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Yayavar wrote: C-DAC Param provided good work on transputers. Was good fun. The body shoppers like Infosys made money though and it was easier thing to do.
To add on. Yes, I agree piracy was rampant for most commonly used softwares (like MS suite of products and even the OS itself). But there were the LIPI and GIST (developed by C-DAC?) which helped in word processing activities using Indian languages. These products also had some kind of security measures (like serial port dongles etc.), and was heavily used by pretty much all DTP operators out there. Knew chaps who had pirated versions of Coral Draw, Page Maker etc., but licenses version of the Indian language editors.
Then there was (and is) Tally the first accounting software developed for India, and which worked with all the India based taxation and audit related laws. Tally still has a very good market, and they also seems to be inventing new stuff.
New York: An Indian-origin human resource manager has become the third person connected with two outsourcing companies to be convicted of H1-B visa fraud in a scheme that also ripped off tech employees, according to Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor for New Jersey.
Hiral Patel, who worked for SCM Data and MMC System, admitted her guilt before federal judge Kevin McNulty in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday, prosecutors said. She was found guilty of obstructing justice in connection with the scheme.
Patel, 32, was arrested in May.
Sunila Dutt, a lawyer in Virginia, was convicted of involvement in the fraud in October.
In December, Hari Karne, the immigration manager for an Indian company was found guilty in the same scheme. Prosecutors said that he was from Hyderabad and worked for SCM Private Limited in India, which had agreements with SCM Data and MMC System to provide staff.
Sowrabh Sharma, the New York-based owner of the two companies was arrested in September and Shikha Mohta, 31, of Jersey City who was the head of finance for the two companies, in May and both have been charged with fraud in the scheme, according to prosecutors.
The two companies recruited student visa holders or recent graduates as consultants, obtained H1-B visas meant for professionals with specialised skills and placed them with other companies requiring information technology support, according to the prosecution.
Under the terms of the H1-B visas, the consultants had to be given full-time positions and paid an agreed salary. But they were paid only when they were working at the third party companies that contracted with them, the prosecution said.
To show the government they were being paid as full-time employees, they were asked to give SCM and MMC cash equal to the salaries for periods they were not at the third party companies and their employer, the two outsourcing companies, did not pay them, according to the prosecution.
The two companies then issued them checks for those amounts, which they were made to show to the immigration authorities as proof they were working full time and receiving the wages they were supposed to for the H1-B visas, the prosecution said.
Prosecutors said in December that there were six co-conspirators in the scheme, but did not identify them.
SCM Data is based in New Jersey and MMC System is headquartered in Virginia.
Yayavar wrote: C-DAC Param provided good work on transputers. Was good fun. The body shoppers like Infosys made money though and it was easier thing to do.
To add on. Yes, I agree piracy was rampant for most commonly used softwares (like MS suite of products and even the OS itself). But there were the LIPI and GIST (developed by C-DAC?) which helped in word processing activities using Indian languages. These products also had some kind of security measures (like serial port dongles etc.), and was heavily used by pretty much all DTP operators out there. Knew chaps who had pirated versions of Coral Draw, Page Maker etc., but licenses version of the Indian language editors.
Then there was (and is) Tally the first accounting software developed for India, and which worked with all the India based taxation and audit related laws. Tally still has a very good market, and they also seems to be inventing new stuff.
Exactly..so all this lament about desi IT/software industry did not attempt is incorrect. I remember the work you are mentioning - C-DOT/CDAC had great projects to work. Wipro software and a few others had various other software offerings as well. As I noted in my previous post there were more complex software and hardware solutions brought to market. It did not work out is a different matter.
Now the environment is different - there is more liquidity, more awareness and better likelihood of success.
The two companies recruited student visa holders or recent graduates as consultants, obtained H1-B visas meant for professionals with specialised skills and placed them with other companies requiring information technology support, according to the prosecution.
Isnt this what more than 70% of the Desi consulting firms do in Amrika? They are literally the only godsend for many freshly graduated students who are not ready to be sponsored anywhere
The two companies recruited student visa holders or recent graduates as consultants, obtained H1-B visas meant for professionals with specialised skills and placed them with other companies requiring information technology support, according to the prosecution.
Isnt this what more than 70% of the Desi consulting firms do in Amrika? They are literally the only godsend for many freshly graduated students who are not ready to be sponsored anywhere
Why did this particular one get caught?
This is the fraud.
