Indian IT Industry

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 08 Aug 2013 03:52

Global giants look to invest Rs 50,000 crore in chip-making in India

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 08 Aug 2013 07:59

IT hiring which was steeply down last yr is projected another 17% down this year.
friend of mine who was at senior director level post in a "big 3" co is moving back as a manager into product based co.

pall of gloom over services industry. i feel only cognizant and TCS will be survivors in current model. infy, wipro and most of the other midrange cos might severely shrink over coming years...

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 08 Aug 2013 08:46

This is not a shocking development to most of us who have seen the ups and downs in the US. India is not immune to this (sadly many people thought it was).
The next things that will happen in the services industry is that the Walmart style of hiring will stop and things will go back to 1995 style when it was reasonably hard to get in. Engineers in Agriculture, Chemical etc will stick in their fields since the need of IT will be met by CS and EE students. There will be a shakeout where many will change careers. IT Industry in India had a glorious 13 years producing absolutely nothing (much like Wall Street in the US). Things will change.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 08 Aug 2013 09:58

Singha wrote:IT hiring which was steeply down last yr is projected another 17% down this year.

Vegetable Oil.Co etc. is now welcoming resignations with open arms. Couple of pals tried the "resignation tactic" to pressurize HR for a pay hike. HR response came in 30 seconds flat. "Discuss with your supervisor and let me know when is your last day"; was the response. No negotiations or even a pep talk to "motivate".

A questions for IT-Vity managers out here? How much of a time do you actually have to spend on "man management"? I mean listening to this constant whines from very junior team members. And whine mostly on the line of teacher.. he is poking me.. teacher he is pinching me.." level stuff.

kit · Post by **kit** » 08 Aug 2013 22:18

hanumadu wrote:Global giants look to invest Rs 50,000 crore in chip-making in India

Wonder how far this will actually happen !

Some amount of political and economic pull must be brought to bear with companies based in Taiwan korea and Japan. I dont think any US company will put up a chip making foundry in India .It wont happen for some very strategic reasons known only to the state department.They still don't want India to gain access to some technologies.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 09 Aug 2013 02:53

kit wrote:
hanumadu wrote:Global giants look to invest Rs 50,000 crore in chip-making in India

Wonder how far this will actually happen !

Some amount of political and economic pull must be brought to bear with companies based in Taiwan korea and Japan. I dont think any US company will put up a chip making foundry in India .It wont happen for some very strategic reasons known only to the state department.They still don't want India to gain access to some technologies.

More then state department I think it is about political risk. Who would invest 50K cr. without being sure of political stability. In any case, India will probably not get it, as it requires huge subsidies.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 09 Aug 2013 03:27

A fab needs water, power, roads and a port. Uninterrupted. Name one place in India where this can happen. And 8bn dollars is the same cost as chipzillas latest fab in az.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Aug 2013 06:00

Does a fab need a port or airport? If located in say delhi it will have good roads and airport right off. Power can be arranged and diesel gensets are always there to feed into ups. That leaves water...does it need lot of water? Where were the semindia people who proposed in hyderabad planning to get water from...?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 09 Aug 2013 06:26

rob peter pay paul
rob poor people pay babooze plan

symontk · Post by **symontk** » 09 Aug 2013 08:24

For a Fab a better place in India is Trivandrum, airport, port (Vizhinjam) electricity (Kudmkulam), water (3 dams), personal (aplenty)

symontk · Post by **symontk** » 09 Aug 2013 08:26

Chipzilla has identified one another site for its IT, shakeups soon for its IT world in the Garden city

symontk · Post by **symontk** » 09 Aug 2013 08:28

Singha wrote:Does a fab need a port or airport? If located in say delhi it will have good roads and airport right off. Power can be arranged and diesel gensets are always there to feed into ups. That leaves water...does it need lot of water? Where were the semindia people who proposed in hyderabad planning to get water from...?

