Indian IT Industry

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 06 Jan 2015 23:30

Vamsee the rub is that there are no good tier 3 cities where one would not go Alzheimer's due to lack of intellectual stimulation. Heck, there are not many tier 2 cities either. Tier 1 cities have their own dynamic in that one has to become a copycat Dilli billi to survive in their midst.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 06 Jan 2015 23:47

ChandraV wrote:HOW can one OWN a house without going into debt?

Maybe trying to own something you can’t afford is part of the problem.
If prices are higher than you can afford the system is trying to tell you something urgent….. ..you should listen….

Vamsee · Post by **Vamsee** » 06 Jan 2015 23:56

matrimc wrote:Vamsee the rub is that there are no good tier 3 cities where one would not go Alzheimer's due to lack of intellectual stimulation. Heck, there are not many tier 2 cities either. Tier 1 cities have their own dynamic in that one has to become a copycat Dilli billi to survive in their midst.

Intellectual stimulation? Broadband Internet connection will do that

What is required is multi-speciality hospital close to your place. Also if Modiji's 100 cities plan is even partially successful, we should have a few very good options to consider.

(All this discussion is an age old "wings vs roots" dilemma)

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Jan 2015 23:59

Chandra, I don't know about real estate prices, so I didn't make a specific comment, but I made a general one. The idea is to know what one can afford reasonably. Sheet might still hit the ceiling. Many times it is better to rent for some time. I feel the younger crowd in India is too reckless and too over confident. All this is fine during good times, but in bad, everything goes really bad. Even here in the US we use a phone for many years, but in India it is a status symbol and people change it every release. I feel people in India have become very materialistic in the last decade. I find the desis in the US less so (maybe Bay Area is exempt). Could be that people have enjoyed this and moved on, while in India they are seeing it now.

Vamsee · Post by **Vamsee** » 07 Jan 2015 00:08

Hi ChandraV,

What Theo & me are saying is purely on financial terms. If one bring emotional connection to home, then there is no argument & thats perfectly fine.

In India Real estate market is simply imperfect/screwed & is tilted against the buyer.
If you see the cap-rate, it simply doesn't make any sense. Isn't it?
So the extra money is paid anticipating that prices will keep going up and will cover the high price paid. i.e. greater fools theory in stock market lingo.

What if Modi's 100 cities plan is massive success and population pressure on existing tier 1 cities is reduced?
What if people prefer to go to those new cities/opportunities?
What will happen to the calculation implied in greater fool theory?

Also even if it doesn't happen, last decade saw home prices rise 500%-600% and are close to 1 Cr in most tier-1 areas
Can we expect million $ homes in next few years? If it happens, most of middle class will simply be priced-out of real estate market.
Can the prices sustain when there is no demand to buy and only earnings are rents which are pathetic?

Which ever way we look at, Indian RE market will not stay the same simply because it is not healthy.
There is no US based NRI conspiracy in this

Any asset is only worth the total of discounted cash it can give throughout its life. Things can stay irrational for a while, but eventually sanity will make a comeback.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 07 Jan 2015 00:21

ChandraV wrote:In other words, you are saying that the entire banking system is shit. Salary-based loans, interest - its all a load of crap. The entire finance industry is hogwash, and we should store all our money in the bank, as RE prices keep going up, making homes unaffordable throughout one's life.

Chandra,

Look at it more coolly boss, when it comes to money it is all head, no heart....

For many of these items, yes. It is shite. You put up with it to get what you want but there are no guarantees, the same system will castrate you given half a chance. If you can’t make your payment your house/apartment etc will be taken from you. There is no guarantee of a roof over your head. No guarantee of food on your plate. No guarantee of new car, etc. Risk/Reward. Etc. Sure the government tries to soften the blow but…… ..it is upto you to make a living… No one is coming to bail you out.

