Indian IT Industry

[Rajesh_MR]

deleted

[Raja Bose]

I work for the largest semicon company of all. We are still hiring PeeYechDees in droves. I feel that hiring has actually increased now because they have the chance to pick and choose among the best of the best!

aha....you see it is the PeeYechDee Hakims they are hiring not the lowly Masters/ustads ....birather mujahid was asking about MS people onlee. In fact the reason I got the job was becoz the position asked for Hakims onlee....so no droves of Ustads but still stiff competition. In fact I have my defence today in another 1 hour (....which reminds me what am I doing browsing thru B-R forum at this time.... Ya'Allah! )

[Rahul M]

[Karkala Joishy]

Was very surprised on last visit to India 2 years back to see relatives who work in call center/IT coolly dropping 10K Rs. at the drop of a hat for a new phone Nobody's asking to become Uncle Scrooge but surely there must be some sound logic behind spending. The guy in the article who claims he needs 2 Rs. when he has 1Rs. in pocket will never have enough money even if he becomes a millionaire.

The new kids in India have not really seen adversity that existed in the 80s and 90s when jobs were hard to come by. This generation has only known companies coming to campus and hiring the whole class. Hence the arrogance that they have "arrived". They also make much more than their poor dads ever did which adds to this feeling of superiority.
India is just the US with a phase lag. Wait till things get tight, they better be saving for a rainy day.

On my trips to desh, I have noticed Indians living there have a complex of "look, even we have this, XYZ is available here also". I got that quite a bit. When I call to ask if I should get anything, I hear something of that nature.

[Raja Bose]

On my trips to desh, I have noticed Indians living there have a complex of "look, even we have this, XYZ is available here also". I got that quite a bit. When I call to ask if I should get anything, I hear something of that nature.

Well the above might also be due to the fact that unlike the dark ol' days now every gizmo is available in India so one doesnt need to cart it from massa. Usually what my parents and I do is survey the same thing in massa and desh and see which is cheaper....sometimes it is massa (esp. if I catch some good sale)...sometimes it is not. Another thing is ofcourse the whole plug thing for the electronic gizmos which one buys from massa (most of them now support 100V-240V so voltage is not a problem anymore).

[Raja Bose]

Well Allah has been most merciful to this mujahid....despite all sorts of raakit-mard attacks, prey-e-dator drone bumbari and IED-mubaraks from supervisory committee, PhD defence went successfully. Perhaps the preparation requiring for posting on B-R Indian IT Industry 1 hour before defence made the difference between life and death!

[Raj]

Well Allah has been most merciful to this mujahid....despite all sorts of raakit-mard attacks, prey-e-dator drone bumbari and IED-mubaraks from supervisory committee, PhD defence went successfully. Perhaps the preparation requiring for posting on B-R Indian IT Industry 1 hour before defence made the difference between life and death!

Congrats.

[Kakkaji]

Well Allah has been most merciful to this mujahid....despite all sorts of raakit-mard attacks, prey-e-dator drone bumbari and IED-mubaraks from supervisory committee, PhD defence went successfully. Perhaps the preparation requiring for posting on B-R Indian IT Industry 1 hour before defence made the difference between life and death!

Congratulations!

[Satya_anveshi]

Congratulations bose boss

[Raja Bose]

Thanks! Now to join the ranks of ITvity and stare at a cubicle for life (or if Bara Sahib desires...stare at unemployment agency window).

[Singha]

AoA...another Amir to lead the mujahids. your mansion in dara-adamkhel
is ready O learned one.

[Raja Bose]

Surely you mean my cave in bajaur agency.

[Rahul M]

Congratulations bose boss

someone stole my line !
congrats !

[sum]

I work for the largest semicon company of all. We are still hiring PeeYechDees in droves. I feel that hiring has actually increased now because they have the chance to pick and choose among the best of the best!

aha....you see it is the PeeYechDee Hakims they are hiring not the lowly Masters/ustads ....birather mujahid was asking about MS people onlee. In fact the reason I got the job was becoz the position asked for Hakims onlee....so no droves of Ustads but still stiff competition. In fact I have my defence today in another 1 hour (....which reminds me what am I doing browsing thru B-R forum at this time.... Ya'Allah! )

Congrats, Bose sahib or should i say,Dr.Bose...

As you say, seems MS also not so glittery these days!!!

