Indian IT Industry

Sumeet · Post by **Sumeet** » 11 Jan 2010 02:46

does anyone know how is to work for IBM Global Services India as a fresher out of college ? Is it a good launch pad compared to TCS ?

sum · Post by **sum** » 11 Jan 2010 09:10

Sumeet wrote:does anyone know how is to work for IBM Global Services India as a fresher out of college ? Is it a good launch pad compared to TCS ?

It is a vast org and honestly, it depends on which team you are placed in. Same goes for TCS too.

Its all a lottery for the freshers.

sinha · Post by **sinha** » 11 Jan 2010 09:16

sum wrote:Its all a lottery for the freshers.

+1 : gone are the days when companies like TCS would ensure rotation across technologies, type of work (maintenance, support, development, testing), domains before allowing newbies to choose what they want to do. I guess I was lucky but then those were prehistoric times.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Jan 2010 20:07

from lightreading. looks like they are planning to oust AlcaLu from the cozy ITI relationship and guarantee on part of BSNL orders.

Huawei to Invest in India
January 11, 2010 | Ray Le Maistre | Post a comment

7:00 AM -- Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. plans to invest $500 million in its R&D capabilities in India during the next five years, adding 2,000 staff to take its workforce there to 6,000, reports the Financial Times.

The Chinese vendor is also interested in buying three manufacturing facilities from state-owned vendor ITI Ltd. , according to the Business Standard .

Huawei is keen to make clear its commitment to the Indian market and to allay any fears that it may be a security threat, a charge that has been leveled against the company since it started winning significant deals in India.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading

a_bharat · Post by **a_bharat** » 19 Jan 2010 10:40

The Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur Marc Benioff is afraid of him. Venture king Mike Moritz wants to invest in him.

You have never heard of Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of AdventNet, the company behind newly launched productivity suite Zoho.

Vembu has stretched this virtue to extreme limits, and added layers and layers of creativity upon it. The result? A 100%, bootstrapped, $40-million-a-year revenue business that sends $1 million to the bank every month in profits.

Doing what? you might wonder.

Selling network management tools, to be precise. But with a unique twist. Vembu employs 600 people in Chennai, India, and a mere eight in Silicon Valley. Imagine what that does to his cost structure!

Not only that, in India Vembu's operation does not hire engineers with highflying degrees from one of the prestigious India Institutes of Technology, thereby squeezing his cost advantage.

"We hire young professionals whom others disregard," Vembu says. "We don't look at colleges, degrees or grades. Not everyone in India comes from a socio-economic background to get the opportunity to go to a top-ranking engineering school, but many are really smart regardless.

"We even go to poor high schools, and hire those kids who are bright but are not going to college due to pressure to start making money right away," Vembu continues. "They need to support their families. We train them, and in nine months, they produce at the level of college grads. Their resumes are not as marketable, but I tell you, these kids can code just as well as the rest. Often, better.???

With that rather unique workforce of 600 engineers, Vembu has not only built an excellent, cash-cow, network tools business, but he recently launched Zoho, which is getting a lot of buzz in the Web 2.0 community.

Why?

Well, Zoho does everything that you would do with Microsoft Office. It also has a hosted customer relationship management service that is free for very small companies and only costs $10 per user per month for larger ones. It competes with Salesforce.com (nyse: CRM - news - people ), which charges $65 per user per month.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 19 Jan 2010 21:01

Singha wrote:from lightreading. looks like they are planning to oust AlcaLu from the cozy ITI relationship and guarantee on part of BSNL orders.

Huawei to Invest in India
January 11, 2010 | Ray Le Maistre | Post a comment

7:00 AM -- Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. plans to invest $500 million in its R&D capabilities in India during the next five years, adding 2,000 staff to take its workforce there to 6,000, reports the Financial Times.

The Chinese vendor is also interested in buying three manufacturing facilities from state-owned vendor ITI Ltd. , according to the Business Standard .

