Indian IT Industry

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 08 Nov 2009 11:43

Singha wrote:who is Mr Sherman?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 Nov 2009 02:59

Singha wrote:so the strategy look like use the cash cow profits from ads to enter into and destroy competition in many sectors with freebies.

The question is how long before their one-trick ad pony gets threatened by the likes of Mickeysoft? Coz right now only their ads earnings are pretty much bankrolling and cushioning the expenses of the other stuff like YouTube, Android etc. etc.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 09 Nov 2009 12:09

Raja Bose wrote:The question is how long before their one-trick ad pony gets threatened by the likes of Mickeysoft? Coz right now only their ads earnings are pretty much bankrolling and cushioning the expenses of the other stuff like YouTube, Android etc. etc.

Its the text ads on the search results pages that bring google most of its revenue. And its market share in search is increasing. Some one will have to build a better search engine before google's ad revenue takes a dent.

--hanumadu

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 Nov 2009 14:03

Well the only thing constant in IT is change so the chance of that happening is guaranteed. I wonder if the Mickeysoft - Shammi Kapoor screaming co. search deal has gone thru - that will give big boost to Mickeysoft.

BTW has anybody noticed the big drop in map data quality after most revered search co. switched to their own data. Yesterday it told my GHQ to turn left into a wall (stoutly claiming that it was her intended destination)!

I see more frustrated people switching to Bing which uses Gumboot co.'s data.

bart · Post by **bart** » 10 Nov 2009 18:06

Gorilla Bahadur has come out with it's own cloud based e-mail/collaboration platform, extending Webex.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 10 Nov 2009 21:40

netzilla's webex is integrated into gorilla's outlook too. one can directly click on webex link to spawn the meeting window where attendees and slides can be seen. and it pops up another window to callback on phone to you. and somehow the external webex chat applic tracks this and shows user as "in a webex meeting" when this happens.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 10 Nov 2009 23:27

My company got offer to purchase a 5terraflop cluster for giveaway price. Anyone know of a customer

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Nov 2009 03:21

Rishirishi wrote:My company got offer to purchase a 5terraflop cluster for giveaway price. Anyone know of a customer

I saw a Data General computer for $75 some months back - buyer pays the shipping (the entire setup weighed ~2 tons)

.

sivabala · Post by **sivabala** » 11 Nov 2009 20:54

Rishirishi wrote:My company got offer to purchase a 5terraflop cluster for giveaway price. Anyone know of a customer

Is it in US or India.
Plz lemme know the cost?

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Nov 2009 13:37

Singha wrote:netzilla's webex is integrated into gorilla's outlook too. one can directly click on webex link to spawn the meeting window where attendees and slides can be seen. and it pops up another window to callback on phone to you. and somehow the external webex chat applic tracks this and shows user as "in a webex meeting" when this happens.

Yawnn.. While Netzilla is fighting in the periphery of the empire like Gaul, England and Carthage, the barbarians are assaulting Rome, the heart of the empire.

After successfully breaching the outer walls, Hickory Pork now seems to have opened a breach in the core of NetZilla's defenses and all set to pour massive hordes in through the breach!.

Dude, the 3Com acquisition is just a starter. With Netzilla poking around in Unified Computing, expect Hickory Pork to pour more muscle behind the 3Com and other knives (acquisitions) that are poised to sink into NetZilla and twist it. Hmm, wonder what Instant Banana Mousse is doing and when it is going to respond. JNPR sure seems like an endangered species.

The age of mammals might well be the future. But looks like Netz wont be able to morph from being a big Liz to a nimble mammal.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Nov 2009 14:15

I was wondering when you would show up to wave the HP flag

3com != the old 3com. the US ops are gutted, indian ops closed down and
all shifted to PRC under shi huangdi (the first emperor) who believes the
dharma chakra revolves with the middle kingdom being its rotational axis.

waste of $$. they should have saved their piggy bank coins for JNPR / redback / force10 etc

this is like picking up some local drunk and giving him a silk chaddie to go fight the town's biggest slum lord.

manish · Post by **manish** » 12 Nov 2009 14:26

Singha wrote:I was wondering when you would show up to wave the HP flag

3com != the old 3com. the US ops are gutted, indian ops closed down and
all shifted to PRC under shi huangdi (the first emperor) who believes the
dharma chakra revolves with the middle kingdom being its rotational axis.

waste of $$. they should have saved their piggy bank coins for JNPR / redback / force10 etc

this is like picking up some local drunk and giving him a silk chaddie to go fight the town's biggest slum lord.

