Indian IT Industry

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 23 Jul 2010 20:03

manju wrote:Does anyone remember that IISC or some blore based institution was supposed to come up with a small pc tablet to browse online... It was called "Chikki" (whcih is actually jagger+groundnut sweet sold in most shops in india)... I have not heard of it for the last several years..

Are you talking about the Rs1500 "computer" that is making news since 2 days now?

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 23 Jul 2010 20:17

SwamyG wrote:Are you talking about the Rs1500 "computer" that is making news since 2 days now?

Nope "Chikki" was a name given to "Simputer", which was a kind of palm top device. The whole idea was to make a simple palm top device, with very easy to use interface with an open source OS. A similar device was planned for the Army as well. It was called SATHI (Situational Awareness and Tactical Hand held Information). SATHI was tried out in Kashmir, but it was not used later. "Chikki" was intended for the use of illiterate or semi-literate people, especially in rural India.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 23 Jul 2010 20:54

Yep, almost no one remembers the Amida Simputer these days. Only 4000 units sold per Wiki. If the Notion Ink wallahs don't get a move on, they're going to end up like the Simputer folks as well

.

naren · Post by **naren** » 24 Jul 2010 13:47

Singha wrote: what we should be worried about is why so FEW of such projects in india

Problem is the conservative "safe bet" attitude. India produces really smart people, who unfortunately end up in top massa companies rather than creating their own companies. What we need is a setup which encourages start ups and make funding easily available for them. This "encouragement" needs to be on multiple level -

1. Popularizing the start up concept in colleges - the education ministry needs to create additional courses which would encourage entrepreneurship. It must include case studies about successful entrepreneurs and the hurdles they faced etc. Instead of selling the "American Dream", we need to sell the "Indian Dream" - the ones achieved by Narayana Murthy etc.
2. IT gorillas reaching out to students for ideas & venturing in new areas - they need to stop sucking up to "IT Services onlee" attitude
3. Angel investments to support new start ups

I think there is a cultural difference between the way kids are raised in the US and India. In the US, capitalism is religion - the ideas of profit motive, competition, private ownership are taught right from the childhood. Ofcourse, it has its negatives. We dont need to aim for US style capitalistic extremism. What we need to do is to recognize the bright kid, give him necessary encouragement and create the environment for him to innovate & contribute.

Marut · Post by **Marut** » 24 Jul 2010 18:20

ArmenT wrote:Yep, almost no one remembers the Amida Simputer these days. Only 4000 units sold per Wiki. If the Notion Ink wallahs don't get a move on, they're going to end up like the Simputer folks as well .

As per reports from a few posts above - http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 05#p908405
RIl is looking at a majority stake in Notion Ink. This is very good news.

If I read the tea leaves right, this is very significant step. Given his recent acquisition of Infotel for the broadband wireless access licence, Mukesh is looking for a product that will complement this spectrum. Adam gives him the right kind of tool to recreate the rage/mania/gold rush that opened the flood gates for cellular telephony in India in 2001 or so. The offer of a cheap bundled tablet with an aggressively priced data plan will lead to another gold rush in the wireless broadband arena. Given Notion's reported problems with OEMs for their components due to their small size. RIL will solve this in one swoop. Having mounted a similar campaign a decade ago, Mukesh is well versed with the contours of the playing field to negotiate a sweet deal for Adam. I would hazard a guess that the tablet price will drop 10-15% more once RIL comes in officially and unveils it. Also the ecosystem to support Adam with apps and such can be tapped from the younger brother's camp, given their recent patch up. I now await the official announcement of RIL acquiring Notion Ink. JM2P.

ps: this will also be a good news for the nascent start-up environment in India. The snapping up of a good innovative product will mean that more startups will flower and hopefully start-up movement gain enough steam to not be looked upon as an ugly duckling. Let's see what the future holds

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 24 Jul 2010 20:11

The mobile phone giant you've never heard of

Best line in the article:

To get there, it might take some good old fashioned Indian innovation, otherwise known as jugaad.

Scary part is that the word jugaad seems to be entering the English lexicon among MBA types. There was another article in the NYTimes mentioning Indian jugaad technique.