[Anujan]

Well Allah has been most merciful to this mujahid....despite all sorts of raakit-mard attacks, prey-e-dator drone bumbari and IED-mubaraks from supervisory committee, PhD defence went successfully. Perhaps the preparation requiring for posting on B-R Indian IT Industry 1 hour before defence made the difference between life and death!

Welcome to the new doctor. Now report to the B.E.N.I.S dhaaga for debriefing

On my trips to desh, I have noticed Indians living there have a complex of "look, even we have this, XYZ is available here also". I got that quite a bit. When I call to ask if I should get anything, I hear something of that nature.

Its not just a complex, its actually quite a bit true. What I have seen as the new hakim observed is that things that need mass market appeal are cheaper in desh, things which have quite a bit of competition is cheap in unkil-land. I presume Karkala-saar you (like me) belong to the time where you had to call up an operator to schedule a "trunk call". Those were the days of calls, urgent calls, lightning calls and pp-calls

[Nayak]

Well Allah has been most merciful to this mujahid....despite all sorts of raakit-mard attacks, prey-e-dator drone bumbari and IED-mubaraks from supervisory committee, PhD defence went successfully. Perhaps the preparation requiring for posting on B-R Indian IT Industry 1 hour before defence made the difference between life and death!

Now BR has a resident vet expert on goats.

Kongratulations Bosuddin.

[Nayak]

IT firms increase work-hours for higher productivity

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/49146

By siliconindia news bureau
Monday, November 24, 2008
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Bangalore: In order to offset the recessional setbacks, IT firms are resorting to the strategy of increasing the working hours. Many companies have also stepped up the monitoring of working hours to squeeze the maximum out of their employees, reports The Times of India.


Some firms are closely keeping an eye on even the recess time of their employees. An extra minute taken during lunch time or coffee break will have to be compensated.

Accenture India is perhaps the first MNC in India planning to increase the working hours from January 1, 2009. TCS had recently increased the working hours by an hour a day to 9 hours.

Wipro employees already put in 9.5 hours (8.30 am to 6 pm) a day including a brief lunch break, while it's 9.15 hours in Infosys. But these weren't implemented stringently, until now. "It's sort of mandatory for us now to put in 9.5 hours of work a day. Our HR seems to be monitoring it very closely these days and even a 15-minute shortage/delay is being noticed," said a Wipro employee who got a reminder for short-swiping a few days ago.

According to Infosys Technologies head (HR) T V Mohandas Pai, the company has stringent measures to make sure employees put in the required 9.15 hours every day. An increase in working hours will directly impact productivity and revenues.

One of the reasons for companies to extend their working hours is to increase productivity and revenues. For instance, by increasing work hours by an hour a day an employee works an additional 22 hours a month. If an hour of his/her work is billed at $20, the company makes an additional billing of $440 per employee. That means, in rupee terms, a single employee can bring in additional revenues of Rs 22,000 a month for the company. Such work time extension works well for projects that are on what is called the 'time & material' model. Around 70 percent of tech projects are currently under this model, while the rest are fixed price projects where the service providers may resort to pruning the size of teams to bring cost down.

"Companies, by and large, are targeting a per-employee productivity enhancement of 15 percent," said a strategist working with an MNC firm. The tech sector, he says, is given an essential services status - on par with water and electricity - in Karnataka, so companies here also need not pay overtime.

[sum]

Wipro employees already put in 9.5 hours (8.30 am to 6 pm) a day including a brief lunch break, while it's 9.15 hours in Infosys. But these weren't implemented stringently, until now. "It's sort of mandatory for us now to put in 9.5 hours of work a day. Our HR seems to be monitoring it very closely these days and even a 15-minute shortage/delay is being noticed," said a Wipro employee who got a reminder for short-swiping a few days ago.

Hogwash...
From what i know, Wipro has always followed the 9.5 rule. Infact, it is the No 2 reason for employee dissatisfaction after the salary issue. Even in the days of massive bench, people were made to sit 9.5 everyday despite no work due to "policy" and used to get HR mails for not complying.

[Nayak]

I remember the sorry days I remember sitting on the bench waiting for my massaland visa. I had to spend evening 7 to morning 4 doing nothing. No internet/no access/no idea what I am supposed to do.

I got fedup and complained to the manager that if there is nothing to do I should be allowed to go.

I ended doing a evening shift of 7 pm to 11:00 PM for 4 months.

