Indian IT Industry

[sum]

philips is planning a bigtime rif in blr. (but this runs 180' to what they were claiming a month
ago
could be all the audio/video products & staff are being radically EOLed.

Thats what even i have been hearing through my HUMINT and "satellite phone intercepts"

[Vipul]

8 Indian supercomps in world's top 500 list.

[Singha]

sum, phalcon-e2 on racetrack patrol in north blr reported it. was not too sure until I got your reading. a third reading would give high degree of confidence.

[sum]

sum, phalcon-e2 on racetrack patrol in north blr reported it. was not too sure until I got your reading. a third reading would give high degree of confidence.

Time to activate the most most trusted of our moles embedded deep within the top hierarchy of the badlands for confirmation!!!

[Dileep]

Got a new project, so life extends by at least Six months!! Considering the times, that IS a lottery!!

[John Snow]

I was in a presentation of HP's current server products today and their
rep mentioned Dell doesnt make its own bladeserver box but stamps their
name on another OEM box. anyone know who it is?

I remember hearing that before. When I asked one of my friends in Dell, he denied it vehemently!

HP does have some cool bladeserver with 16 half-slot server/storage cards in front and a variety of LAN/SAN cards in the back (including a optional csco switch card). plus around 10 fans(rep was claiming based on aero engine principles not simple fan fans) and 6 power supply units.

10 fans ....that thing might just take off like a plane!

What part of 'aero engine principles' are their fans utilizing?? One thing though we have had problems with the Dells is that their fans become really noisy after a few months (sound like a revving Habib Sitara all day).

Instead of centrifugal those fans could be axial flow to cool the CPUs

[sum]

Gurulog,
I see that freshers these days are offered ~5-6L/annum at joining in many product cos. So,what is the avg salary figures for the 5+ years experienced folks in Tier-1 product cos, esp in the semicon industry? Do they get subsantially more than a guy who has worked all 5 years in same org if they join as a lateral?

[SwamyG]

I know a person who is earning about 18.5L in that industry (product/semicond) with 10years of experience.

[sarulan]

Singhaji,
I heard that the Big Gorilla is going to layoff most of the contract workers. Is this True?

Also, the Chip industry is in total disarray. TI lowers 4th qtr estimate to 10-16 Cents/share from 30-36 cents/share . Broadcom too lowers the 4th qtr estimates. Motorola Credit rating downgraded to Junk status. Nokia downgrades their estimates twice. Mobile market looks like saturated, with no growth at all.
In other news Walmart is going to sell $99 iPhone starting christmas

[enqyoob]

I am spamming this all over, no apologies. ACT!
OK, folks, please propagate this one far and wide. It hits the right spots.


Please Don’t Use My Tax Dollars To Fund Terrorism
http://www.petitiononline.com/NoPak/petition.html

SIMPLE MESSAGE: STOP FUNDING PAKISTANI TERRORISM: THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN, OR THAT OF SOMEONE YOU LOVE!

[Singha]

sarulan, already happening to some extent. contracts not being renewed or reduced in value as they expire.

[Singha]

WSJ....another great ship starting to drift onto the reefs for her final
journey.
I started my real career with NT after a few months at HSS. touched and felt my first switch, my first router, first SUNW workstation,
first vsat modem, first Itvity PYT (in a platonic way), first pizza team lunch, first trip to 5* for team lunch, .... lot of good memories....

Nortel Seeks Legal Advice on Exploring Bankruptcy

By SARA SILVER and JOANN S. LUBLIN

Nortel Networks Corp. has sought legal counsel to explore bankruptcy-court protection from creditors in the event that its restructuring plan fails, according to people familiar with the situation. The move comes as the Toronto-based company grapples with plummeting sales for its wireless gear and as the credit crunch hobbles the sale of key assets.

Ronald Alepian, a spokesman for Nortel, said that "no bankruptcy filing is imminent," but added that the company has engaged several advisers to help it chart a way forward. "We remain focused on carrying out the restructuring we outlined on Nov. 10 to cut costs," he said.

Mr. Alepian said Standard & Poor's in November reaffirmed Nortel's ratings, saying the company "should be able to sustain adequate levels of liquidity in the next 12-18 months" despite difficult market conditions.
[Nortel]

Nortel also has been exploring potential assistance from the Canadian government, according to a person familiar with the matter. But the disarray within the government is clouding those prospects. Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper shut down Parliament until late January to avoid attempts by opposition legislators to topple his Conservative government.

The telecommunications-equipment maker was once Canada's largest company. Nortel's market value topped $250 billion in 2000 amid the telecom boom, but has since shriveled to $275 million. The company's stock has been trading below the $1 minimum on the New York Stock Exchange for a month.

