Indian IT Industry

[negi]

Netapps and Netflix seem to lead the way in assuring some employee happiness. However, pizza and beer stops being happiness once gut starts dripping over the belt-line.

Bhakk, once married flaunt the paunch its a sign of a fat cat and that you are 'taken'.

[Singha]

power and drive enhance sex appeal + a few greying hair as show of corporate commitment.

ofcourse having the body of a apollonian god is icing on cake, but not essential to making out 'opportunities' on the side.

[Prasad]

But wouldn't the specter of a 'disclosure' type of sexual harassment case always loom large when 'opportunities' arise sirji?

[Nayak]

Amitabh Chaudhary quits Infosys.

I knew this oiseaule very well. Slime ball of the lowest order. I hated his guts when he used to address the annual meetings. Bugger was instrumental in ensuring that multiple levels of bureaucracy within Infy. Rumors had it that dude had multiple concubines and used to throw lavish parties at his 'other' residency for the big-wigs to keep them in good humor.

I am curious to know if he was politely asked to put in his papers ? The reason being when somebody invests in so much taking GUBO they will not throw away their career by such a change.

This most valuable company is another one propped on sandy foundation supported by yellow journalism, there will be a day when some abdul will scream emperor is naked and no one will be more happier than me to see the crappy edifice fall into ruins.

[Singha]

my spies report a lot of redundant SVP/EVP types are being gently eased out in general. spies do claim someone of a non-tech bkground is moving strongly to claim the big chair. they also claim once NRN and Nandan (who were the only ones universally ack'ed as the big dogs able to cow down any challenger) left the co - the free for all landgrab got into a high gear

http://www.mynews.in/News/Infosys_Turf_ ... 31043.html

After the respected Mr. Narayan Murthy decided to take a back seat and Mr. Nilekani left to join the Indian Government, a bitter turf war has erupted between some remaining co-founders and senior executives.

On Nov 18, Techgoss had exclusively reported that the highly regarded Head of Infosys BPO, Amitabh Chaudhry, had resigned. This was officially confirmed by Infosys on Nov 24. Amitabh was the poster child of Infosys BPO, a favourite of Nandan Nilekani and also one of the 5 candidates (the other 4 being Ashok Vemuri, Mohandas Pai, Subhash Dhar and Shibu Lal) slated to be in running for being the next CEO in Infosys. Utterly sharp, scrupulously honest and professional, Amitabh was the one of the very few next generation leaders within Infosys respected and revered by employees and clients alike. He was most likely to take Infosys BPO to the next level.

Now, I can tell you exclusively about the ongoing faction wars in Infosys. I hope the wars won't damage the foundation built by NRN and others. Our source inside the tech giant reports that there were immense power struggles within Infosys and certain factions were wary about Nandan Nilekani getting extra powerful. The move of Nandan to join theIndian Government could very well have been a master move by some Infosys grandmaster to clear space for his pawns and knights.

There existed two extremely strong factions within Infosys - Nandan Nilekani and Mohandas Pai. The remaining belongs to the rest of the world. A united face to the world, the continuous tension between the two head honchos was a well kept secret restricted to the inner circle. Those in Nandan's faction (read Amitabh Chaudhary) are slowly being edged out of the inner circle after Nandan left the top post. Latest to hit the bandwagon are Rishi Jain (AVP and Head of Corporate Planning at Infosys BPO) and Purnima Menon (Head - Marketing for Infosys BPO). Over his stint of more than six years, Rishi was responsible for changing the face of corporate planning in Infosys completely. A product of IIT Kanpur, he is tremendously revered by his peers and seniors alike for his ability to generate results in a structured format, share credit with juniors and think ahead. Our source even reports that Joydeep Mukherjee – head of Infosys Knowledge Services has also been a victim though we are yet to confirm the same.

Amidst these internal wars, Infosys risks losing some of the most respected executives in India.

Watch this space for more exclusive updates on Infosys.

[Singha]

(Techgoss had published the following story on Nov 18, 2009)

Techgoss exclusive: Infosys BPO boss resigns
By Pulkit Sharma

The corporate jungle is ruthless and unforgiving by nature. A single slip is enough to hamper the growth of even the most respected executive. That's probably what curtailed Head of Infosys BPO, Amitabh Chaudhry's, well deserved ambition to occupy the top seat in Infosys Technologies. Amitabh has just resigned.