Huawei is keen to make clear its commitment to the Indian market and to allay any fears that it may be a security threat, a charge that has been leveled against the company since it started winning significant deals in India.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading

Dont a lot of the ministries buy from ITI? My personal concern is not Huawei listening into BSNL/MTNL PRI links, but rather listening to the various PBXes that exist in each ministry building...

vishwakarmaa · Post by **vishwakarmaa** » 19 Jan 2010 22:12

Huwei has enough experience on nanotechnology that noone can detect bugs when planted.

Same is true with western companies getting access to communication data lines between ministries.

Thats why its better that government ministries reply on Old and domestic technology. Even if that technology is old and has slower bandwidth, its more secure and its a "known known".

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 21 Jan 2010 22:32

Cabinet panel clears National Knowledge Network plan.

The cabinet committee on infrastructure has accorded in-principle approval for the establishment of the National Knowledge Network (NKN), which would interlink all knowledge institutions in the country.

The physical infrastructure or the core network of the NKN is expected to be completed in a span of 24 months. The NKN, with about 25 core point of presence (PoPs) and 600 secondary PoPs, will connect around 1,500 institutions, a government release said today.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 23 Jan 2010 05:29

Tanaji wrote:
Singha wrote:from lightreading. looks like they are planning to oust AlcaLu from the cozy ITI relationship and guarantee on part of BSNL orders.

Huawei to Invest in India
January 11, 2010 | Ray Le Maistre | Post a comment

7:00 AM -- Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. plans to invest $500 million in its R&D capabilities in India during the next five years, adding 2,000 staff to take its workforce there to 6,000, reports the Financial Times.

The Chinese vendor is also interested in buying three manufacturing facilities from state-owned vendor ITI Ltd. , according to the Business Standard .

Huawei is keen to make clear its commitment to the Indian market and to allay any fears that it may be a security threat, a charge that has been leveled against the company since it started winning significant deals in India.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading
Dont a lot of the ministries buy from ITI? My personal concern is not Huawei listening into BSNL/MTNL PRI links, but rather listening to the various PBXes that exist in each ministry building...

What really puzzzles me is why the Chinease company would want to employ 6000 people for its R&D?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Jan 2010 08:22

huawei is different. they have "clone" a few things in the basement but are fully capable and developing original and cost effective products(after chinese govt hidden subsidies) that are grabbing share bigtime worldwide. they correctly estimated the
cellular infra industry in developing lands, optical transport and enterprise markets were easier to crack than the big name service providers in OECD and went for it. so alcalu/nokiasiemens/ericy/fujitsu are feeling the heat from them more than netz/jnpr probably.

I believe they are 2nd or 3rd largest telecom eqpt co now.

manish · Post by **manish** » 23 Jan 2010 12:28

Singha wrote:huawei is different. they have "clone" a few things in the basement but are fully capable and developing original and cost effective products(after chinese govt hidden subsidies) that are grabbing share bigtime worldwide. they correctly estimated the
cellular infra industry in developing lands, optical transport and enterprise markets were easier to crack than the big name service providers in OECD and went for it. so alcalu/nokiasiemens/ericy/fujitsu are feeling the heat from them more than netz/jnpr probably.

I believe they are 2nd or 3rd largest telecom eqpt co now.

The co claims that 43% of the total workforce of 87k+ is involved in R&D. According to them, it is their strongest weapon in their 'long march' to No.1. The ratio used to be close to 50%, and has come down over the past two years. India specifically has 'ownership' of certain product lines within the overall biz, hence the desire to expand the numbers I guess.

I remember reading an interview with a Huawei exec published in the western press a couple of years ago where they mentioned this. Huawei claims that the lower labour costs in China (and India) allowed them to maintain a 6:1 ratio over 'western' competitors (read netz) when it came to number of R&D employees or something like that.

GD, I agree that they are focused more on being a 'Telecom Wal-Mart' and are less of a direct competitor to Netz, but they do have a strong desire to beat them - they were quite pleased when they surpassed netz in workforce size. They also liked the fact that they had become the largest telecom co in the world by workforce size (AlcaLu has cut tens of thousands of jobs in the recent past to help them along to this milestone).