Waiting for the day when "adjeest" enters the vocabulary as well.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 25 Jul 2010 01:25

^^Next TFTA furrin Yum Bee Ayes will imbibe "chalta hai" and then India will become a super power. Chankian strategy on inflitrating western thought.

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 25 Jul 2010 08:06

"Best line in the article:
Quote:
To get there, it might take some good old fashioned Indian innovation, otherwise known as jugaad.

Scary part is that the word jugaad seems to be entering the English lexicon.."

The article mentions Indian hardware. Is this actually an Indian manufactured product, with a factory somewhere producing it, or is it assembled using components from China, as several other players do?

If it really is Indian manufactured, that's impressive.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 25 Jul 2010 10:53

Varoon Shekhar wrote: If it really is Indian manufactured, that's impressive.

I suspect its designed and made in China with an Indian label stuck on.

Am i wrong?

Have you heard about any engineers from Micromax?

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 25 Jul 2010 11:39

The Micromax people currently get their phones contract manufactured in China. Mediatek (a Taiwanese company) really revolutionized the cell phone market by making a bunch of core components available at very low prices, so people can mix and match features. Hence, a lot of the smaller Chinese shanzhai companies use Mediatek components.

Apparently, GoI had no import tax on cellphones, so they could get the whole product manufactured in China. However, there appear to be some plans afoot to put some import taxes on fully assembled phones and therefore Micromax is planning to set up a plant in Himachal Pradesh to assemble phones from imported components.

http://www.livemint.com/2010/02/0822183 ... ung-L.html

The Micromax phones are designed by the in-house research and development team, as is the embedded software. The on-board chips come from MediaTek Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and Infineon Technologies AG—the last two also count Nokia as a client. Manufacturing is outsourced to about 11 factories in Taiwan, South Korea and China.

Micromax has invested Rs100 crore to set up a plant in Baddi in Himachal Pradesh as it feels outsourcing manufacturing completely leaves the door open for supply-side uncertainties. Production will be scaled up from an initial 50,000 per month.

“If everything goes right, by the third phase in March 2011, the Baddi plant will be making about 500,000 handsets,” Jain said. If the plant isn’t able to cope with the numbers, the fallback plan is to acquire a facility in South Korea, Taiwan or China, he added.

naren · Post by **naren** » 25 Jul 2010 11:56

^^^ may be they chose HP to use the new China-Nepal road being constructed.

satyam · Post by **satyam** » 25 Jul 2010 12:02

^^^^
Baddi district in HP is tax free zone. This is why.

Many Indian companies are now seeking to relocate operations to Baddi because of tax concessions being offered by the Central and State governments. Rail Link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddi

joshvajohn · Post by **joshvajohn** » 26 Jul 2010 04:36

World's Cheapest Computer Unveiled in India for $35

Read more at Suite101: World's Cheapest Computer Unveiled in India for $35 http://news.suite101.com/article.cfm/wo ... z0ujvaR924
http://news.suite101.com/article.cfm/wo ... 35-a265824

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 26 Jul 2010 12:56

chilarai wrote:Hope this is not another damp squib like t he thumbdrive they launched sometime back
An IIT, IISc-designed laptop for just Rs 1500

David B (Ezra64) wrote:
A low cost tablet would be fantastic for students. Now if we could just bring down the cost of a great education. Perhaps we might have to send our children oversees to India for four years.
Sat Jul 24 2010 11:39:40 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)

George Kafantaris (kafantaris) wrote:
It seems unfair that the United States, as other countries in the World, should have to compete with others elsewhere where very cheap labor is their primary advantage. Yet complaining about our house getting flooded won’t make it any drier. Only our hard work will do that, and only the ingenuity and savvy of the American people will see us through.
In facing the challenge, let us not forget that we still excel in the important areas of education, technology, individual freedoms, the arts, entertainment, elective government, our courts, natural resources, and yes, even our health care. Moreover, labor costs should eventually reach an equilibrium across the globe, since people and their needs are the same across the globe.
Yet, an even greater challenge lies ahead, and with far greater consequences than cheap computer technology: This is the abundant energy from the sun, and our constantly improving ways to capture it and store it the form of hydrogen. Thus while the sun for centuries had dried-up huge lands, it is about to make them vibrant with cheap electricity for industry and living.
By the time we take notice, the geopolitical implications will be beyond anybody’s control. For those of us who are accustomed to having our way, times may get a lot rougher ahead. But there ain't no going back to the world of yesterday. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can roll up our sleeves to compete on the global stage -- the only forum left.
Sat Jul 24 2010 16:05:10 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)

