The global financial crisis has hit the subcontinent hard–the wealthiest Indians are worth 60% less than a year ago.

These are painful times for India’s richest as the ongoing global turmoil drastically reshapes their fortunes. The country’s once soaring stock market fell 48% in the 12 months, the rupee depreciated 24% against the dollar and gross domestic product growth is expected to slow down to 7.5%, partly owing to double-digit inflation.

All of this conspired to knock 60% off the combined fortunes of the nation’s 40 wealthiest. Their total net worth fell $212 billion, to $139 billion, down from $351 billion a year ago

Last year’s No. 1, U.K. resident Lakshmi Mittal, dropped $30.5 billion amid plunging steel prices, but he slips only a bit, to No. 2. Mukesh Ambani, who oversees petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries, grabs the top spot for the first time, despite losing $28.2 billion in the past year. His estranged brother, Anil, ranked third, is the biggest dollar loser, down $32.5 billion.

Others were nearly wiped out entirely. India’s wind power man Tulsi Tanti and his brothers lost 91% of their fortune, amid reports about the poor quality of Suzlon’s wind blades. Real estate fortunes were among those hit the hardest. K.P.Singh lost $27.2 billion since we last published our listing but is down an astonishing $39 billion since his DLF stock peaked in January. Property tycoon Ramesh Chandra’s net worth dropped 91% to $1 billion. His Unitech lost half its market capitalization in one day last month.

Thirty-three of the 34 tycoons who returned to our ranking of India’s richest are at least 20% poorer than they were a year ago. Only one fortune from last year’s ranks increased, that of brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, who sold their 34% stake in generic drug firm Ranbaxy Laboratories to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo at a hefty premium to its current stock price. They added $550 million to their combined wealth.

Others with pharmaceuticals fortunes outperformed the market, but thanks to a sliding rupee, their net worth fell too. Dilip Shanghvi of SunPharma, India’s most valuable drug maker, was poorer by $800 million, despite an increase in his net worth in rupees.

Six people dropped off our list altogether after losing a collective $7.9 billion. They included flamboyant liquor and airlines tycoon Vijay Mallya, whose Kingfisher Airlines (other-otc: KNGFY.PK - news - people ) is racking up losses, and Gautam Thapar, whose Ballarpur Industries is India’s largest paper maker. Taking their places are four newcomers, including Micky Jagtiani, who oversees a retailing empire in the Middle East , and Hemant Shah, son of a Bollywood film producer, who made his fortune in construction.

Returning to the list after a one-year absence are Yusuf Hamied, head of generics producer Cipla, and Brijmohan Lall Munjal, patriarch of Hero Group, which makes motorcycles and bicycles.

Some more sobering statistics: While all 40 tycoons were billionaires last year, only 27 now have 10-figure fortunes, nine fewer than in 2006.

These net worths are snapshots of wealth taken on Nov. 3, when we locked in market prices and exchange rates . Had we locked in just a week earlier, the losses would have been still greater, as the nation’s main index gained 21% in the days leading up to our list publication.

Privately held companies were valued by comparing them to similar public companies. Indian nonresidents like Lakshmi Mittal were included as long as they still hold Indian citizenship. This ranking, unlike the Forbes billionaires list, includes family fortunes.

AMD has announced the availability of Opteron processors on the 45-nm node with the launch of “Shanghai,” its first 45-nm server processor.

The processor helps reduce complexities with innovations that offer superior virtualization performance and increased performance-per-watt, the company said.

Flawless execution in bringing the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor to market early results in new performance leadership on x86 servers,” said Dasaradha Gude, Managing Director, Computing, AMD India. “In concert with our OEM and solution provider partners, AMD is addressing the need for enterprises to focus on their bottom line while giving them the innovations they need to build for the future. This enhanced AMD Opteron processor represents the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt increases for AMD products since the introduction of the world’s first x86 dual-core processors by AMD nearly four years ago.”

The processor offers a balanced and scalable solution to support today’s increasingly heterogeneous computing environments. Through improvements to AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture and innovative AMD-Virtualization (AMD-V) technology, the new processor delivers faster world switch time, which enhances virtual machine efficiency.

Acer has set a new industry benchmark by being the first to make their customer support service available 7 days a week.

Now customers, who are required to visit the Acer service centers, can go in at their convenience on any day of the week from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Sudipto Ghosh, Chief Customer Support Officer, Acer India, said, “Our goal at Acer customer support is to figure out ways to ensure that Acer makes life easy, and help our customers get the maximum value from their Acer product. This initiative is designed to make it easier for customers to get their products serviced with minimum effort and inconvenience”.

Acer has taken customer care a step ahead by launching SMS updates on the status of customers’ products being serviced, thereby ensuring that customers are aware of the progress on their products.

This new initiative has been well received by the Acer service partner network across the country who see this as a key differentiator for Acer from competition and of great value to the consumer.

Offering unique customer value, this initiative is a first of its kind in the PC market and has been launched across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mangalore, and Mysore.

IBM has announced the launch of two IBM System x servers featuring new six-core processor technology from Intel. The new servers offer power-efficiency, performance and virtualization capabilities for today’s most demanding datacenters.

Commenting on the launch Ajay Mittal, Country Manager -System x, IBM India/South Asia.said, “IBM is addressing the performance needs of our clients and the growing demand for scale up x86 servers. The new System x servers provide the innovation our x86 clients have come to expect, with better performance and power usage than our competitors’ offerings.”

The new servers, System x3950 M2 and System x3850 M2, allow clients to take full advantage of virtualization on the system with mainframe-like reliability and high efficiency power supplies. With Systems x3850 M2, users can support a large number of demanding business applications like those for ERP and database on a single server. It offers flexible scalability that allows clients to easily expand their system from 4-sockets to 16.

The IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 will be available with Intel Xeon 7400 processors in November at an approximate price of US$ 10,389 and US$ 13,389 respectively.

Microsoft has announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Essentials (BE). This ERP solution is packaged and priced specially for the growing businesses in India .

Priced at sub Rs. 3 Lacs by its partners including license and implementation this will allow growing businesses to access a basic set of ERP functionalities including financials, distribution and sales management – without huge capital investments. Further, being a ready to use solution, it can be deployed in about 2 -3 weeks timeframe.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV BE helps to reduce the implementation cycle time with low investment enabling small customers to look at an ERP solution from day one. It allows businesses currently using financial accounting package to adopt integrated business management (ERP) solution including sales, purchase and inventory management etc. as they grow their business.

Choosing the right business management solution is critical for 3 million odd growing businesses in India and it also means balancing their short- and long-term business goals with their enterprise resources.