There is a strong desire to beat netz in revenues too (must be the shame/face/history thing), but netz is netz and will remain a moving target for quite some time. Huawei clocked $30b in contracts and $21+b in revenues for 2009, vs $36b in revenues at netz. They are predicting $36b in contracts for 2010, and their 30-40% plus growth rates may finally start to taper off with such a huge base.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Jan 2010 12:45

I agree, shame/face types tend to pursue targets not for a rational reason like increasing profitability or share holder ROI. netz overall has around 55-65% profit margin even after giving 65% discount off list prices.

huawei is still a pvtly held co. its finances are not open to external review, but allegedly per a friend in sales side of a vendor here they try to undercut heavily in India using vendor financing and a $10+b line of credit offered by chinese govt.

I think it will be a long time before huawei clocks 60% margins year after year.
at some point the cost of keeping up the race at low margins and huge base will begin to bite and their backers in govt might find other "champions" to raise.

at one time there was a huawei mania in netz but nowadays nobody in netz seems much bothered. netz has expanded into many new areas and is pursueing around 50 new areas in parallel now. out of these if 5 click, each would be multi billion streams of revenue....they can hope to maintain 10% topline growth atleast for some time.

work is ongoing on two more buildings in hive on a 24x7 no expenses spared basis.
there is talk of a bridge over the new horizon college to connect to leased facility
in the VTV tech park (surely the largest building by sq ft in india probably - looks like a CVN from the side). already a walk via "skybridges" from one end to another is like
300m on same floor.

a creche is opening shortly in hive....subtle encouragement to "engage" with members of opp sex , procreate and be a long term employee I guess.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 26 Jan 2010 22:30

Will cloud change India's IT story?

The recession, with its pressure on client budgets, seems to have forced Indian IT companies to take the concept of shared, or cloud, computing more seriously.

While Wipro Technologies, which traditionally puts more emphasis on creation, has already hit the price-sensitive local market with a cloud-based enterprise offering, HCL Technologies’ Vineet Nayar sees its as the harbinger of impending disruption and shake-out in the Indian IT services industry.

The HCL CEO anticipates a revolution in the industry over the next five years, with the business model and even the definition of ‘IT’ undergoing a dramatic change.

“Whenever there’s an infusion of new technology, it dramatically changes the way services are bought and sold. Before the dotcom revolution, in the year 2000, Indian IT firms were each $100 million or so in size. Nobody could have said that each of us would be $3-$5 billion in 2010,” Nayar says.

Cloud-based services involve shifting the entire IT infrastructure out of the client’s premises and allowing the client access to applications through a web interface such as Gmail.

Such services tend to cost one-hundredth or one-thousandth of what traditional IT infrastructure would have cost the companies, primarily due to the ease of maintaining the IT infrastructure of multiple clients at a single location (cloud). Since both hardware and software are shared among all the clients, capital costs are a fraction of the traditional approach.

The silver lining, however, also comes with a cloud, especially for the Indian IT industry, which has made maintaining customer-premise applications its main means of livelihood. If there is no IT infrastructure at client premises, they would also not need Indian IT engineers to develop or maintain them, a scenario that keeps Vineet up at night.

“The implications are many for many different people. From the vendors’ perspective, there is talk about Chinese vendors, the re-emergence of some of the US vendors. For the next five or ten years, I see dramatic shifts. The shape and size of the industry in 2015 is going to be dramatically different from the shape and size of the industry today,” he predicts.

As an example, he points out out that while Google and Amazon are not reckoned to be traditional IT services companies by many, their products can make traditional IT services players redundant.

Nayar points out that, globally, IT outsourced service providers grew the fastest during 2000 to 2010, providing cheaper services from their India offices thanks to cheap network connectivity.

“So there is going to be a different set of companies which grows at 30-40%. Somebody will grow. Why? A different proposition, a different price-point to what is being offered today. Will it be the same set of vendors?” he asks.

Like HCL, Wipro too has been investing heavily in cloud-based or shared applications, especially for markets like India where companies are averse to spending million of crores on developing internal applications.

Girish Paranjpe, joint CEO of Wipro Technologies, points out that such services are being received well by small and medium customers, but have turned out to be more difficult for large enterprises who have the need for extreme customisation of their software.