The Middle Kingdom biz is basically the H3C unit playing around. 3Com's non-compete agreement with the former JV partner expired at the end of last year. So far they seem to have managed OK, but with yech-pee in the mix, things may change soon. If the 'national-champion' tries to wrest the biz back, H3C may end up in a spot of bother there.

Interesting times ahead.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Nov 2009 15:46

yes even their enemies could be better than being in bed with huawei mgmt

king ambhi going off and making friends with alaksindr .... betraying his indic
duties against both his neighbour porus and farther the Nandas in magadha.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 13 Nov 2009 02:27

My company in maasa (not an IT company) gives few hours every year as paid-time-off to do volunteer work. Of course we need the approval process. Do Indian IT companies give their employees paid-time-off for doing Volunteer work?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Nov 2009 07:18

my co has a "day of service" thing. I am sure many others do.

bart · Post by **bart** » 13 Nov 2009 18:44

vina wrote:
Singha wrote:netzilla's webex is integrated into gorilla's outlook too. one can directly click on webex link to spawn the meeting window where attendees and slides can be seen. and it pops up another window to callback on phone to you. and somehow the external webex chat applic tracks this and shows user as "in a webex meeting" when this happens.
Yawnn.. While Netzilla is fighting in the periphery of the empire like Gaul, England and Carthage, the barbarians are assaulting Rome, the heart of the empire.

After successfully breaching the outer walls, Hickory Pork now seems to have opened a breach in the core of NetZilla's defenses and all set to pour massive hordes in through the breach!.

Dude, the 3Com acquisition is just a starter. With Netzilla poking around in Unified Computing, expect Hickory Pork to pour more muscle behind the 3Com and other knives (acquisitions) that are poised to sink into NetZilla and twist it. Hmm, wonder what Instant Banana Mousse is doing and when it is going to respond. JNPR sure seems like an endangered species.

The age of mammals might well be the future. But looks like Netz wont be able to morph from being a big Liz to a nimble mammal.

If you go to a large enterprise and ask them to replace their Cisco switches with 3Com, you will be laughed out of the room. HP is present to some extent but it is more for the edge switches not the core. And Cisco has wised up and begun to match them dollar for dollar and also is providing free updates and lifetime warranty. So HP doesn't have much advantage on the low-end switches going forward, though it has gained a lot of marketshare.

Regarding UC, does Cisco compete effectively with a traditional server vendor on a traditional datacenter build out? No. But what they have spotted early and caught on to is virtualization and the relevance of FCOE, and if you are building a new Datacenter or expanding/refurbishing an existing one with virtualization in mind, I believe Cisco has an extremely strong offering. Unlike all the hype in the market, I don't think they ever intended or intend to become a server vendor like HP/IBM, they just saw FCOE as a disruptive tech that touched upon areas where they were strong in but yet provided an opportunity for competitors to move in as well, so they decided to move first. It's just like VoIP, 5-6 years ago people used to laugh at the thought of replacing their venerable Nortel Meridian PBX systems with a VoIP system from Cisco. Now Cisco is the number 1 PBX vendor in the US, well ahead of Nortel, Avaya and the like.

It is a mistake to think of UC as a server, its an extension of a data+storage networking fabric across the datacenter, the UC blades/servers of course have the processing power but they are so much more than just a server box. If you compare it by itself with xyz standalone server Cisco's offering appears strange, if you are looking at virtualization and storage, it is a very compelling solution. Again, this is Cisco's core market, i.e enterprises and they already have a great reputation with the powers that be in most setups. In fact you may find people cursing Dell/HP/MS etc but going for Cisco with their eyes shut when it comes to networking gear.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 14 Nov 2009 04:19

Finally someone realized that to be a good manager get the real knowledge/work. We have seen a spurt of junk in the industry during the past decade with every Tom dick and Harry becoming a manager with PMP and showing off with stupid CMMI lingo.