You are making a lot of assumptions here too. R/E prices won’t always go up. What you do with your money is personal choice, it is up to you to make the decision, hopefully a wise one. No guarantees.

The market in India has been signaling for a while that apartments in the major cities are way overpriced, esp. for the shoddy stuff you get. It is your decision how you want to deal with it….

A Rs 65 lakh apartment is not a wise investment for a fellow in his 20’s or even his 30’s, esp. at 10% type interest rate… …YMMV….

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 07 Jan 2015 00:43

My own opinion is you have to move much outside the city and deal with the hardships. You will be rewarded well in future. As you yourself have been in buy that plot of land.

To become a higher net worth individual, $1 million or 5 crore type value from scratch, your home value should not be a lot over 20% to 30% of your total assets. It actually makes more sense to buy a house to rent or speculate on value increase rather than sit inside your high cost apartment and consume the possible rental value.

Home mortages too often work as a weapon of western banking systems to impoverish common folks. It has it place but not at any price....

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 07 Jan 2015 00:46

Too many generalizations in the last few pages, all because some section of IT-vity folks decided to protest a proposed lay-off. Can someone elaborate how many of these affected people actually 'lived beyond their means' or 'lived arrogantly w.r.t. NRIs', or 'got latest model LEDs or iGadgets'? Anyone can quote anecdotal evidence to suit a viewpoint, but where does it leave us in understanding the industry as a whole?

Let's at least get back to discussing the real underlying problem - how to deal with layoffs in India: are there any labour law protections viz. severance rules, transition assistance, some safety net for laid-off folks? It would also be useful to keep in mind that these IT folks contribute toward the amazingly high 3% of population that pays an income tax.

P.S. I am an IT-vity NRI (yet another) who is under a lot of pressure from family to buy a house to live in. I have been postponing it simply because a)the cost is beyond what I want to pay right now, and b)my family in India has other options for housing for now. What would people do in case point b is not favourable?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 07 Jan 2015 01:16

KJo wrote:Could be that people have enjoyed this and moved on, while in India they are seeing it now.

Absolutely. Novelty wears off. IOW, it is the same sheat but has a different shape. trinkets, that too worthless.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 07 Jan 2015 02:46

matrimc wrote:
KJo wrote:Could be that people have enjoyed this and moved on, while in India they are seeing it now.
Absolutely. Novelty wears off. IOW, it is the same sheat but has a different shape. trinkets, that too worthless.

Yes... overall, I was just making the point that one needs to save for a rainy day. I wasn't looking for an in depth financial discussion.

I am sure what Chandra says is all correct. But if he thinks that people in India are saving and using their money wisely, then we are talking about the same thing. But my view is that that people are over confident that prosperity will last forever and many laugh at the US thinking that India has somehow beaten the US. Why make holes in plate hain jee?

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 07 Jan 2015 06:08

Another think we never talk about is infidelity. I think it is now greater in the Indian IT-cos as compared to the west. It is happening in such a massive scale. Long working hours, travel seems to have taken the toll on the family life in India

All the people i know of in Delhi and Mumbai, seem to always be short of time. Kids are left with servents and parents go off for affairs and work. Finally they get sick becase of unhealthy lifestyle. At 45 they start to feel the preshure to leave the post.

People seem to be more happy and better off in small cities. less purchase preshure and simpler life. Even at 30-40K one seem to be better off then the dudes earning 1lacs in Delhi. At least they manage to have some time with family, keep the wife and work to above 55.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Jan 2015 06:54

TCS laying off 25k is imo only the first blow of Operation Uranus.

they will stage it, finesse it, put the media to work on it...but all will do it. the japanese/korean style lifetime employment guarantee is forever gone in IT industry. with people so disloyal, it was never a 1:1 comparison to japan/korea in the first place.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 07 Jan 2015 07:10

Even in Japan/Korea, it is a thing of the past, IMHO.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Jan 2015 07:19

yes ofcourse. indian ITvity was perhaps the last holdout of 'headcount based' model.

