Coming soon a mega expo by ITAO

Bhubaneswar : After a gap of nearly three years Orissa's premier IT
association, Information Technology Association of Orissa (ITAO) plans to host
its expo again this year and they are planning to make it a mega event this
time.

Sharing the plans about the expo Anil Kumar Choudhary, President, ITAO said, "This
year we are planning to hold our IT expo from December 23 to 27 at the
Exhibition Ground in Bhubaneswar, which is the biggest exhibition ground in the
city."

Elaborating further he stated, "The new thing that we are planning to do this
time is that we will not give out stalls to the channel partners. The stalls in
the exhibition will all be given to the vendors who will be the only ones
showcasing their products. We have a separate section for the channel partners
where they can take a canopy and tell people about their company and what are
the services that they offer. But no channel partner will showcase any product,
that will have to be done in the stall of the concerned vendor and the partner
can drive his customers to the vendor stall."

Discussing the e-government initiatives and the help that the government of
Orissa is planning to provide the association he said, "There are huge projects
that are being rolled out in the state now. There was the mega Spanco project,
which has been rolled out, there is a datacenter project that is coming up soon
and plus there are the e-governance initiative at rural center's that are being
rolled out. So the government is gung ho about the e-governance and through our
expo we are going to showcase the opportunities that exist in the state now. The
IT Department, Government of Orissa has in principal agreed to be a part of the
expo to show their support for IT sector in the state."

Talking about the target audience that they are looking to hook up with the
help of the expo, Choudhary said, "We are looking at tapping the corporate
sector and the end-customer. That apart at the moment there are almost 40
thousand students who are pursuing higher education in various institutes across
the state, they are also a segment that we want to tap. Orissa now boasts of
almost 150 large companies and 1,500 SMBs who will form a major chunk of our
business and this expo is our way of showcasing out product offering to these
segments."

Throwing light on the details about the expo and the venue Manoj Lalani,
Incharge, ITAO IT Expo said, "There are going to be four hangers which will have
250 stalls that will be given out to various vendor companies. We are going to
have only 35 stalls for the channel partners."

Elaborating about the kind of business and footfalls that they are expecting
Lalani added, " Last time when we organized the expo in 2005 almost 2,500 PCs
and laptops were sold during the expo only. This year we are expecting seven to
eight thousand tickets sales almost every day and an additional footfall of two
thousand people who will hold expo pass, so you can easily say that everyday
around 10,000 people will attend the expo. So by the end of the five day event
we aim to have participation of about 50,000 people."

Summing it up Choudhary said, "This is the ideal opportunity for both the
channel and the vendor to tap the burgeoning e-governance sector in Orissa and
we expect good results from the expo."