Gaurav_S · Post by **Gaurav_S** » 26 Jul 2010 13:43

Configuration of this cheapest laptop is like this

2 gig memory
No hard disks
Linux OS
Internet browser
Word processor
PDF reader

As far as there is electricity and Internet access many things can be done. Many stuff nowadays are stored on the Google/Yahoo servers,like Google docs..have to wait for some manufacturer to come up.

naren · Post by **naren** » 27 Jul 2010 05:23

Acharya wrote:
George Kafantaris (kafantaris) wrote:
It seems unfair that the United States, as other countries in the World, should have to compete with others elsewhere where very cheap labor is their primary advantage. Yet complaining about our house getting flooded won’t make it any drier. Only our hard work will do that, and only the ingenuity and savvy of the American people will see us through.
In facing the challenge, let us not forget that we still excel in the important areas of education, technology, individual freedoms, the arts, entertainment, elective government, our courts, natural resources, and yes, even our health care .

Interesting how all the "once rich" think that they are entitled to prosperity forever and once they start to lose it, they act Paki.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Jul 2010 07:46

Isn't the Paki mindset based on same world view of entitlement?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 27 Jul 2010 11:35

Kmart is apparently going to sell a 7" $150.- Android 2.1 tablet starting this Friday. Where is Notion Ink?

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 30 Jul 2010 02:59

Wipro's military defence software confuses Indian government

arun · Post by **arun** » 01 Aug 2010 10:08

The Annapurna Super Computer is reportedly the 7th fastest in India:

Supercomputer Annapurna unveiled in IMSc

Some more details on the Annapurna from IANS:

The Rs.6 crore ($1.3 million) high performance computational cluster, supplied by Silicon Graphics International in the US, was inaugurated Friday by Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Srikumar Banerjee here.

Annapurna is a factory-integrated computational cluster, with 1024 cores of Intel Nehalem 2.93 GHz chips, 1.5 tera byte (TB) memory and storage of 30 TB.

According to Menon, with a peak speed of 12 teraflops (TF) Annapurna is currently the seventh fastest high performance computing machine in India.

Clicky

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 01 Aug 2010 10:45

^^^At what number is the PARAM at CDAC?

SGI is still around?

I thought they sold their buildings to GOOG and attained their 72.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 01 Aug 2010 11:48

SGI got bought by an outfit called Rackable Systems. By the way, if this machine is the 7th fastest in India, what are the first 6? Is there an Indian top500 equivalent?

vina · Post by **vina** » 05 Aug 2010 11:32

Maulanas.. A kweschun. Now if someone working for some company in Yindia (say most valuable, or soap or whatever) has a Blackberry device, running on an Airtel network(say) and gets an e-mail message delivered or sends a BlackBerry corporate IM, does that mean that the e-mail travels all the way from Kampooter server dabba in Bengaluru to Blackberry server in Kaneda and then to Airtel dabbas and then via wireless to Blackberry device and vice versa ?. Same thing with serving the net from Blackberry ?

So is that part of the reason why Blackberry is expensive , becuase you have to pay for international bandwidth as well (to Kaneda and back)!.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 05 Aug 2010 12:02

I think the haj accompanied by Kanadian visa stamp is for email onlee (and for BB's nice push feature) not for browsing BR. For halal surfing, you just use your local cell network onlee. I think BBs used to work using a private network before but that changed happened sometime after 9/11. During 9/11 it was observed that BBs were working fine even though other networks had attained their 72 due to overloading and general hulla-gulla.