Chief Executive Mike Zafirovski joined Nortel three years ago after helping to revive the cellphone division of Motorola Inc. He swelled profits from selling Nortel's voice-only wireless equipment to U.S. carriers and used the money to fund new businesses. But a sudden drop in contracts by U.S. carriers, themselves seeking to rein in spending, choked off the company's cash engine. Nortel burned through $478 million in cash during the first nine months of this year, as sales of the company's CDMA technology atrophied.

In September, Mr. Zafirovski decided Nortel should sell assets to cut expenses and raise cash. On Sept. 17, the company said it would sell an unprofitable new business called Metro Ethernet, which makes gear to transmit Internet and video feeds.

Until the announcement, many Wall Street analysts believed that Nortel still had time: It had an estimated $2.6 billion in cash and no payment on its $4.5 billion in debt until July 2011. But $500 million of Nortel's cash was tied up in overseas joint ventures and it needed $1 billion cash for daily working capital.

Nearly a dozen companies and investment firms looked at the Metro Ethernet business, according to people familiar with the matter, and bankers encouraged suitors to consider buying the entire company. But no deal to sell the business has emerged because of a lack of "buyers at the right price," said a person familiar with the situation.

In hopes of finding better prices, Nortel recently began using J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as well as Credit Suisse Group AG as investment bankers. Suitors for all of Nortel have been waiting on the sidelines, betting that its assets can be picked up without at least $6 billion in liabilities if the company seeks protection from creditors.

Uncertainty surrounding Nortel's finances has limited its ability to find new business, as its customers seek safety in contracts with better-financed rivals. The company won a bid to be the official telecom network provider for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and 2012 Summer Games in London.

[Singha]

I was discussing with a much higher up friend about the value of the SVP/GM types that flit in and out of tech sector titans on a yearly basis.
our conclusions were.

- many come from totally unrelated fields like autos, finance or aerospace.
or a sw guy becomes GM of a hw co or vice versa.
- avg tenure is seldom more than 18 months
- but due to strong langotia yaari network they are easily able to find the
next GM post, sometimes new posts even get created for them
- they seldom if ever understand the products of which they are GM
- quick to pounce on subordinates if snap of finger doesnt produce answers to their day1 questions.
- they have 'operational experience' - ie managing finances
- they always want to meet fortune500 customers and have no interest in small or medium customers
- they want to give soundbytes for wall street analysts
- they always want to cut costs

our conclusion after 2 hrs of late night discussion was that most of what they bring to the table can be done by a college kid with a sound common sense.

in my 2 yrs in previous co, I saw not less than 4 GM/SVP types move in
and out of the division, each with their india trip, town hall meeting with the troops, their own soliloquy biodata, their india strategy, own set of ppt slides.

[CalvinH]

Singha Ji, Depends upon different SVP/GM level positions. IMHO there are always more then few in any mid sized company working in different functions like corp strategy/planning, product lines, service lines, geography..etc etc.

One of the things is that most of them know is to manage business expectations. They will prioritize what they want to do or learn or focus on based on these expectations. Some of the more hands on one keep in touch with 'low level' stuff but the smart one quickly get over with that to focus on the Objectives. They also know how to package there real/percieved achievements well to ensure fat bonuses which is a tough job in these hard times

can be done by a smart college kid (given the team they usually have) but there are lot of entry/experience barriers to the club.

[Ameet]

HCL's leveraged leap to India's top tech circle

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ ... technology

India's tech industry has emerged on the global scene with an aggressive deployment of highly trained, low-cost labor to serve Western clients. Now HCL Technologies is out to prove that its savvy use of interest-rate arbitrage can finance a broader second wave of growth.

HCL isn't one of India's technology brand names. Even though it has more than 50,000 employees and operates in more than a dozen countries, the Noida-based company has worked in the shadows of such tech giants as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies, and Wipro (WIT). But, now, with a $650 million acquisition of Britain's Axon Group that's scheduled to close Dec. 15, HCL is poised to join India's tech big leagues. "We now have a capability the others don't have," says HCL Chief Executive Vineet Nayar. "We can compete with Accenture and IBM."

Axon is a medium-sized IT consulting firm that focuses on installing applications made by corporate software giant SAP (SAP) of Germany. HCL is folding its own SAP-focused business into Axon to create a $600-million-a-year division that ranks as the only Indian company among the top 10 global SAP installers.
SAP welcomes new installers

Now that HCL owns Axon, its strategy is to approach corporations and offer to provide them with a combination of SAP installation services and remote management of their computing systems from India. This way, Nayar says, he can bring the cost-saving benefits of doing business in India to a realm of IT services long dominated by IBM (IBM), Accenture (ACN), EDS (EDS), and other Western companies. If successful, HCL could put pricing pressures on the major players.