“Having said that, there is no denying that there is big value in cloud computing for us both in terms of cost and cycle time,” he points out, adding that the company has already found Indian customers for its three month old offering.

S Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys Technologies, however is more skeptical about an immediate revolution in the enterprise market.

“I feel it will be slow transformation.. There are still issues of security, privacy and reliability at the enterprise level. I would say it is a real opportunity for all of us but it take many years and will not happen immediately,” he said.

Like the others, Infy too has a taken a two-pronged approach to the opportunity - helping cloud operators while also developing an own platform that will help it to become a cloud service provider.

Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst of Gartner India, says Indian firms, while not among the current crop of cloud service providers, are also likely to jump on the bandwagon soon.

“The top 10-15 IT vendors are pursuing opportunity in it and nobody is likely to miss it,” he says.

paramu · Post by **paramu** » 30 Jan 2010 00:11

X-post. Not directly related to IT industry, but shows that some Indian IT pros in Silicon Valley have formed their own organization.

Indian IT professionals in far away silicon valley also celebrated Republic Day.

Indian IT professionals celebrate R-Day

IT pros celebrate Republic Day in Silicon Valley

KrishnaMu · Post by **KrishnaMu** » 01 Feb 2010 04:47

a_bharat wrote:The Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur Marc Benioff is afraid of him. Venture king Mike Moritz wants to invest in him.

You have never heard of Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of AdventNet, the company behind newly launched productivity suite Zoho.

Vembu has stretched this virtue to extreme limits, and added layers and layers of creativity upon it. The result? A 100%, bootstrapped, $40-million-a-year revenue business that sends $1 million to the bank every month in profits.

Doing what? you might wonder.

ZOHO great product i came across.. but this big news to me very exciting. Never excited about Indian IT industry.

Probably at last Indian IT may be matured. I have always struggled to find simple IT role, being engineering graduate drop-out due to my economic circumstances in a simple company is tough. Every company gear towards H1B they really don't care what's individual capabilities I am not talking about big boys here Wipro, Satyam or TCS here. Simple companies. Even big companies I used to for analytical all the tests cleared tech interview and onto HR. HR no engineering degree no jobs. Every rejection make me learn more and more. But they have always rejected because I am not qualified for H1B. I was pushed to edge and its big person trauma.

I migrated 10 yrs back here worked for the Forbes top 100 companies three different countries in Europe two non-english speaking countries. Now executing enterprise application for govt. But I always shiver in my spine and nightmares about Indian companies recently my misus has thought go back to India, I immediately give up my Indian citizenship. I just couldn't contemplate thought of working for Indian IT company (no disrespect to any body) I know its long time back the treatment for my self Indian IT company is real awaful. May be its my case.

I seen top class programmers from Europe especially EE (Eastren Europe) worked in Romania briefly top quality programmers. Given the choice I would prefere EE programmers then Indian engineering graduate. Interesting days ahead for Indian companies until they wont change H1B mind set and targeting anglophonic counties which are big pile of debt. They have to look for big projects in domestic market (at last)

It is funny most big IT products developed by innovators and visionaries are from non-engr background. Its the problem solving skills and logic not degree matters.

May be this summer I am daring to go back to India for small trip after a long long time.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Feb 2010 08:22

not for nothing does vmware have r&d centers in sofia and herzliya in israel. EE has very good engg and maths talent.

under ussr, I believe nations like bulgaria, hungary and czech republic were recognized for their scientific talent and 'assigned' tasks for mil-industrial work like ew and code breaking

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 01 Feb 2010 08:52

Is anyone here developing a business or planning to in India or elsewhere?

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 01 Feb 2010 08:55

KrishnaMu wrote:Even big companies I used to for analytical all the tests cleared tech interview and onto HR. HR no engineering degree no jobs.

Been there done that. Thanks to a non-engineering degree I was summarily rejected by many a company during my initial days in the career. That was the time when IT companies demanded a B.Tech/BE even for the office boys in their places. Luckily some of the MNCs did not have this ridiculous demand so managed to come out of this.