Under the terms of the H1-B visas, the consultants had to be given full-time positions and paid an agreed salary. But they were paid only when they were working at the third party companies that contracted with them, the prosecution said. To show the government they were being paid as full-time employees, they were asked to give SCM and MMC cash equal to the salaries for periods they were not at the third party companies and their employer, the two outsourcing companies, did not pay them, according to the prosecution.
The two companies then issued them checks for those amounts, which they were made to show to the immigration authorities as proof they were working full time and receiving the wages they were supposed to for the H1-B visas, the prosecution said.
Sw hw has to match the demands of its market to succeed and ability of people to pay . Try starting a google in mexico or pakistan and see how far you get?
What was the use of doing a desi clone of ms word when piracy is rife? Even expensive stuff like photoshop and cad cam pkgs are widely pirated despite attempts to control. These only make real money in places where piracy is less. Same set of pio crapping on india for not producing sw products would hv used xerox copied textbooks and pirated sw in their student days here before decamping and acting pious now. Go to ur local univ library there to xerox a whole textbook in massa and see what they say.
Now with sw rented off clouds and no longer in cd people do hv a chance ...like we see in freshdesk of chennai and in the app economy.
Singha, exactly. Solve new, problems, why solve what's been solved? When FrootCo came up with iPad, an idiot in Hyd or somewhere grandly proclaimed "$35 tablet!". Arre yaar, come up with something new instead of playing this "I can do it for cheap" game.
Market correction beginning. All the fakers will be shaken out and the real engineers will remain.
Happened in the US also in 2001.
MUMBAI: For the first time in 25 years, IT industry body Nasscom has deferred giving the revenue outlook for the Indian IT-BPM industry by a quarter, which reflects the state of flux that the $155-billion Indian IT sector is in.
Nasscom is taking a more calibrated approach of seeking feedback from key stakeholders — IT companies and analysts — to improve its forecasting after the original one went awry.
with apple and samsung prices, there is a lot of room for cloning it for cheaper and deliverying value - xiaomi, letv, huawei, lenovo etc make a living out of it!! they are now global giants in own right.
so cheaper and copycat usually gets the market volume and are fine ways to make money & build skills if done well. thats how east asian manufacturing bootstrapped itself. same applies to anything like software. thats how samsung wiped sony off the map when the LCD shift came.
"always do something new" is a topic best left for Phd candidates.
why is everyone putting such time and effort into military products, all are done before, some in 60s.
should people have stopped making cars once Ford mastered the assembly line.
people who crap on cheaper products as they are "not new" are living in some dream world. 95% of the worlds people cannot afford the pioneering "new" products at the edge. they wait for the middle to catch up in features while maintaining value - like MotoG.
if there have been failures , its been in marketing, lack of support from govt (see how cheen pumps and protects its munnas), weak local market to build scale in, weak ecosystem of bits and pieces suppliers ... not in the overall idea. and obviously a continuous brain drain in some areas, mostly to massa.
KJo wrote:Singha, exactly. Solve new, problems, why solve what's been solved? When FrootCo came up with iPad, an idiot in Hyd or somewhere grandly proclaimed "$35 tablet!". Arre yaar, come up with something new instead of playing this "I can do it for cheap" game.
Don't agree. Not everyone will be able to solve new problems. I'm sure you would've heard about continuous improvement? There is always an emphasis to "improve". Managed services is an improvement over just placing bodies. There are some innovative outsourcing models from Indian tech companies, do not discount it because it doesn't solve a fancy problem. If I can solve a problem in $35 when it takes $450 by some one else, that's still a win for me and I would take it 9 out of 10 times.
OYO seems to be at a massive loss - why? they do not even own any hotels just aggregate hotel bookings and have a minimum std of room for owners to get in.
looks like zivame, bigbasket, zoomcar in first column and practo, policybazaar and cleartrip in second column are going to last.
zivame was started by a woman and sells ladies lingerie. they have good demand from tier2 and tier3 towns where good quality lingerie is hard to find.
KJo wrote:Singha, exactly. Solve new, problems, why solve what's been solved? When FrootCo came up with iPad, an idiot in Hyd or somewhere grandly proclaimed "$35 tablet!". Arre yaar, come up with something new instead of playing this "I can do it for cheap" game.
