Frost and Sullivan's Market Engineering Awards go out globally in several market segments but the company has decided on the ASP and data center segments for launch of the awards in India since they expect the ASP and data center markets to experience substantial growth. "We have already shortlisted the winners and will be announcing them in a week's time" says Ms Monica Deveshwar, Country Manager, IT Practice, Frost and Sullivan India.

Frost & Sullivan has five proposed award categories for the ASP market and another five for the data center market. The award categories for the ASP market include Competitive Strategy - where the winner's competitive strategy should have yielded significant gains in market share during the research period, Market Engineering Leadership where the award is given the the company that has exhibited market share leadership through the implementation of market engineering strategy, Technology Innovation where the award recognizes the ability of the company to successfully develop and introduce new technology and make product performance contributions to the industry, Strategic Alliance Leadership where the company has improved its market position on the basis of development of strategic alliances with firms in competing or related markets and Technology Leadership.

For the Data Center market, the proposed award categories fall under Brand Awareness Development, Market Engineering Leadership, Technology Leadership, Strategic Alliance Leadership and Competitive Strategy.

"The awards will now become a regular feature and the winners will be nominated for the awards at the Asia Pacific level" adds Ms Deveshwar. Frost and Sullivan has already introduced an award for the call centre market at the Asia Pacific level and will consider launching it in India shortly according to Ms Deveshwar.

In a recent study released by the firm on the ASP and Data Center markets, Frost and Sullivan say that in 2000 the total ASP market in India has been valued at $ 2.89 million and this segment is forecast to achieve revenues of $43.1 million by 2004. The Data Center market in 2001 has been valued at $13.3 million by Frost and Sullivan and is forecast to achieve revenues of $104.7 million by 2004 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 98.43 percent from 2000 to 2004. Outlining key trends in both these market segments, the report states, "Anticipating the high growth in the ASP market, telecom service providers who are setting up fibre optic networks are also entering the ASP business because it could bring them lucrative returns on the huge bandwidth at their disposal". Outlining key trends in the Data Center market, the report says that the trend of Indian sites being hosted in the US is likely to change and Data Centers will be located in 5-6 cities, the market boom is expected in another two years time.