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HFCL to launch hospital management software

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CIOL Bureau
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NEW DELHI, August 24: Hindustan

Futuristic Communications Ltd. (HFCL), the telecom and equipment

manufacturing company, is planning to launch a software for hospital

management, Medisoft, by the end of this month and a software for the call

center by October at ITU in Geneva. In addition to this, the company is

also looking at other products targeted basically at the telecom industry

and e-commerce. The informatics division, with an investment of Rs 10

crore, also is into project development, another area where the focus will

be increased. "Our clear focus is to create IPR. Though traditionally

a telecom company, we decided to go slow on that front due to the problems

faced by the sector right now. And, we selected software since hardware

has its limitations but software can be used to enhance its

capacity," says HFCL Advisor S.C. Jain.

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Started in 1997-98, the company has moved out of being a systems

integrator to focus on products and projects. Medisoft, developed on

Oracle with NT GUI, took 20 man years and is a result of the experience

gained from a project done for a Ludhiana hospital. The company is already

negotiating with three hospitals in Delhi and is targeting a sale of 4-5

packages before the end of this calendar year. The package will be priced

on the basis of licenses, tentatively at Rs 8-10 lakh, and there will be

two versions. The standard version will be for hospitals with 100 beds and

the other version, still to be named, is for those with less than 100

beds. The smaller version will be based on Access though the rest of the

functionalities will remain the same. The company is adopting the

distributor channel for marketing the product and negotiations are on.

Exports are also on the cards, though this will be after the product

has been established in the country. By 2001, the company is confident of

seeking the exports market, with potential markets being Latin America,

Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The other plan is to make it

Internet-enabled. "For both of these, an understanding of the markets

is essential, as is customization," says HFCL Manager-Business

Development Vikas Nahata.

The product for the call centers is still under development and will be

ready by October. The product will enable call distribution without the

need for an EPABX and will work on Dialogic card. It has implemented an

MIS project for a medical council and IVRS system for telecom service

providers, railway and passport offices. It will now step up focus on

exports mainly to the US in the areas of embedded software and device

drivers. The company also plans to increase its software manpower size

from 200 to 150 by next year.

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