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/ ... nfosys.htm

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Nov 2009 07:31

Pranav Mistry at TED India: Clicky

Apart from his well known Sixth Sense he also presents a microphone based interface though I am not sure how the mic works since he is still wearing fiducials on his fingers (probably the mic just detects the scratching sound for triggering the camera). A very innovative fella (see his past exploits with mouse rollers!) - one to watch out for in the future. He does talk about releasing his code for open src but in case anybody has the khujli in the near future to build their own Sixth Sense system in jugaad style, look up in ACM Digital Library for:

"Gestural Interfaces for Micro Projector-based Mobile Phone Applications
Matthias Baldauf, Peter Fršhlich, Peter Reichl (Telecommunications Research Center Vienna)"
They have an multi-finger gestural interface SDK which works on Symbian mobile phones (Mistry's demo uses an Apple laptop) in the same manner as Sixth Sense but is also considerably faster and utilizes the phone camera (instead of a webcam).

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Nov 2009 13:04

pandyan wrote:Apple's overall computer market share is under 10%; however, it commands 90%+ market share in premium segment where PCs/Laptops can cost over $1000. Now talk about brand, products and emotional connection...wow!

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/23/apple-ha ... um-market/

Not surprising....you will see similar behaviour for their stats (but lesser share) in cellphones too.

Based on how Palm is doing now and the effect of Jobs on Apple after his 2nd stint started, I have a theory that Innovation in Apple == Steve Jobs period. Given that he is getting old, it would be interesting to see how Apple does after Jobs is gone.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 15 Nov 2009 19:27

if you to give them marks for resisting the temptation in every company doing well to widen the product portfolio, enter new segments and address a wider clientale.

they have their market band, few products and a focussed set of groupies to fork() over the $$ everytime. and the ipod and iphone were effective groupie creating machines.

amdavadi · Post by **amdavadi** » 15 Nov 2009 23:57

raja bose,

I totally agree with what you said Apple==Steve Jobs, lets see what happens when steve decides
to leave the company. Personaly i would want steve jobs carry on for another 100 years but
as far as tech life in the valley goes, there will be iphone killer sooner or later.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Nov 2009 02:03

^^^ It depends on how you define an iPhone killer? Remember that a very integral part of the iPhone (or any iThing) is Jobs's reality distortion field.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 16 Nov 2009 02:29

A breathless article on how Indian startups are going to challenge Silicon Valley any day now:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/14/in ... on-valley/

There will have to be a lot more early-stage funding happening in India before the startup ecosystem really takes off. At this point, VCs in India mostly invest in late-stage (post-profitability, often over Rs.10 crore revenues) companies, which makes them more private equity players and is useless for promoting entrepreneurship.

Although it is clearly not the VCs' job to promote entrepreneurship - or to do anything other than achieve good returns for their limited partners - India needs institutions in the early stage investing game if it wants to do more than simply follow all the technology trends from the West.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Nov 2009 09:56

I think more than VC, the science and technology base in universities and colleges need to much improve. then the VCs worldwide will be on the next flight and setting up more investments here. eg. I am sure american VCs are spending money on israeli startups too, its not all local money.

the horse has to come first, then the cart will appear.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 16 Nov 2009 14:09

True. Although pretty much all the major American VC firms are in India as well - in fact, home-grown VC firms are something of a rarity. But at the end of the day, Indian or American, they all behave pretty much the same. There was a rash of early-stage tech financings in 2006-2007, which have fizzled for the most part (guruji.com, minglebox.com, burrp.com etc). A lot of funding activity now seems to be in the non-tech, late-stage space.

Jayram · Post by **Jayram** » 17 Nov 2009 00:30

Some naysays here are in for a surprise. Hickory Pork went into the 3Com purchase with its eyes wide open... They integrated the enterprise switch from 3C to 3 months of testing inside the firewall in stealth project that was not known even to folks working in the same group.. before accepting it.. The folks involved were made to stand up in a coffee talk after the purchase was annouced and there were jaw drops all around..
Hurd is not one to be underestimated .. He made the Mercury software purchase some 2 years ago when the board there was under fire for some legal problems and he made a killing.. Software is now a significant part of the Pork's product line..
According to all accounts 3 Com is evenly matched or beating out Netzilla in China and now with a validated product line flying under the Hickory Porks flag you can bet there is going to relooks from CIO's everywhere..

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 17 Nov 2009 03:10

Guys,

What was the story about a chinese firm wanting to buy 3Com and the deal was scuttled invoking national interest clauses?