Don't agree. Not everyone will be able to solve new problems. I'm sure you would've heard about continuous improvement? There is always an emphasis to "improve". Managed services is an improvement over just placing bodies. There are some innovative outsourcing models from Indian tech companies, do not discount it because it doesn't solve a fancy problem. If I can solve a problem in $35 when it takes $450 by some one else, that's still a win for me and I would take it 9 out of 10 times.
Not everyone, yes. But we don't solve any new problems. Why? Because we as a people are risk averse. We want guaranteed returns to the level possible. Nothing ventured nothing gained. So our returns are also average to slightly above average. We never change the world as a whole.
If you call the above "innovation" then I would have to and then
Singha wrote:looks like zivame, bigbasket, zoomcar in first column and practo, policybazaar and cleartrip in second column are going to last.
zivame was started by a woman and sells ladies lingerie. they have good demand from tier2 and tier3 towns where good quality lingerie is hard to find.
Hmm maybe there is something to the fact that a lady will be most cost conscious than men. Men tend to have larger egos and think they are greater than what they really are. But then, they also tend to change the world more.
Where do these VCs get the money they pour into loser ventures like FK and Housing? Is it always someone else's money they spend?
Cosmo_R wrote:@KJo ^^^
Indians are very risk averse: guaranteed lifetime employment at startup at market salary, bonus and stock options at founder prices.
On the startups issue: Indian ones are domestically focused—adapting US models to India. Israeli ones are externally focused and do IPOs.
I think Indians in generally have gotten more bold now than earlier, so there is a change for the better. But we still are not terribly inventive in terms of products. Yes, maybe here and there, but not enough for a country of our size with our type of smart people. Can someone share the names of Indian companies (new, not old ones) which are innovative and not copycats of some US company applied to Indian market?
I wonder why the intense taqleef and defensiveness when I do some self introspection. Makes me wonder if I am in Pakistan?
Economic Times
Capgemini on hiring spree, India headcount to hit 1 lakh by April-end
Economic Times - 2 hours ago
MUMBAI: French IT major Capgemini today said its employee base here will touch 1 lakh by April-end and despite the concerns on protectionism, it will continue to recruit more talent in the country with a bias towards hiring more freshers.
Singha wrote:Economic Times
Capgemini on hiring spree, India headcount to hit 1 lakh by April-end
Economic Times - 2 hours ago
MUMBAI: French IT major Capgemini today said its employee base here will touch 1 lakh by April-end and despite the concerns on protectionism, it will continue to recruit more talent in the country with a bias towards hiring more freshers.
That's the catch. This seems to be a new strategy for IT firms to cut costs by hiring freshers and pay them less, especially in support and administration projects. In few big companies I saw and heard they have like 5 6 freshers for 1 experienced guy.
Singha wrote:people who crap on cheaper products as they are "not new" are living in some dream world. 95% of the worlds people cannot afford the pioneering "new" products at the edge. they wait for the middle to catch up in features while maintaining value - like MotoG.
Singha wrote:
What was the use of doing a desi clone of ms word when piracy is rife? Even expensive stuff like photoshop and cad cam pkgs are widely pirated despite attempts to control. These only make real money in places where piracy is less. Same set of pio crapping on india for not producing sw products would hv used xerox copied textbooks and pirated sw in their student days here before decamping and acting pious now. Go to ur local univ library there to xerox a whole textbook in massa and see what they say.
Now with sw rented off clouds and no longer in cd people do hv a chance ...like we see in freshdesk of chennai and in the app economy.
....i think we are agreeing.
Those who tried probably had the hope that cheap enough cost would tip the balance at least with those who can pay. Didnt work. Or that the piracy would be thwarted somehow.
But the point was that people did try inhouse development. All this lament about desi IT never did anything original is wrong.
The environment was not right or it was not impactful enough are orthogonal to the fact that attempt was made.
KJo wrote:
Where do these VCs get the money they pour into loser ventures like FK and Housing? Is it always someone else's money they spend?
It's a chain reaction; Khosla saab made it big in tech then he went into VC giri . Now look at AppDynamics acquisition by Netz the founder will get about 150 million USD or more , becoming a VC is a natural progression.
Cosmo_R wrote:@KJo ^^^
Indians are very risk averse: guaranteed lifetime employment at startup at market salary, bonus and stock options at founder prices.
On the startups issue: Indian ones are domestically focused—adapting US models to India. Israeli ones are externally focused and do IPOs.
I think Indians in generally have gotten more bold now than earlier, so there is a change for the better. But we still are not terribly inventive in terms of products. Yes, maybe here and there, but not enough for a country of our size with our type of smart people. Can someone share the names of Indian companies (new, not old ones) which are innovative and not copycats of some US company applied to Indian market?
