"The event is not just another IT fair but is focussed on technologies of tomorrow," Paul Woodward, Miller Freeman director for Asian Strategies said at a pre-event news conference. According to the organisers, the event is aimed at enabling Indian enterprises to compete globally and exploring how technology can help businesses make the transition to the next millennium.

JD Edwards, Dialogic Corporation, Intelligroup are some of the participating companies. The key themes to be addressed at the two-day seminar include computer telephony, e-commerce and ERP. The third day will have an event for CEOs. Eminent industry leaders like F C Kohli of TataConsultancy Services and K V Kamath of ICICI are also scheduled to speak.

"Indian firms will not have to compete with foreigners but themselves. A lot of cash-rich Indians are returning to their country and investing in companies here," Douglas Shinsato, Interactive Intelligent vice-president (Asia-Pacific) said. In this context, Ashok Pandey, co-chief executive officer of Intelligroup, said multinationals were setting up R&D centres in India not because of cheap labour but due to availability of skilled workforce. Sanjoy Sen of PricewaterhouseCoopers said once the IT bill was passed many things could be done better.

However, it would be wrong to wait for the D-day and most top tier companies already had an e-biz maturity model in place. There were different levels in e-business starting from setting up a web-site to having a full-fledged e-commerce, he added.

Others present at the conference were: Neil Debb of JD Edwards and K Digvijay Singh, CEO of The Indian Express group.