Atleast the senior guy was understanding enough....

[Raja Bose]

Many thanks for blessings of elder maulanas and birather mujahids.

Re.this whole benching concept...do you still get paid at same rate? Moreover, since you have to sit there on bench do they atleast give you a cubicle to put bench in so that you can increase your knowledge of human anatomy by browsing forbidden texts...or do you have to sit outside with the chowkidaar having endless chai-biskoot?! Must be thoroughly frustrating.

Accenture always struck me more of a slave driver than others. When I was trying to sneak into ATL...I was told by one senior manager that they only do H1Bs for people being brought in from India and dont do H1Bs for grads from US madrassas. Total hajamat!

[Nayak]

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14804781

Accenture staff to work longer hours
Shamik Paul & Vishwanath Kulkarni | Tuesday, 25 November , 2008, 10:09


Bangalore: In a bid to boost productivity levels at its India Delivery Centre, Accenture, management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, plans to increase its work hours by an hour daily from January 1.

The company, in an internal communication to employees, said that after much consultation with the leadership and a careful review of the market place, it has decided to extend the work hour for professionals at its India Delivery Centre for technology from 40 hours to 45 hours a week effective January 1, 2009.

The company told its employees that for the past few months it has been looking at how it can continue to best serve clients while enhancing its competitive positioning, and one of the areas it has been looking at is its work hours.

Recruiters headed for slow-growth phase

5-day week

However, Accenture would continue to have a five-day work week. “Doing this (increasing work hours) will enable us to be even more competitive in the market place,” Accenture told its employees.

The India-based competitors of Accenture such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro are now facing uncertain times as customers in the crisis-hit US delay or hold back their spending on deploying new technology, and these vendors are trying to be more competitive.

Images: Los Angeles auto show beauties

Accenture officials did not comment on the development. The company employs over 37,000 people across development centres in cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Gurgaon. Its Chairman, Bill Green, said in April that the company would increase India headcount to about 50,000 within a year.

It might be recalled that HCL Technologies Ltd had increased its work hours in October 2006 by 30 minutes from the existing eight-and-a-half hours a day (excluding a half-hour lunch break) to nine hours a day.

More India business stories

The company had said increased work hours will aid employee training besides help the company follow the industry standard of a 45-hour week.

I don't understand the point of increasing work hours. The IT/Vity abduls will just hog more A/C hawa, bandwidth and sit around on their ar$e scratching their nuts doing zilch.

Sometimes I think this IT industry is one of the most phucked up places.

[sum]

Re.this whole benching concept...do you still get paid at same rate? Moreover, since you have to sit there on bench do they atleast give you a cubicle to put bench in so that you can increase your knowledge of human anatomy by browsing forbidden texts...or do you have to sit outside with the chowkidaar having endless chai-biskoot?! Must be thoroughly frustrating.

Wipro doesnt.....they deduct 50% of your variable pay if on bench. So, basically, ur doing nothing whole day for no fault of yours and also get your salary deducted for it. Of course, these days bench means the door since benchers are expected to find projects for themselves within some time else get their pink slips.

I have done my most BR surfing in my "Indian services co" bench days!!!!

[Manish Jain]

Its a funny thing actually. My friend in HCL was asked to work longer hours when rupee was gaining against dollar. Their profits were hit when Rs. was almost 40-41 against dollar. Now the rupee is at 50+ against dollars and still, my friend is being asked to put in even longer hours as their profitability is hit from overseas clients.

I'm too in one of top-notch IT companies in Noida region. Here there're no direct lay-offs but people are being told to leave or risk getting terminated on performance basis without any warnings. Sorry state of affairs everywhere.

[negi]

Indian IT sometimes to me looks like an unorganised sector, right from yearly appraisals , project allocation and even terminations are done in a very random manner . There are no fixed working hours at least for folks in offshore average abdul spends anywhere around 9-10 hours a day in trenches. I am surprised to hear about differential pay stubs for folks on bench (this is news to me), although amount of time spent on bench adversely affects the yearly apraisal and eventually the hike (converse is not true ).

Small to medium teams of fresh and experienced folks with inclination towards technology would suffice , Assistant project manager, Project manager, Account manager,delivery manager,senior PM, senior DM ...argh ...seriously the pyramid of hierarchy is inverted in desi cos.