I wonder why the intense taqleef and defensiveness when I do some self introspection. Makes me wonder if I am in Pakistan?
Would Intellect Design Arena be good enough for you ?.Disclaimer : I have shares in this company & they are in loss but i don't work in that company or even in that technology domain. Jhunjhunwala just sold all his shares in this company but i prefer to stay on.
They are a pure Financial Technology Products company selling full spectrum of treasury,retail consumer, insurance, cbs products world-wide & adopt various revenue models for their products. Most of their products are cloud based, their products are already enabling blockchain tech based transactions and have even some nice looking (primarily UI) apps running on Apple's watches to notify banking transactions for the user. They are 3 years into this pure-products play now & are growing fast and are making around 1000 crores INR in revenue this year. Their Gross Profit Marin is ~ 50% but are still booking losses of around 50 crores or so annually (which i believe is due to the need to expand their Marketing & Business Dev groups across various continents). It was carved out of from erstwhile Polaris IT company ... the services division was sold to Virtusa & the left over was this products division. They came out with cloud enabled technologies and are winning various awards for their products.
Singha wrote:Economic Times
Capgemini on hiring spree, India headcount to hit 1 lakh by April-end
Economic Times - 2 hours ago
MUMBAI: French IT major Capgemini today said its employee base here will touch 1 lakh by April-end and despite the concerns on protectionism, it will continue to recruit more talent in the country with a bias towards hiring more freshers.
This just proves what I have been talking about here w.r.t TCS.
They hardly have any mature experienced people, they just hire people from college, make them do a few courses and ship them abroad. And employees at the client there have to put up with them while the top level boss at the client sees how many dollars he saved (== bonus).
Yayavar wrote:
....i think we are agreeing.
Those who tried probably had the hope that cheap enough cost would tip the balance at least with those who can pay. Didnt work. Or that the piracy would be thwarted somehow.
But the point was that people did try inhouse development. All this lament about desi IT never did anything original is wrong.
The environment was not right or it was not impactful enough are orthogonal to the fact that attempt was made.
Can you name a few original software products in use in the world today that came from an Indian company based in India?
Yayavar wrote:
....i think we are agreeing.
Those who tried probably had the hope that cheap enough cost would tip the balance at least with those who can pay. Didnt work. Or that the piracy would be thwarted somehow.
But the point was that people did try inhouse development. All this lament about desi IT never did anything original is wrong.
The environment was not right or it was not impactful enough are orthogonal to the fact that attempt was made.
Can you name a few original software products in use in the world today that came from an Indian company based in India?
Necessity drives innovation this whole logic of questioning ability by asking what original SW products came out of India is lame we did not need them until recently and hence had no market for it so question of making them is moot that is like asking what original contribution did America have in culinary arts ? Every item of theirs has roots elsewhere in the world.
Almost every software MNC today makes at least 60-70% of it's revenue from NA operations when the market is in US the leadership will be there as well ; build wise most of stuff you use today is made here but obviously since company itself is US Headquartered one cannot make such claims.
Oh yes, I've heard of Finacle before, and its a pity that isn't more of a household name. According to Vicky-chacha
Finacle is a core banking product developed by Indian corporation Infosys that provides universal banking functionality to banks. In August 2015, Finacle became part of EdgeVerve Systems Limited. Finacle is used by banks across 84 countries that serve over 450 million customers.
Why did INFY sell it?
amit, I rant because there is a reason for it. I could sit on my H&D and pretend that everything was great when it isn't. In that case what is the difference between us and pakis?
Oh yes, I've heard of Finacle before, and its a pity that isn't more of a household name. According to Vicky-chacha
Finacle is a core banking product developed by Indian corporation Infosys that provides universal banking functionality to banks. In August 2015, Finacle became part of EdgeVerve Systems Limited. Finacle is used by banks across 84 countries that serve over 450 million customers.
Why did INFY sell it?
amit, I rant because there is a reason for it. I could sit on my H&D and pretend that everything was great when it isn't. In that case what is the difference between us and pakis?
EdgeVerve is a wholly owned subsidiary on Infosys. So they didn't sell it. Reasons for making it a different company:
1) Product selling requires a different kind of team structure/mindset. For ex: sales
2) Risk of litigation is higher esp. patent infringement claims
3) Lower margins and pipeline visibility in product deals etc.