A Fab needs quite a big infra from airport and port. It requires certain chemicals to be imported from US and delivered to sites within hours. Also urgent shipments have to come thru airport. Chipzilla doesnt store anything after manufacturing, its instantly send to the customers. So a port and airport are needed

For all this to happen, customs dept have to be receptive to these. In India its diffcult to happen

rgosain · Post by **rgosain** » 09 Aug 2013 15:45

India missed the Industrial revolution because it was colonised, and it has missed the silicon revolution 25 years ago when these same arguments about fabs were being mooted. Without a viable chip industry, India will never be able to have truly independent solar energy, or mobile device revolution, and it's interesting that those very groups who agitated against silicon fabs 2 decades ago are still present today.

symontk · Post by **symontk** » 09 Aug 2013 16:40

No to another country on other side of the globe

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Aug 2013 16:43

I always had a feeling about chipzilla. they have virtually added no building or staff after 2004 right ? same old ORR and apt road building. in same period other cos like netz, samsung, lg have done a huge buildout and the physical diff shows today. moto, lucent etc died out .
chipz DNA seems like apple, holding its core development close in only 1 or 2 sites.

subhamoy.das · Post by **subhamoy.das** » 09 Aug 2013 19:58

The only revenue model for sevice industry world wide is billing hours and this is what they sale. What has been happening is that they have been selling programming hours where the domain side the job can be learnt on the job but now that is changing. The billing hours these days demand that the domain side should be well known and programming can be learnt on the job. In other words the softwares are coming pre-built with technical infrastcuture on which the domain fucntionality needs to be developed. In other words the roads has been laid and now the malls and eateries along the road will have to be built. CS folks contribute the most in the technical infrastucture and hence their demand has shrunk and there are few takers for CS grads. The need of domain engineers have started to move up. These days they are specifically mentioning "no CS" and "non EE" in the ads. So the way forward i see is that we will evvolve as a programming enabled knowledge service provider where knowledge would be mean knowledge in law, forensic, engineering, teaching, medicine, media etc etc. The days of C/C++/JAVA experts is over and they had their run for last 25 years. So the companies which can re-aling their businses model on domain will survive and grow leaps and bouds and in other words companies which are very strong verical oriented will survive.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 24 Aug 2013 21:16

Most Revered Co has its own Amul Baby.

Infosys to appoint Rohan Murty as vice president
http://www.hindustantimes.com/business- ... 12468.aspx

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Aug 2013 21:50

I knew it would happen....so much for his lectures on meritocracy and integrity bwahaha.."do as I say, not as I do" . atleast in wipro the big boss owns 85% of stock and has made it clear from day1 what his intention is....here is the usual "vibrant democracy" gig subverted by dynasty and sikularism

His father and the other co-founders of Infosys had maintained that their children would not join the company.

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 29 Aug 2013 10:44

Ashok Vemuri has quit Infosys. Lined up for the iGate top job apparently.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 29 Aug 2013 11:07

Sriman wrote:Ashok Vemuri has quit Infosys. Lined up for the iGate top job apparently.

baba rohan is always there to to help out.

Arunkumar · Post by **Arunkumar** » 29 Aug 2013 11:19

IT amul baby has already slid into veepee mode with starting projects like power of one?? etc etc..

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... an-moorthy

And in order to inspire all employees to actively participate in it, the survey communication to employees carries the image of Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani campaigner for women's rights and education who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban and whose courage has inspired the world. The employee communication is titled: 'Power of One:You can make a difference'.

funny that such kind of mission, vision , value stuff takes precedence over developing real actual saleable products.

Bob V · Post by **Bob V** » 30 Aug 2013 04:03

Facing an issue, which might have a simple fix but is a major PITA for me.
I use a dual screen with my laptop.
The desktop icons are highlighted. Tried few solutions off the web, it didn't help.
1) Start> Run> type: sysdm.cpl then hit OK.
Click on Advanced tab> Visual Effects tab, check the box:
Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop then OK, Apply and OK.
- this option was already unchecked.