While analysts don't expect HCL to have an immediate negative effect on the giants, they see its growth as a threat to be monitored. "These guys can bring the Indian efficiencies to these kinds of services," says Bruce Richardson, an analyst at market researcher AMR Research. He says SAP is frustrated with the fact that companies that install its software often charge $5 for every dollar the customers pay for the software itself. "It would be good for SAP to have low-cost companies playing a bigger role in this market."

IBM says it isn't spooked by HCL's move. IBM spokesman Tim Blair says HCL can't match IBM's breadth of capabilities, which include 9,000 software programmers and consultants who specialize in dealing with SAP applications worldwide. That includes a cadre of business consultants who not only advise clients about technology matters, but help them deal with business challenges and opportunities. "We have a different business model," Blair says. "We deliver high-value solutions to our clients. A race to the bottom on pricing is not our business model."
Leveraged expansion has been rare

But IBM ought to beware complacency. Since mid-September, HCL has been offering a deal combining SAP installation with remote management of hardware and software. Nayar says he has landed more than $1 billion in new orders this quarter, compared with $270 million the previous quarter. HCL promises customers it will trim routine IT systems management costs by 20%—while changing their technological and business procedures to reap big longer-term savings in efficiency and gains in productivity.

The early results have convinced Nayar that buying Axon was a sound move. "We're buying Axon because they're smart and we're not," he says. "They have a consulting capability that we don't have."

To pay for Axon, Nayar took unusual advantage of HCL's healthy balance sheet, which showed about $500 million in cash and no debt. Few Indian tech outfits use debt to finance acquisitions or fund expansion, but Nayar borrowed money to make his takeover offer. He says he'd rather hold onto his cash—and rake in interest of 10% to 11% from it—while borrowing dollars at little more than 5% interest to finance additional acquisitions and pay for overhauls of clients' software. He says that with his AAA credit rating, HCL will have no problem raising money in the U.S.

[Ameet]

Infosys wins deal from AstraZeneca

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... 365K80.htm

British drug maker AstraZeneca PLC has awarded India's Infosys Technologies Ltd. a five-year, multimillion dollar contract for information technology work, the companies said Monday.

Infosys would not specify the dollar value of the deal. Raju Bannur, an associate vice-president in charge of Infosys' life sciences, insurance and health care business in Europe, would only say that the deal is "a significant expansion of our relationship."

Infosys has been doing business with AstraZeneca for over three years, he said by phone from Zurich.

Under the agreement, Infosys will deliver application maintenance services to AstraZeneca's global operations in areas including manufacturing, supply chain, finance, and human resources.

The deal comes as India's outsourcing companies struggle to cope with the global meltdown. Wall Street firms have long dominated the client lists of India's top outsourcers, who are now trying to diversify revenue streams away from their troubled financial services clients.

Infosys Chief Executive Kris Gopalakrishnan in a statement called the deal "another significant step in our long standing partnership with AstraZeneca."

Infosys has also been trying to wean itself from U.S. clients, who account for 62 percent of revenues, by boosting European sales.

Harit Shah, an analyst at Mumbai's Angel Broking, said the deal was good for Infosys because it expands the firm's pharmaceutical business, where it doesn't currently have many clients. But he said he doubted the deal would add much to Infosys' bottom line.

Infosys sales for the quarter ended Sept. 30 were $1.2 billion.

India's outsourcing industry will likely face pricing pressure and a slowdown in volume growth over the next year, Shah said. "The sector is going to go through tough times for the next year at least," he said.

[CalvinH]

Its interesting that Infosys never countered the bid by HCL for Axon. Infosys have much more cash reserves then HCL and could have easily outrun HCL. May its just about the timing.

In short term at least HCL bottomline will see a big jump.

Meanwhile one unmentionable IT Giant has started trimming onsite overhead position. A big chunk of Management layer is now returning to Desh.

[Nandu]

Satyam has pulled a doozy, that at face value, looks quite unethical.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsN ... 2520081216

In summary, they are making a sweetheart deal to acquire two companies that are owned to a large percentage by the same promoters.

[Shivani]

Satyam has pulled a doozy, that at face value, looks quite unethical.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsN ... 2520081216

In summary, they are making a sweetheart deal to acquire two companies that are owned to a large percentage by the same promoters.

Satyam calls off Maytas deal on -ve mkt reaction

Published on Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 08:43 , Updated at Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:40
Source : CNBC-TV18

Satyam has called off the Matytas deal in difference to views expressed by investors, reports CNBC-TV18.

The IT major was surprised by market reaction even though it was positive about the merits of the acquisition.

Satyam ADR (American Depository Receipt) fell 55% to USD 5.7 yesterday, and recovered 56% to USD 8.9 in after hours trading.