interacting with a few younger MS caucasian types in bay area they are really good and always learning things, really good with tools and libraries to improve on productivity as well.

the problem for Yindia is 95% of Indics who operate in that mode are in Massa. and they are never going back

entire swathes of industries like automobiles, medical devices, semiconductors, advanced plastics have very little r&d and product development going on in india, people are licensing or cloning tech and running with it. which means they are not setting the agenda. things are starting to look very very different in china. they will likely outsell japan in HSR soon.

so while our boys can dhoti shiver about the new Tang class SSBN in the mil forum, the biggest indicator of Cheens rise to a tier-1 industrial power is them making inroads into many high tech industries and the ceding of ground by struggling incumbents esp old-line european industrial groups.

TKiran · Post by **TKiran** » 07 Jan 2015 07:34

I know one acquaintance who purchased beautiful house in Koramangala in 1999 for 40 lacs. For 5 years he lived in tthe house. Then he moved to Massa. His relatives used to live in that house for 3 years . They didn't take care of the house well. After massive jhagadas he pushed them outta his home. In 2007 he gave that house on rent to his friend. He was paying the rent properly but used to scuttle all the attempts to sell off the property. After 2 years after jhagadas somehow he pushed the tenant out. He lockedthe house. Every year he comes to India. He asks us to sell the house. Initially in 2011 he was quoting 5 crores. Now also he quotes 5 crores but nobody is buying the house. He can't stay in India for more than 1 month in December. He tried some RE agents who were quoting 3 crores. But market price is 10 crores. He's ready to sell for 5 crores. The house is fully trees.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Jan 2015 07:38

thats the whole problem with such prime locality houses. the NRI folks prefer gated villa communities with all internal amenities for the same price. the price is beyond range of anyone but NRIs and big businessmen.

since he is selling for the land value, he could place ads modelling it as a plot sale and the buyer would demolish the house and build to his own spec.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 07 Jan 2015 08:20

Singha wrote:yes ofcourse. indian ITvity was perhaps the last holdout of 'headcount based' model.

interacting with a few younger MS caucasian types in bay area they are really good and always learning things, really good with tools and libraries to improve on productivity as well.

the problem for Yindia is 95% of Indics who operate in that mode are in Massa. and they are never going back

entire swathes of industries like automobiles, medical devices, semiconductors, advanced plastics have very little r&d and product development going on in india, people are licensing or cloning tech and running with it. which means they are not setting the agenda. things are starting to look very very different in china. they will likely outsell japan in HSR soon.

so while our boys can dhoti shiver about the new Tang class SSBN in the mil forum, the biggest indicator of Cheens rise to a tier-1 industrial power is them making inroads into many high tech industries and the ceding of ground by struggling incumbents esp old-line european industrial groups.

Fact remains that jobs come to India only because it is cheap. Not because of quality. CEOs have made a deal that they are okay with lower quality for lower price. Once quality dips beyond a certain point, problem will start.
And TCS did layoffs and got the flak. Road is paved for others like INFY and HCL. That's what happened here in 2009. It became fashionable to layoff. Every day you would hear 5k here, 15k there.
Just hang in there, and hope for the best and not be overconfident as many folks are prone to be.

Long term growth is only when there are new ideas. As of now, nothing new comes out of India unfortunately. At least cheenis steal new ideas and build on it.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 07 Jan 2015 10:04

Can anyone here help me in getting a mandate to place pre-trained freshers in IT industry? (DOT NET, JAVA, TESTING etc..)
Freshers have been screened and filtered already.
They are from 2013,2014 batches.
I heard companies like HCL,Mindtree and Wipro tie up with few vendors to get pre-trained freshers at a cost which is beneficial to everybody.

