing into the knowledge era."Pointing to the spurt in dot.com start-ups, he said the market is prepared to bet on industries that show a promise for future growth. For once, the competitive advantage of organisations and nations in based not on material resources but on the strength of ideas. He should know.

Toshiba eyes tie-up with AOL-Time Warner
IN A move to jump start its lagging Internet content business, Toshiba Corp said on Monday it plans to begin talks with US giant America Online on the distribution of AOL-Time Warner's content in Japan. Toshiba could use such an alliance to try to challenge the dominance of Sony Corp as Japan's leading Internet content provider, analysts said.

Sidbi to hike VCF corpus
Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) has recieved proposals for over Rs 140 crore from information technology start-ups within three months of launch of its Rs 100 crore venture capital fund (VCF) and is planning to increase the corpus soon, a top official said. "The National Venture Fund for Software and Information Technology Industry (NFSIT) has so far received proposals worth Rs 100 crore from state level and another Rs 40 crore from the national level it companies," Sidbi chief general manager B Radhakrishnan told PTI.

Firm sued for registering `Bisleri' as domain name
Aqua Minerals, manufacturer of `Bisleri' mineral water today filed a Rs 10 lakh damage suit in Delhi High Court against a Nasik-based firm for allegedly registering the domain name `Bisleri' for itself. Justice Vikramjit Sen sought replies from the Nasik firm, Cyber World Infotech (CWI) and its proprietor Pramod Brothers and issued them notices returnable by May next. Aqua Minerals, claiming itself to be the biggest mineral water supplier in India with 70 per cent market share, said that `Bisleri' was its popular trademark and could not be used by any other person for any purpose.

FE journalist wins IT award
Charles Assisi, a senior journalist of The Financial Express, has been chosen to receive The PoleStar Award for infotech journalists in 1999. The award is an initiative of The PoleStar Foundation set up by Polaris Software Lab Ltd, a software house based in Chennai.

Assisi has been given the award for his writings on "IT for competitive advantage" in the General Business category. Yograj Sharma of Dataquest magazine has received the same award for the "IT Professionals" category.The award will be presented by Shekhar Dasgupta, country manager, Oracle Software India Ltd, at a function in Chennai on February 24. Dasgupta will also deliver the keynote address at the function.