On Tuesday, Satyam had announced it will acquire 51% in Maytas Infra and 100% in Maytas Properties. The company had said the acquisition of Maytas' two companies would cost it USD 1.6 billion.

Here is a verbatim transcript of Raja Rajeshwari’s comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.


The first question that strikes is why the u-turn? I feel it is largely because of the fact that there was lot of shareholders anger and a lot of discontentment coming in, once the deal was announced. The largest issue was - how this is exactly a diversification - primarily Maytas Properties - for which USD 1.3 billion was going into hands of privately held promoters of the company, which the Satyam management was not disclosing to who it is. So it is an inter group promoters holding which is taking place.

Secondly, how is this diversification when all of these companies infrastructure, real estate are also highly cash consuming? This deal is likely to be margin dilutive, EPS (earnings per share) dilutive. If they indeed wanted to do a shareholder value addition, then they could have done a buyback or a special dividend. Why this diversification was looked at. If they indeed wanted to do shareholder valuations, then they should have look at other attractive real estate companies which had low valuations.

Take the case of Unitech which is also USD 1.3 billion marketcap right now, and is more or less at par with Maytas Properties. So these were kind of antes there. The marky names of Rukshat Shroff, Templeton Chetan Sehgal, SBI Mutual Fund investors came and spoke of their discontentment. In fact Templeton came and told that they will go to any lengths to stop this.

The largest issue of course was that this deal did not need a shareholder approval and most of them were of the view that this needed a shareholder approval, because it was a complete change in the business model, they were moving into a completely unrelated new kind of space. These were the questions that were raised and that is exactly the reason why we are seeing the u-turn take place right now.

Thirdly, what will happen to the ratings? Satyam’s ADR plunged by close to 55%. That was a complete thumbs down, because lot of these brokerages back home had also put a sell rating on the stock, because of the corporate governance issue there was one leading foreign brokerage who said that they are not downgrading the stock from under perform to sell on IT related fundamental issues, but they are moving this to sell based on corporate governance issues.

Once this news came, there has been a u-turn, it is seen close to 55% recovery, but from USD 5 it has just moved to USD 8; just a percentage gain. So we are going with lot of discontentment, still this will be a bad taste in the mouth when we open for trade today.


Impacts when markets open:

Satyam is one heavy institutional owned stock. The shareholding is 45% of FII holding; the overall institutional investor holding is close to 65%, so there must have been lot of instant reactions there, sells being put. But are they going to be worse is yet to be seen. So we are getting still very mixed cues from most of them, but the over powering statement from most of the analysts that we have spoken to in the morning is that this leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

A couple of years ago Satyam was not in the top ranking of IT companies that one was picking up. Over the past three years with its consistent performance Satyam had moved up the ranks to be one of the top three picks by most portfolio managers. So that Satyam has undone as of now so it needs to go a long way to build back the confidence that people had right now.

[Nandu]

They couldn't come up with a name other than Satyam spelt backwards? I am a Satyam owner from IPO and never thought of selling. These shenanigans have me seriously rethinking that. Corporate governance issues is exactly what it is.

[Singha]

Maytas Infra bagged the Hyd metro project and needs 1500cr of working capital
in next one year to make progress. they have no money and nobody is willing or
able to lend them such sums.

I guess it bye bye Hyd metro for now.

this is what happens with least cost bidding and rules that do not check the
entry of shell cos with no past track record of such huge projects.

setting up all these "infrastructure story" cos and listing them was just a way
to mint money by the promoters in last few years. most of them never did
anything of note and will disappear in a few years. only the biggies with
something real to show like L&T, Gammon, GVK, GMR et al will remain.

[AdityaM]

3 undersea cable cuts hit India Net traffic
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/20-undersea-cable-cuts-hit-india-net-traffic.htm

This is happening too often, although many countries are affected, i wonder if this is intentional...since india is impacted majorly

[Shivani]

3 undersea cable cuts hit India Net traffic
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/20-undersea-cable-cuts-hit-india-net-traffic.htm

This is happening too often, although many countries are affected, i wonder if this is intentional...since india is impacted majorly

Last time this happened, the excuse was that some boats had anchored incorrectly.

[krishnan]

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?i ... vsv=TopHP1

World Bank bans Satyam Computer
Tuesday, 23 December , 2008, 16:40


World Bank bans Satyam ComputerMumbai: Satyam Computer Services has been barred from business with the World Bank, a spokesman for the World Bank said on Tuesday, confirming a report by Fox News.

"The information is true," Sudip Mozumder, a spokesman for the World Bank in New Delhi, told Reuters.

Shares in the Hyderabad-based firm closed down 13.55 per cent at Rs 140.40.

[Vipul]

Software exports rise 30-per cent in H1'08 news.