So, sometimes even a non-significant player draws your attention by making some random moves or *appear* to make some moves. I am not denying the *sound* analysis by Hick's Pork but just trying to understand how much of a factor that was.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 17 Nov 2009 03:44

ok.. did a bit of surfing.

US stopped the deal between Huawei and 3Com citing national interest concerns. Now, even as non-compete clause(between Huawei and 3Com) expired which essentially pitches Huawei against 3Com in China, how does HP hopes to complete with Huawei in China, which HP touts as one of the strengths of 3Com takeover *given* this kind of a background.

This national security clause is interesting...US can invoke it at any time on anybody but others should not and cannot?

Jayram · Post by **Jayram** » 17 Nov 2009 03:54

I am not sure what your point is but yes this was an issue US was leery about allowing 3 COM to be bought by Bain(85%) and Huawie(15%) becuase 3Com was a DOD supplier.
The details are herehttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e589684-b89d ... ck_check=1
Bain/Huawie pulling out becuase US did not play ball is here
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/0 ... 3com_deal/
Intrestingly most of the core R&D is located in china anyway for 3COM.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 17 Nov 2009 05:35

Never mind..I was just thinking out aloud. I was just wondering how HP could cite China has potential market and cite that as a huge consideration in the purchase when it p!ssed off largest chinese player Huawei on NS grounds and changed competative landscape and yet payed about 40% preminum. In my previous post I thought there may have been considerations of the cost of not purchasing that may have compelled HP to enter this transaction. That is all.

manish · Post by **manish** » 17 Nov 2009 13:59

Satya_anveshi wrote:Never mind..I was just thinking out aloud. I was just wondering how HP could cite China has potential market and cite that as a huge consideration in the purchase when it p!ssed off largest chinese player Huawei on NS grounds and changed competative landscape and yet payed about 40% preminum. In my previous post I thought there may have been considerations of the cost of not purchasing that may have compelled HP to enter this transaction. That is all.

Huawei once had a JV with 3Com called Huawei-3Com that made routers and switches. The JV did really well and within a short span, generated very good returns for the parents. Around 2006-07 Huawei tried buying out 3Com's stake in the JV but could not. Eventually they reversed their stance and sold off their own stake to 3Com for $882 million in 2007 and the JV company renamed itself as H3C.

Commercially this H3C unit seems to be the most important one for 3Com currently, and its business is highly china centric at the moment. H3C had quite a few Huawei products in its lineup (the Quidway router series for eg. - a Huawei brand) and not surprisingly, there was a non-compete agreement in place to ensure a smooth transition to full 3Com ownership. This expired sometime ago, and I guess given the state 3Com is in currently, only a big, powerful parent like HP would have had the technical and financial muscle to allow the development of a new and independent product portfolio to take on the biggies in it most important markets. Agreed that Huawei is a big dog in their own backyard, but HP is no pushover either.

With HP in the ring, it is now a 3 sided fight between Netzilla, Hickory Pork and the Dragon in the Middle Kingdom - to me it sounds like a nice script idea for a Godzilla sequel

Regarding the national security concerns, IIRC the national security concerns involved in a potential 3Com takeover involving Huawei were related to the TippingPoint unit of 3Com.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Nov 2009 14:33

netzilla has been a failure in that country, I wouldnt consider them a contender for the dragon throne. periodically new strategies are chalked out under "china plan 2.0/3.0/...N.0" but nothing much has come of it.

netz is a big dog in the japan market though.

manish · Post by **manish** » 17 Nov 2009 14:52

Singha wrote:netzilla has been a failure in that country, I wouldnt consider them a contender for the dragon throne. periodically new strategies are chalked out under "china plan 2.0/3.0/...N.0" but nothing much has come of it.

netz is a big dog in the japan market though.

GD, I want to ask you something. When Netzilla and Dragon squared off earlier on the router IP issue, the matter was settled out of court. Many people believe that the PRC arm-twisted netzilla into 'settling' the issue. Do you think PRC used access to Chinese market as a carrot/stick or was it an actual settlement between the cos? Any insights you could share on the matter?

vina · Post by **vina** » 17 Nov 2009 17:10

GD, I want to ask you something. When Netzilla and Dragon squared off earlier on the router IP issue, the matter was settled out of court. Many people believe that the PRC arm-twisted netzilla into 'settling' the issue. Do you think PRC used access to Chinese market as a carrot/stick or was it an actual settlement between the cos? Any insights you could share on the matter?