2) Right click on the Desktop and select Arrange Icons By> make sure that a check mark is not by Lock Web Items on Desktop.
- not checked.
3) Right click on the Desktop and select Properties. Then click Desktop tab> Customize Desktop button> Web tab> make sure that nothing is checked in the Web pages: windows and that Lock web items is not checked.
- Also not checked.

Any other ideas ?

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 02 Sep 2013 07:09

TCS market cap makes it world's No 2 IT services company.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with a market capitalisation of Rs3,95,975 crore($58.66 billion), has emerged the world's second-most valuable IT services company after IBM. This follows a significant appreciation in its share price, from Rs1,410 on 26 April to Rs2,023 on 30 August.

TCS is now way ahead of third-placed Accenture, which has a market cap of $46.7 billion and fourth-placed HP ($43.3 billion), both of which have higher revenues.

IBM, the most valuable IT services company in the world, is way ahead of the pack with a market cap of $200 billion.

TCS is also well on its way to becoming the first Indian company to touch a market capitalisation of $100 billion (Rs6,57,000 crore at the current exchange rate) within the next few years, according to two recent reports by global equity giants JP Morgan and CLSA. The TCS scrip touched a lifetime trading high of Rs2,023.13 up Rs77 or 3.96 per cent on Friday.

TCS has been ahead of peers, and is emerging a true multinational by diversifying outside of its traditional US and European markets into markets like Brazil, Japan and China. It is also growing faster than most other global IT firm.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 12 Sep 2013 20:39

India Gives Initial Approval to Set Up 2 Chipmaking Units.

India Thursday gave an initial approval for two proposals to set up semiconductor manufacturing facilities, but said it will seek proposals from more chipmakers before making a final decision.

The federal cabinet took the decision after considering the proposals from two consortia, one led by Israel's Tower Semiconductor Ltd. and the other by Franco-Italian STMicroelectronics N.V.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, who announced the cabinet decision, said the government will advertise the incentives it plans to offer and invite applications from other chipmakers who are ready to set up manufacturing facilities in India.

The final decision will be taken after four weeks, he told reporters.

Tower Semiconductor has teamed up with International Business Machines Corp. and Jaypee Associates Ltd. of India to set up the facility. Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. is the partner of STMicroelectronics.

Asia's third-largest economy is trying to reduce its widening trade deficit by limiting imports, and boosting local production of electronic components is part of that strategy. By 2020, India's import bill on electronic goods is expected to surpass that of oil, now the largest. Electronics is currently India's third-largest import bill.

India's demand for electronic hardware is expected to cross $400 billion by 2020, from about $45 billion now, according to the government. This will fuel demand for $50 billion of semiconductors which are used in toys and phones to fighter planes and satellites.

The government last year unveiled a policy to boost production of electronics in India. And setting up semiconductor manufacturing facilities is at the core of that policy.

India wants to produce electronic components locally also because of its growing concerns over malware, which could be embedded in equipment used by telecommunications, banking and power industries. It also aims to increase the contribution of manufacturing to the country's gross domestic product to 20% by 2020 from about 16% now.

Electronic product manufacturers have long stayed away from building full-fledged factories India due to a lack of semiconductor makers within the country. Most of them assemble products in their local units after importing parts.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Sep 2013 07:42

light bulb co seems to be losing people deftly through voluntary attrition....I think even some of their clients who would otherwise not be allowed to poach have been given go ahead to take whoever they want. met one such person in the weekend.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 13 Sep 2013 08:17

GE is pretty diverse. What business are these people from?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Sep 2013 12:30

GE != light bulb co.
I meant vegetable oil == light bulb co.

sum · Post by **sum** » 13 Sep 2013 13:12

^^ Sachin-saar had mentioned the same about Vanaspati Co not even bothering to retain outgoing staff and actually encouraging them to do so!