Despite the financial sector meltdown and the accompanying global recession, electronics and software exports from India rose 30 per cent in the first six months of the current financial year.

The industry did business of $25 billion from April to September, involving $2 billion in the electronics hardware and $23.65 billion in software services segment, says D K Sareen, executive director of India's largest electronics and IT trade facilitation organiosation, Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

[Shivani]

IT sector in India may lose 50,000 jobs

Bangalore: Over 50,000 IT professionals in the country may lose their jobs over the next six months as the situation in the sector is expected to worsen due to the impact of global economic meltdown on the export-driven industry, a forecast by a union of IT Enabled Services warned.

"...there would be 50,000 job losses (IT and BPO put together) over the next six months," Karthik Shekhar, general secretary of UNITES India, a politically neutral union of ITES professionals said.

The job loss in the IT and BPO sector in the country topped 10,000 in the September-December period, Shekar said.

While employees of medium-sized companies bore the brunt of job losses in the September-December period, it's going to be their counterparts in the big and small firms who would increasingly face the axe in the coming six months, he said.

UNITES India, affiliated to the global union United Network International, suggested that the companies in trouble could resort to salary and incentive cuts without trying to "squeeze" the staff, rather than adopting the "layoff path".

Employees are willing to take such cuts for 12-16 months till the demand picks up again, when such benefits should be restored to them.

Shekhar said senior officials of the industry had concurred with the figure of 10,000 job loses in September-December, stating that it accounted for "bottom five per cent of the performers".

Consultations with the union's counterparts in the US and UK suggested that slowdown would continue to hit the offshore sourcing space, he said.

He said factors like continued slowdown, likely "tax application" to companies outsourcing jobs under the new US regime and tightening in regard to H1B visas were among the key reasons cited for the acceleration in issue of pink slips.

There are rumours that Microsoft is going to announce the-mother-of-all-job-cuts (as far as IT is concerned) in the next few days. 50,000 redundancies will certainly decrease the charm of IT in India. It will motivate more graduates to join the the IAS coaching/sarkari job stream 'to serve the nation'.

[negi]

Resident BRF folks from corporate background (specially the FAT CATS ), while we all criticize and whine about the GOI's response to terror in hot air phorum, why not take a bit of the initiative and send out clear directives to the Admin folks in charge of security to review the security of the premises and also to keep vigil on the Parking space and the visitors that frequent the campus.

The folks from IT/Vity and BPO Industry need to screen and maintain ID's of drivers and CAb agencies which ferry employees during off hours.Also a strict directive to implement NO-PARKING at the main entrance .

Important corporate houses, academic institutes (IIT's ,IIsc), CSIR labs and even the Industrial sector should take security issue very seriously .

I believe JINGO's on BRF holding high position in India Inc should take this up with their company/institute , we have to take matters into our hands we can't count on guvermund for everything.

[sum]

It will motivate more graduates to join the the IAS coaching/sarkari job stream 'to serve the nation'.

Hopefully even the defence forces and DRDO...

[Vipul]

Satyam promoters ousted?

Satyam Computer Services Ltd has announced that the meeting of its board of directors due to have been held today has been rescheduled to 10 January, 2009, in order to allow the board to consider additional options.

''Satyam's board of directors recognises the serious nature of certain questions raised by the events of the last two weeks,'' said B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman and founder of Satyam in a statement on its website. ''In order to ensure that these questions are properly addressed, and that the interests of stakeholders are fully and carefully considered, Satyam has decided to broaden the scope of its deliberations beyond a possible buy-back of its stock.''

Additional possible actions include:

Measures to strengthen Satyam's governance structure, including increasing the size and altering the composition of the board.
Conducting a review of the company's strategic options to enhance shareholder value. The company has engaged DSP Merrill Lynch to assist in this review.
Addressing issues arising from a possible dilution of the promoter's stake in the company.
The board is expected to make recommendations on these matters at the January 10 meeting

Directors up in arms
Following heavy criticism from the shareholders over its aborted attempt to acquire businesses promoted by Ramalinga Raju's sons at a higher than justifiable price, (See: Shareholder revolt forces Satyam to dump Maytas bid), it seems the independent directors on the board of Satyam have also revolted against the promoters.

On 16 December, Satyam announced plans to acquire Matyas Property and take a controlling stake in Matyas Infrastructure -- two companies in which Satyam's founders hold significant stakes -- valuing the deal at $1.6 billion. However, Satyam backed down from those plans the following day, citing "feedback received from the investor community."

An independent director, IT venture financier and inventor of Intel's Pentium chip Vinod Dham, has said that he would seek a change of management in the Satyam board.

Both Dham and Krishna G Palepu have sought a postponement of the meeting since they stay abroad and wished to be physically present at this important board meeting instead of registering their presence through a video call.