The list could go on and on. Basic reason is finacle is different from everything else that infy does.
Btw, a lot of mwallets, skava e6tc. are also Infosys.
Singha wrote:Economic Times
Capgemini on hiring spree, India headcount to hit 1 lakh by April-end
Economic Times - 2 hours ago
MUMBAI: French IT major Capgemini today said its employee base here will touch 1 lakh by April-end and despite the concerns on protectionism, it will continue to recruit more talent in the country with a bias towards hiring more freshers.
This just proves what I have been talking about here w.r.t TCS.
They hardly have any mature experienced people, they just hire people from college, make them do a few courses and ship them abroad. And employees at the client there have to put up with them while the top level boss at the client sees how many dollars he saved (== bonus).
actually 90% of the work in Itvity is at the level where competent freshers can do. look at you , ranting here daily about threats to your job by these peecha karo and TCS freshers....if you @ 15-20 yrs feel threatened by them what does it tell about your own job or that of other seniors there ?
KJo wrote:
This just proves what I have been talking about here w.r.t TCS.
They hardly have any mature experienced people, they just hire people from college, make them do a few courses and ship them abroad. And employees at the client there have to put up with them while the top level boss at the client sees how many dollars he saved (== bonus).
actually 90% of the work in Itvity is at the level where competent freshers can do. look at you , ranting here daily about threats to your job by these peecha karo and TCS freshers....if you @ 15-20 yrs feel threatened by them what does it tell about your own job or that of other seniors there ?
Everyone welcomes competition, but it should be fair. What these companies do with their visa fraud and other unethical practices and flooding the market isn't right.
Having grown up in India, I know that we cannot even stand one another within the country. Every now and then we in KA would go on a "Kick out Tamilians!" riot. Imagine if goras begin to stream into the country in large numbers.
Your concern for my job is touching. . I am looking for a better one right now and the calls are going through the roof. About 3 calls a day through Linkedin and I have to wait for the right one. It will only get better from here on.
TCS and others have ruined the entire industry through body-dumping of L1s. Just like cheen does dumping of goods in India for which people went
For a free market, the US does have the most protection for its own industries. No point even talking about China. India needs to push relentlessly until control of all IT infra and development is in Indian hands. Token goras to man the upper management seats and face the press will be enough.
I see no harm in L1s. This is company staff to be placed at company locations. If they are placed in consulting roles, that is a problem.
As for competition, all of us are vulnerable -- no point cribbing about it. I have worked with chaps with 2 years of focused experience and handholding who are doing better than seniors who have moved back from the US. In fact KB is trying hard to move jobs from the US because folks there are low in productivity on the product development side, and we have irate customers who escalate every delay. Problem is when you allow folks to settle into a comfortable rhythm and sound-proof, fire-proof chamber -- they lose sight of customer needs. Competition keeps them fresh and on their toes.
Run Lola Run!!! Let the younger lions devour those who cannot protect their turfs.
you didnt answer my question - what is it about the <= 5 yr h1/l1 people that harms your job prospects and why? can 3 such people do your 1 job ? if so, dont you think its time to find a more defensible gig ?
>>I know that we cannot even stand one another within the country. Every now and then we in KA would go on a "Kick out Tamilians!" riot. Imagine if goras begin to stream into the country in large numbers.
these are all torn shirt open fly arguments. between racists on one side and L1s on the other, your anxiety situation would hardly appear to be any better
quite the misdirected rage bro, and find a better job if you desire. be at peace, nobody is out to get you.
I really fail to understand the rant on "innovation". My KB does design, engineering, production work for several large behemoths in defense, automotive, aero and med devices. True, eventually the products are shipped out with some one else name, but doesn't mean that these folks do not do cutting edge work. I can give so many examples in the last year around IoT, where they have done a lot of work around collection, monitoring and insights. Almost all the tier 1/2 companies in the world have offices in India not because we are cheaper and can put bodies dime a dozen.
its like certain mumbaikars claiming mumbai contributes half of indian GDP because most corporates have HQ there or certain punekars claiming only they are the certified blue-blooded yindus.
clearly SV or any US/japani/soko corporate is riding on the same tiger, getting work done all over, but revenues reported out of palo alto the self proclaimed "innovation engine"
but due to tax laws they are unable to repatriate their huge revenues and are waiting for a Trumpian tax break window to bring some of it back without a steep tax.
and then 