Techgoss was the first to report about Infosys APAC head - Allen Lam being jailed for insider trading activities in his previous company. Allen Lam and Amitabh Chaudhry worked together in their earlier company and Amitabh was instrumental in recommending Allen to spearhead Infosys BPO's APAC operations. Our sources report that Amitabh has “resigned” from his current position sending shock waves within the employees of the company who are now aware of this news. Amitabh was the poster child of Infosys BPO, a favourite of Nandan Nilekani and also one of the 5 candidates (the other 4 being Ashok Vemuri, Mohandas Pai, Subhash Dhar and Shibu Lal) slated to be in running for being the next CEO in Infosys. Utterly sharp, scrupulously honest and professional, Amitabh was the one of the very few next generation leaders within Infosys respected and revered by employees and clients alike. He was most likely to take Infosys BPO to the next level.

The decision could have stemmed from the fact that he was not elected to join Infosys’s Board of Directors. A Techgoss source that is close to one of the Board directors reports that the board did not invite him due to the Allen Lam issue. The same reason probably put the brakes on his outside chance of occupying the top seat in Infosys Technologies after Kris Gopalakrishnan – current CEO. It’s a dog eat dog world politically inside Infosys like any other company and the Allen Lam slip though uncontrollable by Amitabh proved to be a costly one. Allen has kept Amitabh in the dark about his past.

He is rumored to be returning to his original roots and joining one of the top 3 Indian banks. Keep reading this space for updates on what’s next within the company.

[Sachin]

This most valuable company is another one propped on sandy foundation supported by yellow journalism,

Honestly I feel that it is high time a third-party audit is done one very IT big-wig in India. Especially their HR policies and its standing viz.a.viz the labour laws of the country and the Provident Fund related laws.

[Raja Bose]

A product of IIT Kanpur, he is tremendously revered by his peers and seniors alike for his ability to generate results in a structured format, share credit with juniors and think ahead.

hain?

[Singha]

maybe it means he is a orderly and well planned kind of guy, rather than a bully and shouter as many EVP types are.

[markos]

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/ ... -court.htm

This culturally insensitive picture of Infosys is quite a contrast compared to its ambition to not only spread its wings in the United States but elsewhere in the world, too.

Awasthi, who worked at Infosys from February to November 2008, in her lawsuit said, 'intolerable' working conditions forced her to quit.

Infosys management, said Awasthi, told her not to celebrate Thanksgiving because she is Indian, and therefore should work on that day.

She further claimed that Infosys management ridiculed her children for celebrating Thanksgiving, and called them 'ABCD' short for 'American-Born Confused Desi', and 'IBCD' short for 'Indian-Born Confused Desi'.

Infosys management, she said, repeatedly discussed the quality of her work by explicitly commenting on their expectations for 'a woman your age'.

I am not clear why Infosys management should discuss about employees children...

Looks like Infosys was trying to hire americans by hiring people like Ms. Awasthi(may be due to scrutiny of the hiring practices of these companies in US). Obviously that is not going very well, based on this episode.

[Singha]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/busin ... .html?_r=1

in contrast, my friend just returned from herzliya in israel where a lot of israeli startups emerge and mostly later purchased by big american/eu cos. he said the israeli govt provides the venture funding for startups via a office of science and the co doesnt have a set time period to repay the loan. when the co has a shipping product and makes money, a small portion of the royalty goes every yr to govt and in this way the loan is gradually repayed. the only restriction is if the co shuts down, the founders have to hand over the created IP to the govt and cannot do a firesale. his israeli peers said their only regret was israel had spawned many innovative cos in telecom, semiconductor, embedded, wireless and security but they always got bought out by cash rich (dollah printing) us/eu cos and they didnt have a large multi billion$ locally owned co. as per my
friends observation the engineers in herzliya area all drove big cars and avg loaded cost of a engineer was $100K US..this should be a reliable figure because he was involved in M&A side of things.

[arnab]

This is not an area that I can comment on, but I find this to be freaking amazing !! Perhaps the gurus can give their opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKBjt5z_EcY

[Raja Bose]

Hehe...you are a couple of months late - it has already been discussed many times on B-R Nukkad
. The concept is good but currently impractical and the video and Patti's presentation is slick but the real implementation is pretty clunky and not so impressive. However, some folks from Austria have recently managed to do the same on a mobile phone (instead of a Macbook) along with creating an SDK to build apps on top of such an interface. But the guy (Pranav Mistry) is someone to watch out for - very innovative and extremely creative!

[ashish raval]

This is not an area that I can comment on, but I find this to be freaking amazing !! Perhaps the gurus can give their opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKBjt5z_EcY

Four things which makes this product stands apart from what is available in commercial market today is
1) Gesture recognition 2) Simplicity 3) Versatility and 4) Price. Everything else is a practically available in market today.