I believe its high time companies like Infy,TCS,Wipro,Satyam et al do away with the unnecessary manager type posts and also restructure their HR and Admin group ( I am amazed at unusually high packages drawn by the latter who actually contribute zilch to the revenue).

[niran]

also restructure their HR and Admin group ( I am amazed at unusually high packages drawn by the latter who actually contribute zilch to the revenue).

Negi saar, to be able to remain in "The Trench" you got to have a problem to solve.
now these problem grabbing is an art, therefore "The Artist" claims are larger than
"Trenchers "

[vina]

vina to Phalcon1.

Singhaji, I had posted some time ago on the need for Gorilla to watch out for the Unk Unk. Their 70% gross margins and fat 77% marketshare and nice franchise is too juicy for someone not to have a go at it.

Now it looks like an even bigger Gorilla (1800 lb)just got hungry and wants to grab the 900lb Gorilla's lunch.. I would take HP's challenge very seriously indeed. Mark Hurd has a reputation of executing brilliantly. He is probably the best executive there is today . He screwed Dell and fixed it properly. Next target is IBM and fixing that is a good work in progress and now his gaze falls on 900lb gorilla.

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

November 25, 2008
H.P. Results Match Preliminary Numbers
By ASHLEE VANCE

When Mark V. Hurd took over as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard in 2005 and started looking at the company’s businesses, he found a neglected little unit called ProCurve that made networking gear used to connect computing systems on corporate campuses.

ProCurve had been stifled under H.P.’s former chief executive, Carleton S. Fiorina, who served on the board of Cisco Systems, the dominant player in the industry. Ms. Fiorina supported the traditional alliance between H.P. and Cisco, in which H.P. sold computers and Cisco sold network equipment to the same customers.

Mr. Hurd decided on a different approach. He championed the ProCurve business, helping nurture it from a few hundred million dollars in annual sales to about $1 billion. It is now H.P.’s second-most-profitable business and one of its fastest-growing.

Now H.P. is directly attacking Cisco in a bid to capture a larger chunk of the $20 billion market for local area network and wireless switches. “H.P. has declared war,” said Mark Fabbi, a networking analyst at the research firm Gartner. “H.P. has the potential to completely change the dynamics of the networking industry.”

Hewlett-Packard’s strategy with ProCurve — expand revenue and profit by biting into a leader’s lucrative franchise — is vintage Mark Hurd. And it offers some insights into how the company has outperformed its peers financially even as the technology industry faces a global slowdown.

On Monday, H.P., the largest maker of computers and printers, formally reported net income of $2.11 billion, or 84 cents a share, for its fiscal fourth quarter, about flat with the previous year. Revenue rose 19 percent to $33.6 billion. Laptops, compact servers and software were strong, as H.P. continued to pressure rivals like Dell and I.B.M.

Although the company did not break out figures for ProCurve, which was a tiny part of H.P.’s revenue of $118 billion for the 2008 fiscal year, Mr. Fabbi estimated the business had gross profit margins of about 50 percent — second only to the lucrative printer cartridges that are H.P.’s cash cow.

He said H.P.’s network hardware revenue had grown 40 percent over the last two quarters, cementing the company’s position as the No. 2 player in the market. H.P., based in Palo Alto, Calif., now accounts for 7 percent market share by revenue, compared with Cisco’s 77 percent.

In June, Mr. Hurd made his ambitions for ProCurve clear by selecting a senior vice president of H.P., Marius Haas, as the new chief of the networking business. Mr. Haas had spent the previous five years as the head of H.P.’s strategy and corporate development team, overseeing more than 25 mergers and acquisitions. The last deal cleared by Mr. Haas was the $13.9 billion purchase of Electronic Data Systems, a computer services giant that H.P. is using to challenge I.B.M., the leader in that business.

This month, H.P. placed the ProCurve line under its Technology Solutions Group, the $38 billion business run by an executive vice president, Ann Livermore. “This was one of our best-kept secrets for a long time,” Mr. Haas said. “Now, everybody knows about it.”

Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., declined to directly discuss H.P.’s push into its core business. Ish Limkakeng, a vice president in Cisco’s switching group, said the company “takes all competitors very seriously.”

But while Cisco plays down the changing competitive situation, customers have taken notice.

Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., has switched to H.P. as a supplier. “A lot of people in the industry say that Cisco has a certain arrogance,” said Scott Lowe, the college’s chief information officer. “With real competition in the marketplace, I think you will see there is a desire for people to get away from that arrogance.”

Some of Cisco’s strongest critics are hardware resellers. They are hoping that a muscular competitor like H.P. will place pressure on Cisco to give them more favorable sales and services terms. Although Cisco itself makes about 70 percent gross profit margins on its LAN switching gear, the resellers “can’t make any money on Cisco,” said Brad Reese, who sells refurbished Cisco equipment.

Under Ms. Fiorina, H.P. and Cisco had an unusually close partnership. H.P. actually rewarded sales representatives for selling Cisco’s network hardware without offering similar compensation for H.P.’s own products.Despite its stepchild status, the ProCurve business grew during Ms. Fiorina’s tenure. H.P. became a trusted supplier of switch equipment used by small and midsize companies, outflanking suppliers like Nortel Networks and 3Com.

Upon his arrival, Mr. Hurd changed the way H.P. sold its network hardware. Rather than being encouraged to sell Cisco products, H.P. sales representatives were rewarded for selling H.P. equipment.

“You should be assured that Mark is a very pragmatic guy and wants people incented to sell H.P.,” Mr. Haas said. “Cisco has had such a dominant position, but the doors are opening.”

Cisco continues to receive high marks for the breadth and quality of its products. Still, it has largely been able to operate in this part of the market without facing a competitor of its size or stature.

Analysts also say that H.P.’s networking plans may receive a lift from the addition of E.D.S., which assembles and manages computer systems for corporate customers and has done a lot of business with Cisco, possibly even doubling sales of its network products in less than two years.

“H.P. is a much more formidable challenger to Cisco, and it has sent an obvious message,” said Nikos Theodosopoulos, an analyst at UBS Securities.

[Singha]

I cant speak confidential details but a 'befitting reply(ies)' will be given.
Jai Hind.

[bart]

HP Procurve has enjoyed a resurgence because of gaps in Cisco's lineup.

For a small business, or a business on a tight budget (pretty much any IT dept) Procurve has some important advantages:
1> Cheaper than Cisco
2> Lifetime free support/warranty
3> Free software downloads
4> Cheap Chassis switches (modular switches)

for 2 and 3, Cisco has traditionally required customers to buy a service contract which becomes massive cost for an average enterprise that has hundreds of such switches.

Hence many companies who buy Cisco gear for their core tend to buy low-end HP switches and use a combination of the two. HP is still nowhere near posing any threat to Cisco at the enterprise/campus/L3 core but that could change if they acquire a company like Foundry or with some disruptive technology like FCOE (Fiber Channel over Ethernet) that merges the datacenter network and SAN on to a single fabric. Also HP has drastically improved the quality of their gear, the Procurve switches they made 10 years back were absolute crap.

I think Cisco has already hit back to some extent by selling 'express' switches, but those are not really comparable since they are small business switches while the HP ones are full featured, at least for L2. But Cisco has been forced to provide HP-like free software and lifetime warranty on the lower end switches like 2960 series.

I think Cisco can easily compete by being more customer friendly at the low end:
1> They need a full-featured but cheap L2 Chassis solution that comes with lifetime free support and priced competitively. Right now if you want 200 ports, you can get a HP 4200vl for about 7000 $ but with Cisco you have to shell out around 25k for a 4500 switch that has features that you might not need.
2> They need to provide free software and life-time warranty on all low-end switches.

The main reason people buy HP is the warranty and price especially cheap chassis switches available for the cost of competitors stackable solutions, and of course better quality than Nortel, 3Com etc. If Cisco matches their price I dont see any significant threat to them.

But one thing is sure, at least they will keep Cisco on their toes, which is not a bad thing from a customer standpoint.

[Prasad]

Congrats Dr. Bose

[sum]

All this talk about the semicon industry is making this grad student wonder if he'd have been better of tending to goats in tora bora mountain caves than study kufy vlsi. Two years is a long time and hopefully things will turn around enough for decent job opps. Else its back to goat or cow grazing in the village

Hello Tsriram, are you doing your masters in the US or IITM(since ur location shows Chennai and Chennai to me means IITM )?
What do the "students" feel about the scene, esp the VLSI guys?

[Vipul]

Engineers’ salaries melt to Rs5k.