I am trying to place very poor people. Their parents are daily wage laborers,housemaids, few are orphans.
If anyone here can connect me to corporates, it would be very helpful. I will take care of all the infrastructure needed to train these people including trainers.

vivek_v · Post by **vivek_v** » 07 Jan 2015 10:21

@KJo. "Nothing good" comes out of India is probably a blanket statement.

Quite a few captive MNC's does do cutting edge product research in India and are quite successful in that regard. I myself belong in one

The main issue is on vast majority of cases (say like TCS) here is that due to prevalence of software in the mid 90's early 2000 like Java, SQL and stuff where the complicated stuff was abstracted away leaving engineers only requirement was to learn only some classes, query commands and do bug fixing without ever requiring to worry about how one's database actually stores data, balanced trees, read-once-write many...etc stuff.

Now with Platform as service and the prevalence of Big Data analytics and NoSql databases (with all BI, ML ...etc inside) one needs good knowledge of Discrete math (Hadoop and NoSql), Linear Algebra (Machine Learning), Probability and Statistics (Analytic) with weird languages like Scala, Swift (parallel work flow scripting and not apple swift), Clojure et al is suddenly a whole new ball game where Mechanical, Civil, Electrical and to an extent Electronics graduates suddenly find themselves in alien territory like what the Germans saw in Stalingrad without Tank backup

.

As Singha put is aptly " Operation Uranus "

Now it is easy for everyone to say "Just read that" but it is easier than done since putting myself in a TCS ASOC's shoe,

a. Where do I get access to these Hadoop clusters in the first place. AWS is okay for a company but you and I cannot afford that as a hobby project.

b. Even assuming that (a) is available, where to start ? where is all the Big data everyone keeps talking about ? what is this platform as service ? how to do IOT and more importantly how to patch it with storm? ...........etc.

c. Even if (a) and (b) is available where is the time. Can everyone cut of everything like kids, parents, hobby and spend every inch of their time reading and experimenting ? Is there is even the inclination for the same ?

All are difficult questions to answer.

Then again people did leave in their whims and fancy when IT was good without any thought on projects or team and now when going is bad, expect company to be loyal.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Jan 2015 10:43

true, throwing three 'bodies' at a problem where a more skilled person would manage is usually a recipe for problems and QA slips.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 07 Jan 2015 10:50

Singha wrote:true, throwing three 'bodies' at a problem where a more skilled person would manage is usually a recipe for problems and QA slips.

TCS charges 16$ for less experienced person for the client. It throws a fresher or two free to the client if client hires an architect or senior technical person. Its like buying stuff from a grocery store. wtbf?

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 07 Jan 2015 11:37

ChandraV wrote:
There are companies which manage the "fresher recruitment process". One example is https://www.elitmus.com/ - get in touch with them.

There are a couple of startups operating in this field too, you can also contact them. I don't remember the names right now, but will post them as soon as I remember.

What elitmus (and the startups) do is: they conduct a nationwide aptitude+technical test, and assign a score. Companies take a look at those scores, and invite freshers from the elitmus candidate pool for interviews.

I'm sure you could partner with them in some form.

These people are quoting 950/- per test. I hope they can negotiate considering the circumstances. Thanks

It would be even more helpful if I can get a direct connection with few big companies as I will have a steady supply of freshers.

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 07 Jan 2015 11:52

vivek_v, good post and I agree with you entirely.
Singha, KJo: Just FYI, been studying Python for a few days now and planning to do the Algo course in coursera starting on 15th in that lang

vivek_v · Post by **vivek_v** » 07 Jan 2015 12:30

@saravana, I guess bloggers and even some in in BR easily say to upgrade one skills like it is reading a 'C' book or something.

With all these parallel computing/big data/cluster/analytics, every stuff is very complicated and at-least for me tends to shake my basic fundamentals every-time.