[KarthikSan]

This is not an area that I can comment on, but I find this to be freaking amazing !! Perhaps the gurus can give their opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKBjt5z_EcY

Four things which makes this product stands apart from what is available in commercial market today is
1) Gesture recognition 2) Simplicity 3) Versatility and 4) Price. Everything else is a practically available in market today.

The end application he used it for might be new but the concept of multipoint interaction has been there for a while now. Too much hype has been generated on this Sixth Sense thingy especially in the desi press. Here is a similar gesture recognition effort using a Wiimote by a guy at CMU long before Sixth Sense.

[Raja Bose]

^^^ Thats Johnny Lee Chung. He now works for Project Natal at Mickeysoft. He is a fun guy to know.

Sixth Sense's innovation is the mobility and wearability of a multi-gestural interface (even though the implementation was not technically "mobile"). Unfortunately 3 things make it impractical right now:
1) Quality of mobile projectors and their power guzzling ways.
2) Maturity of Computer Vision - right now colour fiducials are required for finger tracking hence, not something too practical.
3) Placement of the device on the user - Lockheed Martin has tried this for soldiers using a shoulder mounted device - still a big encumberance (their stuff actually uses Johnny Lee's software for prototyping. ).

[Singha]

is it currently feasible to mount a small 'plasma cannon' on a shoulder and have it be pointed
and fire based on head or extended arm movement - targeting using a very light JHMCS ?

I am thinking what the Predator had for his long range weapon while keeping his hands free for that wicked spear thing.

[Raja Bose]

...all feasible except when 2 grunts (each with shoulder mounted plasma cannon) get into a torn shirt-open fly argument.

[vipins]

HCL Tech bags 5-year multi million pound deal from News Corp arm

IT major HCL Technologies today said it has bagged a five-year multi-million pound deal from UK-based News International, a part of News Corporation, for providing software services.

"The company has entered into a multi-million pound, five year engagement for providing technology infrastructure management and transformation with News International," HCL Technologies said in a statement.

HCL will be responsible for managing News International's data centre and network environments along with strategically transforming them.

"The focus within New International on reducing operational costs and increasing technology process standardisation requires the best global technology partnerships," News International Technology Services Director Nick Leake said.

News International publishes several newspapers, including The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times.

"We look forward to applying our technological and industry expertise to support News International's business goals," HCL Tech President Strategic Verticals Sanjeev Nikore said.

HCL Tech is also working with other News Corporation companies. News Corporation, led by media baron Rupert Murdoch, operates in segments such as film, television, cable, magazines, newspapers and publishing.

[Karan Dixit]

BANGALORE, INDIA: Gone are the days when Indian centers of global IT companies were involved in just providing support functions to the main development outfit based out of the USA or Europe. Now the Indian centers are actively involved in research and product development.

http://www.ciol.com/Developer/Operating ... 9128909/0/

[Sachin]

Laid of Techie, sues ex-bosses
How far is this true? And secondly, I do not know how much evidence he has to prove the charges. In the complaint NASSCOM is shown as kind of a mafia of the IT majors, which ensures that if some one complains against an IT major he would not be taken for a job in any other IT company. NASSCOM had come up with a grand idea of a database in which every techie was to register.

[Tanaji]

^^^ Read up the comments... interesting stuff.

[Singha]

Atleast there has to be some standard and the people who are made managers should be taught to be human beings first. Not a single person be made a manager who had not worked on the lowest levels as programmer or software engineer. Those who grows fast and skips the steps are most dangerous managers. Mean-selfish and heartless carnivorous.

a close friend of mine who r2i'ed 3 years ago is selling everything and r2u'ing next month. he couldnt take
being a manager here anymore. was returning home everyday at 10pm.

[RamaY]

My sympathies with the suffering IT professionals. It is sad to see few selfish individuals destroying the prized organizations our nation built over 20 years.

I started as a software engineer and have been in IT management for more than 12 yrs, in India as well as massaland. This is what I have noticed in all these years.

From ITvity management perspective, they have to adapt to the changing business/technology landscape. IT Engineers often forget the Software Engineering part and limit themselves to a certain language or technology (for valid reasons) and it is very difficult to have multiple specialists in every team. It is a function of training, analytical skills, and most importantly attitude.

Many engineers want to move up the chain (that is management stream) for money, authority, exposure and ego reasons. Nothing wrong in it, but what they do not understand is that an A+ grade engineer will not automatically make an A+ grade manager. In fact they do not make even a C+ IT manager. IT management is a different field and needs different attitude, IMHO.

Many IT managers (especially in India) forget the (extremely important) human factor in managing their teams. They focus all their energies in appeasing and addressing the senior management, instead of leading the teams which is supposed to be their main function. This leadership spans all aspects of the organization human-interaction, processes, and technology.