Today after working in an "IT major" for nearly 4 years, I realise that for the so called "design and development" happening here, all you require is a PUC passed individual with basic comprehending skills in English. All they require is some good training. And I have also seen chaps having B.E/B.Tech degrees, who cannot write down one paragraph of simple English without gramatic errors. Proof reading proposals written by them is one of my routine tasks these days.

Now I make it a point to remind every nephew and neice of mine who is doing Engineering. Take up a job which requires the engineering skills they learn, and try to innovate some thing.

They have to look for big projects in domestic market (at last)

Some of the big IT majors in India have now started actively scouting for India based projects. Especially big ones from PSUs or Govt. agencies. That I feel is a good move. Earlier the same companies had kept away from the Govt. companies citing the reason of corruption etc. Infact one of my dreams is to make a few more foreign trips, see the world and then slowly move into on of the Govt.of India IT projects.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 01 Feb 2010 10:40

KrishnaMu wrote:It is funny most big IT products developed by innovators and visionaries are from non-engr background. Its the problem solving skills and logic not degree matters.

Very very true. The sooner Indian talibs learn that in school and college - the better. Computer Software Engineering (compared to pure sciences like Physics, Mathematics etc.) is still a fairly simple and primitive field of study. Hence, one doesn't need a long period of study to innovate in it and make something truly revolutionary - What one needs is grasp of some basics (easily done), independent thought process and a keen mind for ideas which fulfill a need.

KrishnaMu · Post by **KrishnaMu** » 02 Feb 2010 02:26

Thanks for the comments.

To be honest until now I thought I am alone and it just once of case I am just unlucky. I blame my self I thought may be I am very narrow minded and carrying grudge. Think I am not alone. also View on Indian engg graduates is not disrespectful but at the same time I wouldn't be make them as leaders. Most of companies making bread and butter on maintenance of legacy system, administration and small enhancements after 1 or two yrs any body will get more. Not much innovation from big Indian IT boys.

Honestly when I seen I thought it is definitely from eastern block of countries, until did my research astonished it is from India.

And also if you have maths, physics back ground life makes easier

I did survey/opinions 4 yrs back in district collector office in very backward district as part “e-governance” sort of thing. Most of the non-computer literate think and fear they wont be any jobs left if every thing computerised. It is hard convince public sector in India “computerization” will speed up and not to replace entire work force.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 02 Feb 2010 03:18

^^^

This was the mindset in 90s. Nowadays most of Govt departments receive IT projects and services with +ve mindset.

In early 90s I did a project for Dept. of Animal Husb. We did a decent job and the directors were very happy. I am sure they moved on to latest technologies and processes now.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 02 Feb 2010 08:57

KrishnaMu wrote:Most of the non-computer literate think and fear they wont be any jobs left if every thing computerised. It is hard convince public sector in India “computerization” will speed up and not to replace entire work force.

I do not know in which part of India you did the survey. But in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kerala around 10-20 years back every single Govt. sector employee was against computerisation. Commie goon gangs like SFI even came up with ridiculous theories that using computers would lead to health problems etc. The unions (primarily commie led) ones said computers would through out the jobs of many people. These were the same gang who opposed tractors and modern farming techniques a couple of decades earlier. And now we see the results of it

.

At least in Kerala the cry against computerisation would be for one simple reason. It brought in accountability. No communist/marxist would ever like that word - "accountability". Palakkad Dt. admin (thanks to a Dt. Collector who had some sense up his head) pioneers the concept of a district level e-administration tool. And this tool had some interesting features. Superior officers could quickly monitor the status of each file (and with whom it is lying). For each kind of task, a time was fixed for its resolution. If that time is missed, the file is locked and the staff cannot work on it any more. He will be forced to meet his supervisor, give reasons and get the file unlocked. The civil admin employees at the Collectorate used every single available way to scuttle this tool.

RamaY wrote:This was the mindset in 90s. Nowadays most of Govt departments receive IT projects and services with +ve mindset.