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 13 Sep 2013 15:12

Singha wrote:light bulb co seems to be losing people deftly through voluntary attrition....

if(Light Bulb Co == Vanaspati Oil Co)
{
news heard is true

}
The rumours are that Veg. Oil. Co has a large number of folks sitting on the bench. This large pool consists of people of various hues. Senior folks who may be over experienced, and not cross trainable. Or very junior folks who have no aptitude to pick up any programming skills and are perfectly unusable any where. Veg.Co also has a program in which B.SC Graduates are taken in, they slog for 5 years are given an Master's Degree from BITS Pilani. This program also has a large number of yuppies who are still in their B.Sc college mind set. The sad part is that these folks cannot be kicked out easily.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 14 Sep 2013 18:15

India lures chip makers, says IBM and STMicro interested

(Reuters) - Two consortiums, including IBM and STMicroelectronics, have proposed building semiconductor wafer plants in India costing a total of $8 billion, a minister said after the government approved concessions to lure chipmakers.

India, which wants local production of chips to cut long-term import bills, has renewed a drive to attract investments after a previous attempt failed.

The government hopes other chipmakers will show interest in building further plants after the federal cabinet on Thursday approved concessions including subsidies on capital spending, interest-free loans and tax breaks, Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said.

"India needs not less than 15 fabs (fabrication units)," Sibal told reporters on Friday.

He said that given the huge investments, long build-up period of plants and low freight costs to import chips from abroad there is "no great interest", and the only way to attract investments was through offering such major concessions.

Ganesh Ramamoorthy, a research director at Gartner, said there was little incentive for chipmakers to come to India.

"Globally there are established fabs that are struggling to maintain their profitability," Ramamoorthy said.

"Will they be exporting it, will they be competing with other global fabs, or will India be generating enough demand ... these are difficult questions," the analyst added.

DETAILED REPORTS IN TWO MONTHS

The minister said the two consortiums would be asked to submit within two months their detailed project reports, including the production mix and marketing plans. The detailed project reports would be evaluated by a third party, he said.

One of the consortiums is made up of India's Jaiprakash Associates and Israel's TowerJazz with IBM as technology partner. It has proposed a plant near New Delhi at a cost of 263 billion rupees ($4 billion), the government said.

The second comprises Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp and Malaysia's Silterra with STMicroelectronics as the technology partner. The proposed investment at 252.5 billion rupees for a plant in the western state of Gujarat.

A Jaiprakash spokesman declined comment. The Indian units of IBM and STMicroelectronics said they would not give an immediate comment.

The technology providers must take at least a 10 percent stake in the projects, while the Indian government would get an 11 percent stake in each project. The government would part-fund the investments through interest-free loans for 10 years.

India's demand for electronics products is forecast to rise nearly 10 times during this decade to reach $400 billion by 2020, causing policy makers to worry that electronics imports, with no major local manufacturing, could exceed those of oil.

As sales of smartphones, computers and television sets surge, annual imports of semiconductors are expected to touch $50 billion by 2020 from $7 billion in 2010, according to an Indian government presentation.

Typically, semiconductor foundries take about two years to be up and running, Gartner's Ramamoorthy said. Meanwhile global companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co are already exploring wafer technologies that are much more advanced than those India is proposing to make, he said. ($1 = 63.3925 Indian rupees)

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 17 Sep 2013 06:34

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-1 ... arket.html

Ex-Soviet Programmers Take On India in $48 Billion Market

When Arkadiy Dobkin emigrated to the U.S. two decades ago, his first job was washing dishes. Now he employs 10,000 programmers in his native Belarus and elsewhere in eastern Europe, developing software for clients such as Barclays Plc and Expedia Inc.