To given an idea just to be any good with concurrency in Scala (akkaplay) one needs to learn Akka --> for which one needs to learn Actor model --> For which a basic knowledge of STM (Software Transactional Memory) and Actors are required -->. Which needs Clojure knowledge --> which needs good Java concurrency knowledge in the first place --> which would need a good reading on the "Little Book of Semaphores" to understand basic concurrency and all the mind experiments --> for which unfortunately python knowledge is required to try to try the experiments given in the book in the first place.

To try doing this in spare time requires lot of dedication and effort. And all the above is just for concurrency or for at-least doing it properly. Here is where lies the problem. How many can put the time and effort to try upgrading the skills ?

Virendra · Post by **Virendra** » 07 Jan 2015 12:54

Altair wrote:
Singha wrote:true, throwing three 'bodies' at a problem where a more skilled person would manage is usually a recipe for problems and QA slips.
TCS charges 16$ for less experienced person for the client. It throws a fresher or two free to the client if client hires an architect or senior technical person. Its like buying stuff from a grocery store. wtbf?

TCS has the reputation of working for some of the most kanjus clients of the industry. I don't know if thats a good thing or bad. Anyway ...
Thats what almost every client wants; to juice out as much as possible from the vendor giving as less pennies as possible.
TCS has no willfull obssesion with low cost low quality paradigm. That is what sells .. like Shahrukh and sex in Bollywood .. love it or hate it.

But I agree that in long run Indian companies have to go through the painful learning curve and put better things on the table.
Else we'll always remain in the low levels of value chain.

Regards,
Virendra

vivek_v · Post by **vivek_v** » 07 Jan 2015 14:01

@Chandra ..well said, though I doubt 50% of startups would make it to $1 Million space. I wish your start-up all the very best and hope that yours would make it to the $100 million mark.

I guess the main reason why people equate Indian IT= TCS/INFY et al is due to sheer size and volume of these behemoths. No other company can hire a whole batch of IT/CS/ECE/EEE/Plus-some from a single college in a single shot and deploy them. Hence they are the main job bringers for a lot of middle class people in our country who cannot afford an expensive MS in Khan land (at-least in south of india) and I deeply admire them for that.

I personally work in IOT/Algorithm and Analytics in wearable/healthcare space and the below product is fully designed in India.

http://www.amibolt.com/vitalsfit/

We actually framed a team named as "Team Danvantri" (yes , after the hindu god of medicine) and are currently in the final round of X-Prize competition to build the worlds first tricorder and the only team from India from initial 300+ teams to being with.

http://tricorder.xprize.org/teams/danvantri

Hence, I personally feel that when given the chance and opportunity we can be as good as anyone from Khan land or Cheen land for that matter

.

vivek_v · Post by **vivek_v** » 07 Jan 2015 14:43

Yep, It is always painful trying to explain on why I prefer to be in a product design house (or even be in India) than TCS/Infy but everyone always used to feel that I am not "capable" enough to get in and rejecting TCS offer (fresher days, a decade ago) was the biggest mistake of my life

At-least now it would stop

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Jan 2015 15:05

Age of dinosaurs is perhaps over and smaller agile mammals will take it fwd.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 07 Jan 2015 17:43

saravana wrote:vivek_v, good post and I agree with you entirely.
Singha, KJo: Just FYI, been studying Python for a few days now and planning to do the Algo course in coursera starting on 15th in that lang

I've been doing "Getting and Cleaning Data" from Coursera to keep pace and also reading Art of R Programming book. Hard to get time these days. :/
I am not sure what to read to get Hadoop knowledge.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 07 Jan 2015 18:52

vivek_v wrote:@KJo. "Nothing good" comes out of India is probably a blanket statement.

It is.

Seriously, India did well in the early 00s by jumping on the bandwagon and making lot of money. But the smart ones reinvent themselves and lead the trend. My lament is that India still thinks it is 2000. There are parts moving to the forefront, but I am not sure if it is even possible for the large IT industry to move that fast.