I guess people in general have understood the merits of computerisation. Organisations like the Railways and various Banks have shown the advantages of having a good computer network. People now know that to get things done quickly computerisation is a must. Even the most laziest of the lot (for eg. Kerala Govt. employees

) now realise the benefits. If these govt. employees don't want it, people have started demanding it. At the end of it, politicians cannot ignore these demands for transperency and quickness. And thanks to internet blogs etc., people of one state can know how their state is faring in computerisation when compared to others.

mmasand · Post by **mmasand** » 03 Feb 2010 13:27

fancy this...from livemint

Three Day passport in a week or two

Mumbai: After missing at least three internal deadlines, the Passport Seva Project, which aims to issue passports in three days compared with the current 45, is finally expected to be launched in “a week or two”, said a senior official at the ministry of external affairs.

“The infrastructure is in place, the software glitches have been fixed, security issues have been addressed,” the official, who did not want to be identified, said. “Everything has been fully tested. We are just giving final touches and hope to make an announcement (launch) in a week or two at the most.”

The ministry had hired the nation’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) in October 2008 to implement the Rs1,000 crore project, India’s largest e-governance programme on a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

A TCS spokesperson said in an email that the company, as a policy, didn’t comment on individual clients.

Apart from reducing the time needed for issuing new passports to three days from up to 45 days now, after police verification, the project has a fast-track component for issuing passports on the same day an application is submitted, a process that now takes up to 14 days.

The new model will also allow people to submit their passport applications online and maintain a central database that can be accessed by both the police and passport officials, speeding up the police verification process, a bottleneck in the current process.

According to the initial agreement between the ministry and TCS, an internal pilot study was to be launched in Bangalore and Chandigarh in March 2009.

This was to be followed by a roll-out of the project in these two cities three months later in June, followed by a nationwide launch, comprising 77 Passport Seva Kendras and incorporating the 37 regional passport offices, by January 2010.

When the June date was missed, the internal deadline was first moved to October and then to November. Both were not met.

On 13 October, the Hindustan Times reported, quoting an unnamed ministry of external affairs official, that the government had sent a notice to TCS asking it to pay a fine of Rs2 lakh for every week of delay.

The ministry official did not say when a national roll-out was likely.

As of now, Bangalore will go live first, followed by Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Mangalore and Hubli, which are currently in pilot phase.

In December, when a parliamentary standing committee on external affairs pulled up the ministry for the delays, it contended that software development was an “external dependency” and hence it was not in a position to commit on a date for launching the project.

News agency IANS had reported on 19 December that the All India Passport Employee Association had sought the intervention of Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs, to review the project in view of the delays. The association has a membership of nearly 2,400 employees from regional passport offices across the country.

Ho soon would this be implemented across the country is a wait and watch...

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 06 Feb 2010 02:01

Microsoft’s Creative Destruction

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html

Microsoft’s huge profits — $6.7 billion for the past quarter — come almost entirely from Windows and Office programs first developed decades ago. Like G.M. with its trucks and S.U.V.’s, Microsoft can’t count on these venerable products to sustain it forever. Perhaps worst of all, Microsoft is no longer considered the cool or cutting-edge place to work. There has been a steady exit of its best and brightest.

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.

...

Not everything that has gone wrong at Microsoft is due to internecine warfare. Part of the problem is a historic preference to develop (highly profitable) software without undertaking (highly risky) hardware. This made economic sense when the company was founded in 1975, but now makes it far more difficult to create tightly integrated, beautifully designed products like an iPhone or TiVo. And, yes, part of the problem has been an understandable caution in the wake of the antitrust settlement. Timing has also been poor — too soon on Web TV, too late on iPods.

Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.

As a result, while the company has had a truly amazing past and an enviably prosperous present, unless it regains its creative spark, it’s an open question whether it has much of a future.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 06 Feb 2010 03:11

They can buy new companies.
SAP was considered once.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Feb 2010 09:02

I wouldnt be too worried. they are still massively profitable and with worldwide reach. sure they aren't loved by all, but neither is the usa and they still sit atop the hill.

as for coming up with new innovative products, why dont they buy up the
small unfettered cos that do? establish a large campus in bay area and suck up these cos into a couple of new 'emerging tech' BUs. once stabilized find
some centurions desiring to establish new empires on the frontier and send
them to blr to start units of these groups

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 06 Feb 2010 09:19

^^^

The most promising ones like Google don't want to sell.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 06 Feb 2010 09:21