Satyam's oldest directorm, Mangalam Srinivasan, had resigned on Christmas Day taking moral responsibility for the deal.

Another independent director, former cabinet secretary T R Prasad is expected to aggressively question the company's management policies at the next board meeting.

Promoters' stake diluted?
Meanwhile, Satyam also said that the promoter's stake in the company may have been reduced as a result of routine actions by the promoters' lenders.

In a seperate filing with the exchanges, the company said, "Satyam has received a communication from the promoters that all their shares in the company held by SRSR Holding Pvt Ltd were pledged with institutional lenders over a period of time since September 2006. It is possible that some of the lenders may exercise or may have exercised their option to liquidate such quantum of shares at their discretion to cover the margin shortfall. This would consequently dilute the promoters' holding in the company."

The stock is trading at about one quarter of its highs earlier in the year, giving it a market capitalisation of $1.9 billion.

It was possible some lenders had liquidated their holdings in Satyam to cover margin calls following a plunge in the company's stock, over the company's Maytas fiasco.

However, any move by lenders to liquidate the collateral could reduce or even wipe out the controlling promoters' 8.61-per cent stake in Satyam. With the rest of the stock widely dispersed among institutions, Satyam could be open to potential sale or takeover. The general public holding of the shares is also a merge 8.5 per cent.

Five days after the Raju's retreat from Maytas, news of Satyam having been debarred for eight years by one of its largest customers in October, the World Bank, also filtered out (See: Satyam barred from World Bank work for 8 years)

Satyam, shareholders are believed to be trying to arrange a sale of the company and moving rivals like IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle to sell their stakes in scandal-struck Satyam.

Private capital firms, including Aberdeen Asset Management, Fidelity and ICICI Prudential hold roughly 60 per cent of Satyam, against a less than 9-per cent cent stake held by the family of founder and chairman Ramalinga Raju.

Do Ramalinga Raju and family have any stake in Satyam?.

[Singha]

afaik 4 independent directors have resigned so far and more might follow.

there is talk that R-Raju sir might have to make a inglorious exit after selling his remaining stake.

[Singha]

as per TOI the satyam promoters seem to have secretly pledged their shares to FIs
since 2006 to gather funds for other ventures like real estate. with share price coming
down and real estate going down the FI's are said to have asked for more margin
money which promoters cannot pay.

a change of management seems certain soon.

[Shivani]

Another scandal rocks Satyam

Published on Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 09:24 , Updated at Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 10:28
Source : CNBC-TV18

Promoters of Satyam are finding themselves in yet another scandal. They pledged 5.5 crore shares to four institutions. These shares were pledged in 2006. Sources say Satyam promoters had pledged shares to IL&FS trustees, DSP ML.

IL&FS Trustees sold 1.04 crore shares, or nearly 1.5%, since December 24. It has also sold 44.1 lakh shares on December 29 in the open market.

DSP ML does not hold pledged shares anymore, reports CNBC TV18, quoting Sources. Market sources say that Raju's stake in Satyam might have fallen to as low 3.5-4%.

CNBC-TV18 learns that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs is waiting for the Registrar of Companies report on Satyam which will submit report on Satyam-Maytas in about two weeks.

Now that the Board has only 5 members - 2 independent, and 3 management members, it is unlikely that any major decision will be taken on January 10 till the Board is fully reconstituted and deliberations are done further. There is another factor that shareholders will be looking at, which is will Ramalinga Raju resign from the Board? That seems unlikely because the management is in majority at this point.

The other factor is that as and when independent directors are appointed by Satyam, they will have to go to the shareholders for their appointment and at that point other institutional shareholders can come together and create a majority and then pass a resolution for Mr. Raju's removal. As of now, it looks like the Board meeting is not going to be advanced and will take place on January 10.

[Singha]

information week:

Microsoft Layoffs Coming?

Posted by J. Nicholas Hoover, Dec 29, 2008 11:46 AM

Despite hiring at a rapid clip for the last few years, even Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) may not be immune to the rounds of layoffs hitting the technology industry recently.

Though unsubstantiated, dozens of comments at Mini-Microsoft, a blog popular with Microsoft employees, point toward the possibility of big job cuts at the company. And now, at least one financial analyst has signed onto the idea. That would be quite the turnaround for a company that's grown its workforce by roughly a third since 2005.

Commenters at Mini-Microsoft write variously that "substantial" layoffs are due on Jan. 15 (a week before the most recent quarterly results will be announced), that there will be cuts in businesses like the server and tools group that has been one of the recent bright spots for Microsoft, and that already there are signs pointing toward cuts like hiring freezes in some product groups. To be fair, others disputed signs of impending doom.

Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Brad Reback wrote last week that Wall Street would welcome cutbacks, which would "be a healthy move" for Microsoft, though he predicted layoffs would only come if Microsoft sees a "significant decline" in revenue.