[Prasad]

Hello Tsriram, are you doing your masters in the US or IITM(since ur location shows Chennai and Chennai to me means IITM )?
What do the "students" feel about the scene, esp the VLSI guys?

sum,
well masters in the us actually. and about vlsi, well from what i've been hearing from people already in the industry is similar to what has been posted here. Talks of freeze on hiring and letting ppl go.

Names like TI, Moto, processor makers etc, all names being listed. But nobody has any clue as to how things will pan out (obviously). Overall, not good. But if you are really good then it should not be a hopeless cause to find a job. Advice from friends is that, if you're not able to find a job pick your fav area and do phd. nothing like it. sure two years more and a slightly difficult married life with 1.5 person salary but then better in the long run hopefully.

Future? again nobody has a clue. Which is why it scares me too, cos moi is also in ckt design side of things.

[Karkala Joishy]

Well Allah has been most merciful to this mujahid....despite all sorts of raakit-mard attacks, prey-e-dator drone bumbari and IED-mubaraks from supervisory committee, PhD defence went successfully. Perhaps the preparation requiring for posting on B-R Indian IT Industry 1 hour before defence made the difference between life and death!

By the wrath of Allah!!
How dare you arm yourself with Kuffr knowledge when all knowledge ever needed to mankind is contained in the Holy Quran????

You have committed a gory sin against Islam, for which you will pay the price!!! You will be condemned forever to a life of hellfire with djinns having their way with you!!



Congrat-ul-ations man! Great achievement!

[Raja Bose]

Joishy saar, being humble mujahid I humbly submit myself to TFTA jinns having their way with me...only stipulation is those jinns must look like this.

[Raja Bose]

Its amazing to the extent which Carly Fiorina screwed up HP when she was the big boss. OTH Reading her book one might think she was some sort of martyr who was pest-e-shaheed'ed by big bad patriachal board. Good to see HP bouncing back (runs aways from Singha).

[Satya_anveshi]

Its amazing to the extent which Carly Fiorina screwed up HP when she was the big boss. OTH Reading her book one might think she was some sort of martyr who was pest-e-shaheed'ed by big bad patriachal board. Good to see HP bouncing back (runs aways from Singha).

How did she screw HP?

[Singha]

you are mistaken, I have always liked HP. my first PC in life (as a FOB DOO) was a HP pavillion with a intel celeron inside. most of their products work great. my first office given PC was another HP (vectra)
and the partnership with ma-gorilla is strong - for instance we only buy HP proliant racked servers for our compute farm datacenters (and limited nos of big Sun servers). there are two datacenters in blr stuffed with
hundreds of these servers. and more being added all the time.

dont see why competition in a particular segment is cause for a nukular
bombardment. everyone competes with everyone in the jungle.

generally I like "old school" cos like hp, ibm et al. perhaps being a old
dinosaur myself. I am suspicious about "new age" cos like google.

but I do wish people like goog would setup a walmartish datacenter in
india.

[Dileep]

Cisco's strategy is to keep the gizmos complicated so that they can sell training, degrees and support. We make our business by keeping things simple, and providing lifelong free support.

We were "inspired by" the HP Procurve for our product line. The first level interop test was always done with them. We always found the HPs 100% standards compatible, and interoperable. Cisco is a different story. I can recall many instances where we had to make a "bug compatible" option to work with Cisco.

Also, many times we end up support the Cisco boxes of the customer. The systems we work with have a large number of our devices, with a few Ciscos higher up. Whenever a problem comes up, we SDREs get blamed, because "How Can CISCO, or the CCIX guy setting it up go wrong?". We end up supporting the Cisco boxes also, out of self interest.

[sum]

Advice from friends is that, if you're not able to find a job pick your fav area and do phd. nothing like it. sure two years more and a slightly difficult married life with 1.5 person salary but then better in the long run hopefully.

Yup...many seem to be converting their MS to 5 year PhD to ensure stipend and some job instead of being on the road...

[Singha]

Dileep, as you know L2-L4 have moved a lot beyond the plain vanilla stuff found in the richard stevens or douglas comer books. even the linux netstack has a fair degree of complexity now.

add to that the need for asic's and fpga's , high availability, complex system architectures, piecemeal sw upgrades etc.

even Gbit NIC cards are moving into doing a lot now to emerge as the
sole platform for both LAN and SAN traffic rather than dedicated fiber
channel ports. there's more "innovations" coming on that channel