Singha wrote:I wouldnt be too worried. they are still massively profitable and with worldwide reach. sure they aren't loved by all, but neither is the usa and they still sit atop the hill.

as for coming up with new innovative products, why dont they buy up the
small unfettered cos that do? establish a large campus in bay area and suck up these cos into a couple of new 'emerging tech' BUs. once stabilized find
some centurions desiring to establish new empires on the frontier and send
them to blr to start units of these groups

They bought Powerset.
http://www.powerset.com/

I don't know how they are using it.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 07 Feb 2010 12:34

India's Outsourcing Exports at US$50 Billion
John Ribeiro, IDG News Service
Feb 4, 2010 3:10 am
India's revenue from exports of IT and BPO (business process outsourcing) services is likely to grow 5.5 percent to US$49.7 billion in the Indian fiscal year to March 31, 2010, according to estimates released Thursday by the country's National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

The revenue figure includes exports by Indian outsourcers as well as by Indian services and software development subsidiaries of multinational companies including Microsoft, Dell, and Oracle.

Nasscom has forecast higher revenue growth in the range of 13 to 15 percent from IT and BPO exports in the next fiscal year to March 31, 2011.

India has emerged as a key supplier of IT and BPO services to customers in the U.S., U.K., and other markets. Its business was however hit in the fiscal year to March 31, 2010 by the recession in some of these economies.

The growth rate of 5.5 percent estimated by Nasscom for the year ending March 31, 2010 is far lower than the 16 percent estimated by Nasscom for the previous year. The 2009 figure is still an estimate as the results of Satyam Computer Services, a large Indian outsourcer, are still being re-stated, after a financial scandal at the company.

Top Indian outsourcing companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies, and Wipro said in January that they were seeing an improvement in demand for their services from customers in key markets, including the U.S.

Indian outsourcing companies have also started hiring in large numbers again. Wipro's IT services business added 4,855 staff in the quarter ended Dec. 31. The company had cut staff by 630 in its IT services business in the previous quarter. TCS said in January that it is adding about 11,000 staff in the current quarter, including 8,000 trainees. The company added 7,692 staff in the quarter to Dec. 31.

Direct employment by the country's IT industry is expected to be 2.3 million by March 31, 2010, with over 90,000 jobs added during the current fiscal year, Nasscom said.

A number of new large IT services deals are expected to be signed by the second quarter of this year, Sudin Apte, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said in January. Indian companies are however not likely to achieve soon the revenue growth levels they had before the recession, he added.

A lot of the expenditure by customers still falls under the category of necessary expenditure, with discretionary expenditure on IT services likely to start by the middle of this year, according to Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Besides a pick up in exports revenue for the year ended March 31, 2010, Nasscom is also expecting a growth in the domestic services business. Domestic revenue is expected to grow by 12 percent to Indian rupees 662 billion ($14 billion). In the next fiscal year, revenue growth from the Indian market is expected to pick up by 15 to 17 percent.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/188514/i ... llion.html

David Saenz · Post by **David Saenz** » 08 Feb 2010 08:58

Local focus helps IT companies sustain growth

India-centric IT vendors seem to be finally reaping the benefits of their strategy to focus on domestic opportunities, considering the buoyancy
in local IT spends. In contrast, IT players, who for long targeted principally overseas markets, are still awaiting a revival in global demand.

The Indian market for IT solutions has continued to expand in FY10 as a slump in global IT spends. Industry body Nasscom has estimated a growth of 12% in the local market for FY10. On the other hand, global IT demand fell 4.6% in 2009, according to technology research firm Gartner. The trend is also visible in the performance of IT firms in the first nine months of FY10. Most IT players that earn more than half of their revenues from the domestic market have staged an impressive performance.