Dobkin’s Epam Systems Inc. (EPAM) is among a slew of eastern European companies seeking a piece of the $48 billion global outsourcing market. The companies are building on engineering expertise grounded in the Soviet era to challenge Indian programming giants such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS)

Enlarge image
Luxoft Holding Inc. Chief Executive Officer Dmitry Loschinin said Soviet-era knowhow and teaching methods have been preserved, so graduates of the region’s schools have skills suited for broader problem-solving rather than just narrow programming tasks. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Enlarge image
Epam Systems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Arkady Dobkin said, “It was just me in New Jersey and my classmate in Minsk. We had neither money nor connections, so we started to differentiate ourselves by the complexity of the things we can do.” Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

In the Soviet Union, engineers worked on “all these military machines during the Cold War,” Dobkin said while navigating his laptop to pull up data about the company. “It’s not like India, where IT education was mainly an answer to market demand.”

Soviet-era knowhow and teaching methods have been preserved, so graduates of the region’s schools have skills suited for broader problem-solving rather than just narrow programming tasks, said Dmitry Loschinin, CEO of Luxoft Holding Inc. (LXFT), an Epam rival that employs more than 6,000 in the region doing work for customers such as UBS AG, Boeing Co., and Ford Motor Co.

Code Jam

“Indian programmers have traditionally worked on the back-office, system administration and support,” Loschinin said. “We can develop complex solutions.”

His team has worked on derivative trading systems for banks and computer-vision navigation that matches a moving image from a camera mounted in a car to locations on a map. For Deutsche Bank AG, Luxoft created software that helps speed decisions on whether to grant a customer a loan.

Luxoft had “teams of experts ready to grill you with tough questions,” Daniel Marovitz, COO for Technology at Deutsche Bank’s global banking unit, said in a statement. “And that’s what you need on complex projects.”

This year, 16 of 24 finalists of Google Inc. (GOOG)’s annual Code Jam programming competition were from central and eastern Europe. The region also accounted for 8 of 13 winners at this year’s ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest sponsored by International Business Machines Corp.

Though eastern European programmers earn more than those in India, the region’s companies say they can justify the higher price with contracts for more sophisticated work than their Indian rivals can manage. A software engineer makes an average of $17,000 a year in Belarus and about $20,000 in Russia outside the biggest cities, according to Otkritie Capital. That compares with some $10,000 in India and $95,000 in the U.S.

‘Qualitative Advantage’

Programmers from central and eastern Europe are “known for being very creative and capable of solving the most difficult programming problems,” Alexander Vengranovich, an analyst at Otkritie in Moscow, said in a note last month. “This, in our view, gives offshore companies from CEE a qualitative advantage over Indian and Chinese peers.”

Epam boosted sales 30 percent to $434 million last year and Luxoft increased its latest annual revenue 16 percent to $315 million. Ciklum, a competitor with about 2,500 programmers, says its sales will be up by more than 50 percent this year. The global market for IT outsourcing grew 17 percent to $48 billion last year, according to VTB Capital.

The Indian giants won’t give up their dominance of the market easily. Tata Consultancy, Asia’s largest computer-services exporter by market value, boosted full-year sales 29 percent. Its rival Infosys Ltd. (INFO) saw sales jump 20 percent. Tata didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Infosys declined to comment.

Learning English

Epam, with headquarters in Newtown, Pennsylvania, but virtually all programming operations in eastern Europe, has more than doubled in U.S. trading since its initial public offering last year. Luxoft, with executive offices in Zug, Switzerland, is up about 50 percent since its June IPO. Ciklum and other rivals such as SoftServe and Infopulse are closely held.

Dobkin moved to the U.S. in 1991 just as multinationals were starting to farm out information-technology work to Indian companies. With a degree in electrical engineering from Belarus, he worked various jobs while learning English before setting up his business in 1993.

“It was just me in New Jersey and my classmate in Minsk,” said Dobkin, 53. “We had neither money nor connections, so we started to differentiate ourselves by the complexity of the things we can do.”

A milestone was a 1995 contract to create a customer-relationship management system for Colgate-Palmolive Co. (CL) The program Dobkin developed gained attention in the industry -- and an introduction to SAP AG (SAP) founder Hasso Plattner. That led to a contract to develop software for SAP.