Layoffs would of course be hard on those directly affected, but to some Microsoft employees, especially adherents of Mini-Microsoft's ideas, might actually be OK with some cutbacks. The anonymous Mini-Microsoft blogger has been arguing since his site's inception that Microsoft needed to slow its hiring binge (which it has done in the last few months) and cut back growing tiers of bureaucracy.

I'm no financial analyst, and while layoffs might help a lumbering Microsoft turn itself around, thousands more out of work isn't something I'd be looking forward to, especially as unemployment ranks continue swelling and analysts circulate discussion cuts at even other healthy-seeming companies like Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Even Mini says Microsoft cuts should have come long ago and been done "responsibly" rather than in some big purge.

For now, there's no major investor pressure on Microsoft to make cuts and no indication from Microsoft that head count will go down, but if others sign onto Reback's premise and top Microsoft ranks see dramatically shifting winds in the business, Microsoft may be pushed to join the dubious ranks of Sun, Nortel (NYSE: NT), and AT&T (NYSE: T) in cutting significant staff due to the economic downturn.
.........
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/00 ... 282029.htm
Microsoft advised to lay off over 9,000 employees

New York (PTI): The world's top software firm Microsoft has been asked to cut its workforce by 10 per cent, or about 9,100 employees, to tell the market that profits are more important than revenue growth in difficult times.

Brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co's analyst Brad Reback has said in a report on Microsoft that such layoff exercise "would be a healthy move for the company."

The move would be well received by the market and would "signal that profitability is more important than revenue growth during this very difficult time," Reback added.

Calling for a 10 per cent reduction on the company's payrolls, Reback said in his report for the institutional investors of Microsoft that this would result in an approximately 10 per cent gain in its earnings per share.

The software giant had close to 91,000 employees on its payrolls at the end of July-September quarter.

Earlier in October, Microsoft had put in place a hiring freeze on some of its divisions, such as entertainment and devices businesses that make products like X-Box and Zune.

There have been some unconfirmed reports on blogs that the company would announce some major layoffs in the first month of 2009.

Microsoft is scheduled to release its second-quarter results for the fiscal year 2008-09 on January 22.

Battling the economic crisis, companies in their bid to save costs, have announced more than one lakh job cuts in the month of December alone in the US, while so far in 2008 there have been close to 20 lakh layoffs.

[Singha]

fudzilla

A lot of reasons why it will happen

Many news outlets covered out story about Microsoft planning to lay off as much as 17 percent of its workforce and there seems to be a lot of concerns about the number, as many people are saying it's too high.

Well, let's us try to explain a bit more details that has come to our attention since we wrote the initial piece. Parts of Microsoft are still doing well, such as the volume licensing department and as we mentioned in the previous story, the Xbox 360 division, however, some other areas of the company isn't doing as well.

We've been told that some division of Microsoft has cut their expected sales for 2009 by as much as 90 percent and this is a huge number. This in turn means that there's less work for the supporting departments and as such Microsoft has a lot of redundant staff.

Then take into consideration that Microsoft hires a lot of employees via agencies and that this number of employees aren't included in the total head count at Microsoft. There's a big chance that a large chunk of the 17 percent figure could come out of the agency staff. Being a full time employee (FTE) at Microsoft brings higher pay and more benefits than being hired as a contractor. There are also different types of contracts and some are likely to be more affected than others.

Microsoft is also spending a lot of money on various R&D projects and these aren't exactly making money, so we have a feeling that some of the more exotic projects might be put on ice for the future. We're also hearing that some staff might be given the chance to find another job within Microsoft, but will be given a deadline to do so and if they can't find a job within Microsoft before that deadline expires, then they'll be laid off under a slightly different terminology.

It's all going to be a matter of semantics, as although Microsoft might not announce the exact figure, there will be major cuts in a lot of departments, or at least changes which will lead to people having to leave Microsoft one way or another, it might just be a bit more subtle than issuing redundancies to 15,000 people all at once. We're sure that Microsoft will get its PR department to work on a nice spin on this story comes next week, so hopefully we'll be able to offer a company statement by then.

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Microsoft getting ready to lay off 17% of staff Print E-mail
Written by Lars-Göran Nilsson
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 09:06

Image

Worldwide cutbacks

The rumor that Microsoft was set to lay off people on January 15th, 2009 is no longer a rumor but a fact. Staff at Microsoft have been informed that the company is readying major layoffs to its worldwide operations and it's not a small cut, either.

Currently Microsoft employs about 90,000 people across the world and from what we're hearing, some 15,000 of those are expected to be giving marching orders come January 15th. That's almost 17 percent of Microsoft's total work force, not exactly a small number.