Finally on time management. This is an individual time management issue. I still see individuals who do not know how to plan their work day and struggle with it. If a task is estimated to be 86 hours, people struggle to come up with a 6-7 hour daily LOGICAL stop points. It is all part of Software Engineering discipline. A little bit of planning and good-work-ethic go a long way IMHO.

[abhischekcc]

Singha, I don't know whether you do deliberately or is it a Freudian slip, but many of your statements have double meaning - witness this

keeping his hands free for that wicked spear thing

Oh, yes. Every man should keep his hands free for the wicked spear thing.

[Yogi_G]

When I came back to India, I got a manager's role. God! After 6 months I din't want any more of it. I voluntarily gave it up and got back in touch with my personal side.

The first thing I did was cut some slack and try and remove the govt office attitude prevalent. Bad move, all sort of personal accusations were hurled at me, right from being a Hitler to evil incarnate! And then there were the ones who saw the intent of my actions and actively co-operated and in turn got mentored and groomed by me. appraisal time was slightly unpleasant as thats when I all of a sudden became extremely evil and was project so to my higher ups. if i had given good performance appraisals to all then I wud have been goodness incarnate!

What I have understood is that it is not possible to learn as a manager in all environments. By environment, I mean the attitude of the team members. If any attempts at restructuring things are construed as personal attacks or if the bogey of harassment is raised, then I am afraid there is very little to learn from situations. The mindset of the manager at this point is downhill skiing, scoot else they will shoot! this is especially true when IT hiring is on a upswing and employees brandish the resignation/job-hopping weapon even on the slightest attempts at disciplining. Attrition is so high, at least in my company, that the class struggle has distinctly turned in the favor of the proletariat (Techies/Team Members) as against the bourgeoisie (Managers).

For sure, all the cr@p I read in those team handling books I read in library dint work!

[Singha]

I dont know what his weapon was called. Tanaji iirc is a AVP fan and has the finer details

in netz, many teams tend to work 6 days/week nowadays. basement has plenty of vehicles late on saturday
evening. the manager usually has little/no work on saturdays but for sake of appearances/morale/show he/she is forced to sit in the room scowling at anyone who happens to pass by.

there is a meeting on monday to discuss "progress over the weekend" in such teams. needless to say - wives, kids and hobbies must be getting cut down to the bone.

[Sachin]

I feel that the various Governmental agencies should do a review/audit of the HR policies of all Indian IT majors. When IT business was doing great, people (new recruits, engineers, managers and senior staff) used to forget all rules of the lands as every one was minting money. Now when the going gets tough, IT folks are feeling the heat. But when it comes to the legal issues, no IT engineer really knows under which Acts/Law in India is he covered? Is he covered under the labour act? Or there is some other legal provision? IT folks also should take a blame here, because when the sun was shining and every thing was bright they cared two hoots to know their legal standing. Most of them take it for granted that the HR Policies framed by various companies are God's words.

PS: I attended a nationalised bank's union meeting (in mufti of course) recently. One positive aspect I noted was that even the top union leaders were insisting on the simple fact that their "bread and butter", the bank should generate more revenues. The union leader even said that more revenues, would lead to opening of more branches, which means transfer to a branch close to home. The union leadership wanted growth for both the bank as well as better benefits for the employees. It was more of a "win-win" approach.

[Raja Bose]

in netz, many teams tend to work 6 days/week nowadays. basement has plenty of vehicles late on saturday
evening.

Does Apple have an office in Bengaluru? I would be curious to know what they would do - they would probably invent an 8th day in the week.

[negi]

Seriously there have been times when I get a feeling I should have signed up for CPI/CPIM's plans for introducing trade unions in IT .

[Singha]

apple doesnt have any development office in India. they had setup a small center but wound it up after a few months.

you can probably apply the analogy to google here....not sure how their work culture is. huawei is another one - but they were upfront about the need to work long hours in exchange for higher salary atleast.

[Raja Bose]

you can probably apply the analogy to google here....not sure how their work culture is.

Hey! GOOG is about living the college life in your 30s and 40s

[Dileep]

It Companies are regulated by the Factories and Boilers act 1948, and the labour laws of the state. See what KA has: http://labour.kar.nic.in/fandb/f_legislations.htm

[Raja Bose]

Nokia doing a Google (ala Droid) in India?

Nokia's cheapest Navigator

The Navigator branded handset comes pre-loaded with Nokia Maps with a lifetime maps license.

Other features include turn-by-turn driving navigation with full voice guidance, which recalibrates routes depending on the driver's current GPS location.

