As per the strategy, says Nandu Bharwani of Jetking, focus will be on hardware, networking and cyber technologies. "We will set up 100 centres from the present 35 by that time," he said. The company plans to open centres in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, Rajkot in Gujarat and Meerut in UP, where infrastructure is already in place.

The company, which registered a growth of 35 per cent in sales to Rs 15 crore in 1998-99, plans to expand down south. Bharwani cited the IT task force report, according to which the rate of PC penetration in the country would accelerate from 2.8 per 1,000 people to 10 per 1,000 by 2002. This would effectively mean that by that time there would be at least 1 crore computers in India.

"Given the fact that we need at leastone engineer per 50 machines, there will be a need for at least 2 lakh hardware and networking professionals," Bharwani said.

Here the role of such institutes gains importance, he added. India has shown a penchant for software education and has somewhat ignored the hardware and networking part.

However, the emergence of internet as a major medium has thrown up large-scale opportunities for networking and hardware professionals.

"Cyber technologies such as networking and routing will now be crucial to our growth," he said. Jetking has a long standing relationship with networking giant, Novell Corporation.

Upgradation of existing PCs will be a major business for hardware professionals, Bharwani vouches. Many of the existing PC users are likely to upgrade to newer and powerchips to use the internet in a better and efficient way.

Focus will be on marketing strategy. "We will have more visibility," he said. Schools and colleges will be targeted to provide literatures on the prospects. It has recentlyadopted Smartlab Plus methodology, according to which training through computer-aided instruction, video and multimedia, practicals, projects, industrial visits and personality development will be provided to students.