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 07 Jan 2015 19:28

vivek_v, I can understand the constant backing of steps to look at the technology in its whole glory and the number of dependencies!
I believe a similar explanation is required for "why no products come out of India?". For lack of a better division, split it between application or system products. The threshold of developing a product on the system side is way higher than applications, which in itself isn't easy. It depends on which floor you want to get on. I don't think we have enough folks from India interacting with standards community like IEEE or part of the panels. There has to be a sufficient quorum of people with similar skills to kick start the product ecosystem in India. Some stuff do happen on the application and mobile fronts. Very little from a OS/kernel, storage spaces outside of major product MNCs. The only way the Indian IT majors could have done is, set up a separate R&D division without the billing mentality and the feudal setup with its own leadership and pay these guys to attend conferences and encourage participation in framing standards. The employees from the services side who want to stay technical must be encouraged to move to the R&D side. If the current treatment in these companies of individual contributors must change to foster innovation.
On a lighter note,for starters, lose the tie and formal clothes. I think it brings its own set of timid mentality issues.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Jan 2015 22:29

jumping into bandwagon and making money was all they thought!

they never thought how their services would actually benefit users of the solution.

that is where, Indians must focus if they want to create products.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 07 Jan 2015 23:12

KJo wrote: I am not sure what to read to get Hadoop knowledge.

Even though it is some what outdated (primarily because Hadoop is changing rapidly), its good and detailed enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Hadoop-Definitive ... rds=hadoop

member_28722 · Post by **member_28722** » 08 Jan 2015 02:33

KJo wrote: It is.
Seriously, India did well in the early 00s by jumping on the bandwagon and making lot of money. But the smart ones reinvent themselves and lead the trend. Companies like TCS still think it is 2000. There are parts moving to the forefront, but I am not sure if it is even possible for the large IT industry to move that fast.

Changed the bold part
India has both flavors the low end cost cutting companies and the cutting edge tech companies. I also think its illogical to exclude MNCs like ACN, CTS, CSC when we count Indian IT companies, considering that their combined workforce (India + Onsite) is much higher than TCS.
Also hiring/firing, restructuring are part and parcel of any performance based industry.
Per some ex-TCS folks, TCS has the most stagnant folks in the 6-13 band and hence the maximum firing.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 08 Jan 2015 02:53

When the American engr mafia blocked huawei from ietf they went long on the Itu.

Chinese product cos spend cash on people to go visit centers and confs..
Indian cos will likely send their mkting head to pitch services or the CEO will attend not techies.

Indian execs are good at televised seminars on innovation curve learnt from airline terminal book wisdom.
They neither respect or fund techies.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 08 Jan 2015 03:15

Hmm I sense a strong sense of disillusionment in Singha Saar.
Will he R2M(assa) in the future-e-near?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 08 Jan 2015 03:18

^^^ Me too thinks the same....Silicon valley visit has changed his tunes.

Sitting in B'lur one can almost believe in all the cool-aid and be less aware of the progress the panda is making next door.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 08 Jan 2015 05:07

Sachin wrote:
matrimc wrote:Even if the govt. does tell and the company does not follow what then? What options are open to the govt.?
I don't think GoI is in such a bad shape that the IT big-wigs can even bully them down.

No it is not a question of whether the IT people can bully GoI down. Any private industry, however powerful, can never fight with the govt. Eminent domain and all that. But the question is more to do with whether the IT companies, individually and collectively, litigate against the Govt. and get a stay on the lay offs? What is the reason why unions are not allowed in a country that takes pride in the power of labour unions?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 08 Jan 2015 07:07

schowdhuri · Post by **schowdhuri** » 08 Jan 2015 07:25

Singha wrote:true, throwing three 'bodies' at a problem where a more skilled person would manage is usually a recipe for problems and QA slips.

Not necessarily. Don't go by the years. What should have been the 'more skilled person', has often morphed into the a) x people now report to me, and b) I am a manager, I don't do tech stuff, I manage - both statements made with a lot of pride.