The 2710 Navigation Edition is expected to be hit the stands by the second quarter of 2010 for $163 (approximately Rs 7600).

[sinha]

Wipro, TCS, Infy plan to follow rival Accenture's sales model

AFAIK, this has been tried in the past with following catches

The partners were end of shelf life in their existing company and looking for a retirement job
They always blamed lack of followup/cultural compatibility/ lack of aggression/ lack of domain knowledge blah blah when they could not deliver
They were usually caught out suggesting nonsensical technical solutions - didnt know where to leave it to techies to handle things. I wouldnt rate Act that highly on tech skills but you have to applaud on their ppt skills.

I dont think it is in Infy's DNA to shell out this type of $$. Wipro Yes, TCS maybe...

[Yogi_G]

Nokia doing a Google (ala Droid) in India?

Nokia's cheapest Navigator

The Navigator branded handset comes pre-loaded with Nokia Maps with a lifetime maps license.

Other features include turn-by-turn driving navigation with full voice guidance, which recalibrates routes depending on the driver's current GPS location.

The 2710 Navigation Edition is expected to be hit the stands by the second quarter of 2010 for $163 (approximately Rs 7600).

THis will be serious competition to the good old GPS set vendors in India , for e.g. MapMyIndia. Their entry level set costs 11,000 odd, I definitely see their prices coming down after the onset of relatively cheap GPS enabled mobiles in India. After all they source the GPS hardware sets from Korea and write the software for it. The margins will still be there IMHO even if they bring the price down sharply provided the volumes are increased.

[CalvinH]

Wipro, TCS, Infy plan to follow rival Accenture's sales model

AFAIK, this has been tried in the past with following catches

The partners were end of shelf life in their existing company and looking for a retirement job
They always blamed lack of followup/cultural compatibility/ lack of aggression/ lack of domain knowledge blah blah when they could not deliver
They were usually caught out suggesting nonsensical technical solutions - didnt know where to leave it to techies to handle things. I wouldnt rate Act that highly on tech skills but you have to applaud on their ppt skills.

I dont think it is in Infy's DNA to shell out this type of $$. Wipro Yes, TCS maybe...

Isnt Infy shelling out big $$$ for the 10+ MDs in Infosys consulting. Took them nowhere though as Infosys consulting is still in red. Among all Indian IT companies Infy has the best margins (and best share value) hence they are probably in best position as far as providing compensation to the "Client partners" goes.

Most of the Indian IT services companies are already replacing their tier-III in the engagement model with Goras who can better connect with the client management (read culturally) IT or business.

At the end of the day this is one of the ways these companies are trying to keep the boat afloat and it goes beyond the issues in delivery or technical solutions that these companies grapple with frequently. They need multi-year open mandate deals with asset accquisition etc to keep the margins intact which requires going one level above the CIO and to connect with C level suite in the boardroom. The current model can take them only so far.

[Purush]

Apologies if it's a repost.

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/techn ... epage=true

Two years after their ‘Eureka moment,’ a bunch of IIT graduates are set to announce the country’s foray into the Complete Product Development market, a territory hitherto uncharted by any Indian company.

Among the new fangled technologies to be displayed at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show scheduled for January 2010 will be a sleek gizmo, tentatively named Adam, conceptualised and designed in Hyderabad and Bangalore.

So, what exactly is Adam? To quote one of its creators: “It is a ‘smartpad,’ small enough to be carried anywhere and big enough to do anything.”

It is a brainchild of Notion Ink, a Hyderabad start-up launched by seven Indians (six IITians and an MBA graduate), who left lucrative careers to realise their dream of designing a next-gen device at an affordable price. And if the 67 patents filed for the product in various categories are any indication, they have come a long way.

The company reckons that the integral Lithium-ion battery will hold good up to 48 hours standby, eight hours of high definition video playback or 16 hours of Internet surfing over WiFi. At its heart will be NVIDIA’s powerful, yet energy-saving, eight-core Tegra system-on-chip, which will drive the system at astonishing speeds while ensuring battery longevity.

“We collaborated with the best in the industry to provide days of computing,” says Sachin Ralhan, another co-founder.

Notion Ink is talking to telecom providers (in India and the U.S.) to test the device for connectivity issues on delivery of the first batch of 60 Adams.

The best part: price. Notion Ink promises it will be Rs.15,000 when it is out in the U.S., European and Indian markets in June next year.

[Raja Bose]

^^hmm...interesting, so its one of them Tegra tablets. If anybody goes to CES check it out. I am not 400% sure if I will be there but if I am, I will make sure to wander over to their booth.

[Sanjay M]

The Next Outsourcing Wave: Platform BPO

sounds like the next step beyond server virtualization