Sephora, Adidas

When Indian providers got a boost from the so-called year 2000 problem, requiring work to avoid potential computer glitches caused by the millennium change, Epam saw more value in developing systems such as early e-commerce platforms. The company has since won contracts with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, cosmetics-retailer Sephora, Coca-Cola Co. and Adidas AG.

The former East Bloc companies gain a further advantage from being in the same time zone with European clients and closer to the U.S., said Valentin Kazan, a vice president at IBA Group, an outsourcer based in Prague with more than 2,500 programmers across eastern Europe.

The companies have “a favorable geographic location,” Kazan said. The “availability of offices and resources and the ability to provide service onshore, in close proximity to the customer” can reduce costs and makes work flow faster.

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 17 Sep 2013 10:47

^^
Had a chance to work briefly with a captive unit based out of Hungary. Very smart folks and they were very thorough.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Sep 2013 20:16

they say some of the A1 brains in east europe make a great living working not for intel or msft but crime syndicates and scamsters, designing exploits and rootkit type stuff

it takes a lot to be a success in such a field ... lot of out of box thinking and versatility needed, self starter mode too.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 18 Sep 2013 03:41

Some good news amid the gloom: India is now the world's third largest smartphone market according to a research firm, overtaking Japan and behind China and the US.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/26/india- ... hone-world

Does anyone know how much of this the revenue from being #3 benefits India? I'm sure Chinese and other Asian manufactures benefits tremendously from manufacturing revenue. A small country South Korea, where Samsung, is domiciled benefits from this. And Google benefits from this. Indian OEMs won't get as much revenue. Looks like everyone benefits except India....not much good news for me here

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 18 Sep 2013 07:23

chanakyaa wrote:Does anyone know how much of this the revenue from being #3 benefits India? I'm sure Chinese and other Asian manufactures benefits tremendously from manufacturing revenue. A small country South Korea, where Samsung, is domiciled benefits from this. And Google benefits from this. Indian OEMs won't get as much revenue. Looks like everyone benefits except India....not much good news for me here

Not entirely true...see link below.

Why are local brands like Micromax killing it in India's smartphone market?

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 18 Sep 2013 11:12

MM just imports and rebrands, something that was proved in some online article that said that they have imported 25k of some new smartphone from china

subhamoy.das · Post by **subhamoy.das** » 18 Sep 2013 11:50

The scale in software service industry comes from the bottom of the pyramind and not the top of it where the central and east europeans are targetting with their complex solutioning skills. So what will happen is that these companies will get bought over by the Indian bug 5s. They will never be able to match the scale and efficiency - like Chinese in manufacturing - of the Indian companies.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 18 Sep 2013 12:04

Unless Indian lo-cost phone companies start making phones in India. We will not be benefited by the size of the smart phone market.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 19 Sep 2013 05:08

Arjun wrote:
chanakyaa wrote:Does anyone know how much of this the revenue from being #3 benefits India? I'm sure Chinese and other Asian manufactures benefits tremendously from manufacturing revenue. A small country South Korea, where Samsung, is domiciled benefits from this. And Google benefits from this. Indian OEMs won't get as much revenue. Looks like everyone benefits except India....not much good news for me here
Not entirely true...see link below.

Why are local brands like Micromax killing it in India's smartphone market?

Thanks for the article. Agree with Micromax phenomenon but my focus is on the following lines from your article..

According to IDC India, local smartphone brands now account for over half of all smartphone shipped into India

Shipped into India that is import

After all, there isn’t much local R&D, industrial designing or software work happening when it comes to local brands – it is all done by OEMs in China and elsewhere. All that needs to be done from here is to determine the product and the quantity.

Does Micromax puts its own chips?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 19 Sep 2013 06:54

Micromax builds its own logo and glues it on. Or maybe that too is made and glued in china.