My sources tell me that it basically was settled in the typical Chini manner when they are caught with their pants down and are confronted.. Sort of like the transfer to Pakiland of nuclear supplies kind of thing. Chinis will clam up and claim that the are a "Lesponsrible Nucreal Powel" after singing the NPT etc in 1992 and will keep repeating that like a broken record even if you ask the about their behavior prior to that.

Netz basically settled on the lines that Hauwei will not sell stuff ripped off from Netz going forward in the international markets (all the while admitting no wrong doing or paying any damages), but basically continue doing all sorts of shady things inside PRC and since Netz (also MickeySoft with it's anti piracy noise) made China lose "face", Netz and Mickeysoft play in an increasingly tilted table, with the odds stacked against them in terms of non market barriers etc . Remember, in China nearly ALL large enterprises or anything of consequence is still Govt owned (or atleast has very strong govt "direction"/ "say"), basically the kind of things that gives our control freak commies wet dreams on what they aspire to do in India if they ever get a chance. No way in hell Netz is going to do anything in China of consequence in the longer term.

Remember, any player with IP in China faces a strong possibility of theft. The Chinese model is this.. All are welcome, come and build it once and show it how it is done , after that the Chinese "drone" acharyas will "xerox" everything and turn out bad copies .Think of everything from Maglevs to Cars to anything.. That is the way the China model works. The only thing that can work there is to sell them black boxes with significant embedded software content with IPs in the software /firmware that cannot be easily copied /disassembled .

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Nov 2009 19:57

I believe they even go into IC with electron microscopy and other techniques hoping to harvest something useful.

netz got them to stop selling certain stolen stuff in US market (maybe worldwide non-china market) in exchange for them 'promising' better behaviour in future and no admission of guilt. a couple of scapegoats who had 'acted independently to steal code without asking superior officers' must have been hung out to dry for show.

its not just netz, every large MNC with IP to protect faces such "issues" there unless they form a JV and share revenues and IP with a local "partner"

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Nov 2009 00:14

vina wrote:The only thing that can work there is to sell them black boxes with significant embedded software content with IPs in the software /firmware that cannot be easily copied /disassembled .

You mean like low-end cellphones, military equipment.......

There is absolutely nothing stopping them from copying any firmware or even gate level design off an IC.

manish · Post by **manish** » 18 Nov 2009 11:56

vina wrote: Netz basically settled on the lines that Hauwei will not sell stuff ripped off from Netz going forward in the international markets (all the while admitting no wrong doing or paying any damages), but basically continue doing all sorts of shady things inside PRC and since Netz (also MickeySoft with it's anti piracy noise) made China lose "face", Netz and Mickeysoft play in an increasingly tilted table, with the odds stacked against them in terms of non market barriers etc .

vina saar, I was reminded of your above post when I saw this news item:
Court rules against Microsoft in China font case

BEIJING — A Chinese court has ruled Microsoft Corp. infringed a Chinese company's intellectual property rights by including certain fonts in its operating systems, the companies confirmed Tuesday.
Beijing's No.1 Intermediate People's Court found Microsoft had exceeded the scope of a previous agreement to use and sell fonts owned by Zhongyi Electronic Ltd, Lan Fei, a spokeswoman of Beijing-based company told AFP.

Looks like they are trying to get MS to lose its 'face'. MS says it will appeal the decision, but I guess their chances would be bleak.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Nov 2009 07:31

EMC has moved into a huge pair of buildings north of marathalli on outer ring road, perhaps vacating their
leased premises in subramanya arcade jayanagar.

TOI today reports that land purchases for build-to-suit campuses are imminent for Oracle and Netapps. Oracle has multiple offices and Netapps leases in embassy golf links park in domlur (right near Shiv saar's watering hole the golf course)

Netapps is one co which seems to care somewhat about the troops happiness. spies spoke of beer and pizza on friday evenings.

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 20 Nov 2009 07:59

Singha wrote:
TOI today reports that land purchases for build-to-suit campuses are imminent for Oracle and Netapps. Oracle has multiple offices and Netapps leases in embassy golf links park in domlur (right near Shiv saar's watering hole the golf course)

I heard they're leasing a lot of space on Brigade North Star?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Nov 2009 08:16

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.