So far, we haven't managed to confirm what departments or regions will be hit the worst, but we're hearing that MSN might be carrying the brunt of the layoffs. We're also hearing rumors about the possibility of somewhat larger staff cuts at Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

It's unlikely that Microsoft will be laying off a lot of people in departments and regions that are doing well, and considering the recent upturn in console sales, we have a feeling that at least most of the people working in the Xbox 360 departments will be pretty safe.

The layoffs will take place a week before Microsoft's Q2 earnings report, which takes place on the 22nd of January 2009, and it doesn't seem like the date set for the layoffs is coincidental. We'll bring you more on this subject as it unfolds.

[vsudhir]

Infy, Wipro get terror threats

[Ananth]

Infy, Wipro get terror threats

Karma is a bitch. That 2002 "Rush to Delhi and plead for AmeerKhans" mission is coming back to bite them.

[Singha]

INFY has been the first in line to claim CISF protection under the new law.

meantime my spies report the Wipro patriarch still wants massive topline growth
while his subordinates are trying to wake him up that even flat growth this year
looks tough. culling of ranks in progress there quietly.

[Vipul]

Anil Ambani a White Knight for Raju?

Anil Ambani is emerging as the white knight who can spring to the rescue of B. Ramalinga Raju, promoter of the beleaguered Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

Raju clings to a small 5.13 per cent stake in the country’s fourth largest software exporter and a very shaky position as the chairman of Satyam heading into a crucial board meeting scheduled for January 10.

The Satyam promoters faced a shareholder revolt after an aborted plan to acquire two Raju-owned entities — Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties — for $1.6 billion. Angry shareholders have been clamouring for an overhaul of the board of directors and Raju’s exit from the post of chairman.

The call for change gained momentum after four of the nine Satyam directors resigned when they learnt that the Raju family had pledged their entire 55 million shares (equivalent to an 8.27 per cent stake) held by SRSR Holdings — an entity controlled by the Rajus — with lenders.

Enter Anil Ambani’s Reliance ADAG Group.

Sources say that under a quid pro quo deal that is now under negotiation, cash-rich ADAG Group can provide funds to help Maytas Infra achieve financial closure for the Rs 12,000-crore Hyderabad metro project before the March 31 deadline.

In return for the Maytas bailout, ADAG will be able to pick up a 13-14 per cent stake in Satyam, thereby emerging as the single largest shareholder of the software giant that counts 185 Fortune 500 companies among its clients.

Ambani won’t have to come out with an open offer if he doesn’t cross a 15 per cent threshold through this "friendly takeover".

Sources say Reliance Mutual Fund and the insurance arms of the ADAG group have been scooping up Satyam shares over the past few weeks after the lenders started offloading the shares that the Rajus had pledged against loans.

Raju had failed to meet margin calls from the lenders after the Satyam stock tanked in the market meltdown since May. Lenders usually lend up to 75 per cent of the value of the shares pledged. The stock has plunged over 60 per cent since May and the lenders wanted the Rajus to compensate for the dimunition in the value of the stock.

Although the Raju family claims that it has a 5.13 per cent stake in Satyam after the sale of the pledged shares by lenders, the promoters’ position is a little more precarious.

On Friday, the promoters admitted in a filing that out of the 34.58 million shares (or 5.13 per cent) they nominally possessed, about 21.96 million shares were still pledged with the lenders. This means that the promoters actually have unfettered control over only 12.62 million shares (translating into a 1.26 per cent stake).

Sources in the Andhra government said ADAG Group had been showing keen interest in the Hyderabad metro project that had been bagged by Maytas Infra.

Maytas Infra ran into trouble of its own after its chief executive officer P.K. Madhav was arrested on criminal charges stemming from the Nagarjuna Finance payment scandal. Madhav was earlier with the Nagarjuna group.

Maytas has to pay Rs 11 crore to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation by March 31 in connection with the metro project but is unable to rustle up funds in a credit-scarce market.

Sources said both ADAG Group and L&T Infotech had been in separate talks with the Satyam promoters and the Andhra government to infuse funds into the special purpose vehicle floated by Maytas for the metro project.

Andhra chief minister Y. Rajashekhara Reddy has brushed aside suggestions that the turmoil at Satyam has jeopardised the Hyderabad metro and the Machilipatnam port projects that Maytas had bagged. “We have been informed by the promoters that there is no threat to these projects,” he told reporters on New Year’s day.

[vsudhir]

Outsourcing: The Philippines vs. China and India

Indian outsourcing: Ready for the next level (Podcast)

[Suppiah]

Hyderabad is famous for Biriyani, look like it is the investors goose that is getting cooked by Raju to perfection. Satyam has announced 'restatement' of results, fictitious cash balances, inflated profits, the works. Look like our little Enron..only not so little..