Just becoz you have a BB doesn't mean you have the accompanying sunroof lever too. The push email part has to be subscribed to by companies which then run the BB enterprise server within their email infra or you can have a desktop server running on your PC which performs the same function but just for your email accounts. Just using the BB device itself doesn't mean that you are inadvertently paying for a haj to Kanada.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 05 Aug 2010 16:51

^^
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 62#p916162

The issue is with a BB user sending email to another BB user which cant be intercepted if its not being sent using a corporate server.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 05 Aug 2010 21:43

^^^You mean BB messenger type stuff? Well anyways all of that goes thru BB's infra in Kanada onlee, no?

Pranay · Post by **Pranay** » 07 Aug 2010 09:06

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/po ... ?ref=world

An Arizona summer for some Indian IT Majors...

Senate aides said four Indian companies would qualify for the significantly higher fees: Tata, Infosys, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam, all of which operate in the United States and are criticized as “body shops” because they provide outsourcing of Indian professionals to American companies. Large American high-tech corporations, which bring the bulk of the skilled immigrants into the United States, would not be affected since the vast majority of their work forces are made up of Americans.

India’s high-tech industry reacted angrily to the proposal, with the New Delhi-based National Association of Software and Services Companies issuing a statement saying that raising the visa fees by more than $2,000 per application would violate international trade practices and unfairly focus on Indian companies. And Peter McLaughlin, an Infosys spokesman, said, “It is unfortunate that this tax is being levied on a discriminatory basis when the need is to open markets to make companies more competitive in the global marketplace.”

But senators complained that the companies could remedy the situation by hiring more Americans. “I’m thrilled that these companies are complaining about having to hire more Americans,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. “That is the whipped cream and cherry on top of this sundae.”

The House may take up the bill next week

.

Skanda · Post by **Skanda** » 07 Aug 2010 10:53

HP CEO Mark Hurd resigns.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 07 Aug 2010 10:57

^^^due to indulging in womanizing using HP money and gets $40 million for his troubles.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Aug 2010 15:18

well there goes the great white hope vina saar was touting to dislodge netz from its crag.

vina · Post by **vina** » 07 Aug 2010 15:24

well there goes the great white hope vina saar was touting to dislodge netz from its crag.

Nope. That Hurd wasnt the Mahdi who will do that. The person who will do that is a Mohtarma called Ann Livermore.

Jayram · Post by **Jayram** » 09 Aug 2010 06:37

I would not hold my breath for that to happen if I were you..
Lets see who wins the CEO war now.. Interesting times ahead..
The battle between the old and new hp has begun..

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 09 Aug 2010 10:37

AL name rings a bell and I agree with Vina saar. IIRC she was also in the race after Carly F was ousted and I believe she had great ambition to one day replace CF. Selecting her after the Mahdi might send right message to all concerned that company is in "right" hands.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Aug 2010 11:10

onlee other serious contender is the head of printer division? solid but unexciting business...."the street" needs better terms like datacenter and virtualization and VDI to sweeten the millions of options held by all top execs incl the losing contenders.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 09 Aug 2010 11:22

“If one of them gets the job, what are the chances the other three stay on? That is the question HP has to deal with,” Abhey Lamba, an analyst at ISI said according to this

If stock falls further 10% tomorrow (total ~20% from Thursday close), it would be a compelling buy.

Printer business seems to be headed by one Mr. Vyomesh Joshi . Hmm..interesting prospect for a desi and let's see if he will find a transparent, color less sheet on the ceiling aka glass ceiling.

amdavadi · Post by **amdavadi** » 09 Aug 2010 11:33

Most likely new HP CEO wont be from outside. This time HP will look at someone within the company. I say look at guy
leading printer division.

manish · Post by **manish** » 09 Aug 2010 12:03

Joshi was said to be in the running last time around as well. Lost out to Hurd back then.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 Aug 2010 12:43

Or they can take me. I don't mind moving my office 300m up the road

amdavadi · Post by **amdavadi** » 09 Aug 2010 13:49

boseullah,

Goog doesnt have campus in palo alto

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 09 Aug 2010 14:27

Pranay wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/po ... ?ref=world

An Arizona summer for some Indian IT Majors...

Election measures.
But check if they continue after election