Nasscom expects domestic IT revenue to grow at a faster pace of 15-17% in FY 2011. This also means that local IT players are likely to maintain their fast pace of growth. Further, Nasscom anticipates a recovery in global demand as well, which may see a growth of 13-15% in IT exports.

shynee · Post by **shynee** » 14 Feb 2010 04:17

Notion Ink Adam hands-on

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Feb 2010 06:12

^^^ lol! I came to this thread to post it but shynee has already done the honours. Even though I dont agree with it being an iPad killer (whether iPad rises or falls solely depends on the content deals Apple makes, the iPad hw/sw tech is 400% puke) it definitely is the most exciting tablet I see right now (includes HP Slate, iPad etc. etc.) - esp. due to the PixelQi display which provides a compromise between the glossy iPad-like screens and the slow refresh E-Ink screens. The PixelQi displays are not the ideal solution though they are the best that is available right now (Mirasol was very disappointing this year even though it has been in development for so many years). What the Notion Ink folks have to get right is the sw integration and the UI design on top of Android. Great to see such efforts from Indian cos!!

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 14 Feb 2010 06:27

In one of the pics, the screen reads 'NotionInk Dabbalu'. Love it

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 14 Feb 2010 20:54

2010: 50 years of India's first digital computer

The TIFRAC, a first-generation main-frame computer developed for scientific computations, was commissioned on February 22, 1960, at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, making India the first country in Asia and Japan to have built such a machine.

The machine was christened 'TIFRAC' (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Calculator) by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru when he visited TIFR on 15 January, 1962, according to documents obtained from the TIFR Archive. Before developing a digital computer, Indian scientists had also built an analogue computer. This was developed at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Feb 2010 06:32

I love this guy!

http://notionink.wordpress.com/2009/06/ ... s-changed/

...and dont forget all these guys at Notion Ink are at the younger side of 25 (except one chap with 15 years work-ex). The guy who wrote the above post graduated only in 2008.

I am kinda wondering as to how much reliance they have on the ODMs for designing this one and how much of the hw IP they own independently. If they can really get the price point down on this one...I see this as a winner. Would be fun to see Mr.Almighty "magical" Jobs getting his hat handed to him by a coupla lanky kids from Hyderabad. The software still is a Big '?' - understandable since they have only had access to the complete hw since last year but if its cheap, there is a real utility on this one...maybe not for the latte-sipping chi-chi SF crowd but for the masses (esp. in education).

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Feb 2010 06:40

shaardula wrote:Before developing a digital computer, Indian scientists had also built an analogue computer. This was developed at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.

That was my grandfather.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 15 Feb 2010 11:14

Raja Bose wrote:I love this guy!

http://notionink.wordpress.com/2009/06/ ... s-changed/

...and dont forget all these guys at Notion Ink are at the younger side of 25 (except one chap with 15 years work-ex). The guy who wrote the above post graduated only in 2008.

Check for these kind of things. He may not know the history of western companies and how they penetrate in other countries. He may not know the barriers India was put into.

On a odd note. It took us 3 months just to sign 2 NDAs in India. There is a huge difference when we see how things work out in India and here in Taiwan. For some reason things are not as mature for business as they are here. And it really burdens us with the work people in India has done since 1991 to make things at least this easy. We have just heard of stories of people waiting for even phone connections for years let alone signing a contract. I personally cannot imagine toil it will have on our ambitions if things were like pre-1990s. Though I wont deny there is a lot of work still to be done.
People in India need to understand that the world is moving really very fast. When we say India is 40 years behind USA and 20 years behind China, there are more reasons to it than just comparing the infrastructure. Its the complete environment. Complete eco-system which makes things easier for evolution of brilliant ideas and its implementation. Though we cannot measure creativity in time, but time does have its disintegrating effects. Ideas dont care in whose mind they are gonna land. If not India, then China.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Feb 2010 13:05

Acharya wrote:He may not know the barriers India was put into.

I think it is better to reach for something higher than first wait and find the reasons which justify why it is slow-going in India. He might get disappointed or even fail (and get branded as naive) but atleast he will have tried and from the looks of it, tried mightily hard (which is more than what 99% of us do, including me).

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 15 Feb 2010 19:51

"shaardula wrote:
Before developing a digital computer, Indian scientists had also built an analogue computer. This was developed at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.

That was my grandfather.

"

In hindsight, it's amazing that India had developed a computer as far back as 1962. This was when the "image' of India was far more negative than it is at present.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 16 Feb 2010 02:45

depends on what they mean by 'computer'.