Bharat Rakshak

Raghavendra wrote:^ Update flash http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Guddu wrote:If I go to youtube, I can always play the video, but not when the youtube videos are clicked direct from BRF. If any mujahid wants to advise

Which browser do u use? Chrome is my guess

Thanks, you are right. I use Chrome. BTW, I can see videos with IE and Firefox. How can I correct my Chrome browser, when I try to download your adobe.com link, Chrome says flash player is upto date!.

Contd:...Thanks, got it to work. Installed the beta version of Chrome.

Deleted

shyam wrote:

vera_k wrote:For Indian IT, cloud computing can be the next step in the evolution of delivering services entirely out of India. But the challenge is that it takes a massive amount of investment to build out the infrastructure necessary for cloud computing.

I don't think the GOTUS will allow this, due to security concerns. They will demand that entire CC be build in US while DOOs can login from India.

vera_k,shyam the GOTUS can't do anything about services delivered from India, however its not a viable proposition due to high latency from India to US. Ever wondered why sites hosted in US are slower than sites hosted in India. ( hint: ping and test RTT )

-Tarun

CalvinH wrote: Indian IT services companies cannot afford to keep the app hosting and app maintenance piece separate anymore as CC is going to blur that boundary in terms of service. It will all be in a single package with Infra cost built into the app usuage and maintenance cost. Unfortunately most of them are aligning themselves to become a service operator in private clouds which is a short term strategy as most of the corporations are using move to private clouds as a intermediate steps to move to a bigger public cloud eventually. They should start putting things in place to become a large cloud operator themselves in 5-10 years.

Why this propensity to look up to the large IT services companies for bold steps in any direction, its not in their DNA.

Hint: Look at the startup space in India.

In the US slicehost, linode, Joyent, Mediatemple weren't large IT services companies before they became successful in hosting/IAAS space.

-Tarun

tarun wrote:vera_k,shyam the GOTUS can't do anything about services delivered from India, however its not a viable proposition due to high latency from India to US. Ever wondered why sites hosted in US are slower than sites hosted in India. ( hint: ping and test RTT )

-Tarun

A player in this space will have to provide data centers close to population centers. These are becoming very efficient (due to automation) with 1 person maintaining 2,000 or more servers, so while they are capital intensive, they won't provide for a whole lot of billable hours. But it is the applications that run on these servers which create the added value.

tarun I am not saying they should align themseleves with the large IT service providers..I am saying they should read the change thats coming in the way IT will be provisioned and managed in future. For e.g its time they open Data centers in US or buy somone like Wipro did with Infocrossing.

tarun wrote:

shyam wrote:
I don't think the GOTUS will allow this, due to security concerns. They will demand that entire CC be build in US while DOOs can login from India.

vera_k,shyam the GOTUS can't do anything about services delivered from India, however its not a viable proposition due to high latency from India to US. Ever wondered why sites hosted in US are slower than sites hosted in India. ( hint: ping and test RTT )

-Tarun

Delivering services from Indian (managing data using access from India) and hosting data physically in India are two different things. Its not about high latency. Its not about GOTUS. All corporation will be vary of hosting primary data outside US in DCs which are not owned by them. However if India can provide infrastructure they can open offices which can have these data centers. Many technology companies who have big shops in India have considerable server infrastructure in India but this is not true for majority of business captives.

X-post:

sum wrote:Son rises at Wipro; Rishad Premji elevated

With Rishad Premji’s elevation as Wipro’s chief strategy officer (CSO), the Indian IT leader’s succession plan seems to have moved a step forward on Wednesday.

Though Azim Premji has sought to keep ownership and management separate in public and even said Rishad was too young to become the CEO of the company, Wednesday’s announcement puts Rishad at striking distance of the top job.

In Wipro, the CSO looks after two key responsibilities: strategy and acquisition, both critical to the future of the company.

Indian IT firms are under enormous pressure to reinvent their labour arbitrage-driven outsourcing model which has come under sever strain from a variety of forces —growing commoditisation of services, rising protectionism, pricing pressure, competition from newer locations, and more importantly new technologies such as cloud computing. The CSO ranks prominently among the top managers of the company who help it navigate the choppy business waters.

In contrast with usually conservative Indian IT companies, Wipro led by its CSOs has acquired other businesses aggressively to build both expertise and market.

Sources in Wipro said the office of the CSO functions like a nodal agency which works with other business units. “It helps to have Premji as your surname in this job,” said a senior executive who did not want to be named.

Rishad joined Wipro in July 2007 at a sub-general manager level at the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance vertical and was later promoted as the general manager (treasury and investor relations), a position he held till Wednesday’s announcement.

From one of the countless anonymous general managers manning Wipro, Rishad leapfrogs to the position of the head of a critical functional unit reporting to the Joint-CEOs directly. “This is arrival of Rishad Premji in Wipro. From a low-profile job he moves to the frontlines. This is his launch pad,” said the senior Wipro executive.

The position of CSO has launched other senior executives as well. One of his predecessors Sudip Nandy who shaped Wipro’s acquisition strategy, labeled String of pearls, went on to become the CEO of Aricent.

While destiny may be calling Rishad, he comes with the right credentials. With an MBA degree from Harvard Business School, Rishad has worked with GE Capital and consulting firm Bain & Co before joining Wipro. People who have worked with Rishad describe him as a chip off the old block, meticulous, hard working and approachable.

Indian IT firms, a majority of which have been set up by first-generation entrepreneurs are wary of bringing in family members to run the company. But Wipro is a notable exception as its chairman Azim Premji owns about 75% of the stock.

AoA onlee

Cloud Computing: (From Company's standpoint)
- Access software and services online, preferably through a browser and do your daily work.
- No need to install software's, have expensive hardware and its maintanence.
- No need to get software enhancements done inhouse, on-shore model, simply share the enhancement, get the PO and time-line from service provider and your job is done.
- Pay per license/users logging in to the system.
- In a nutshell, no more need of outsourcing to cheap locations etc.

Service providers (Indian companies standpoint)
- The offshore model of current software service companies pretty much becomes useless with maturing of cloud model of working.

Cons: (Why this may not be another BIG THING)
- Software and its usage is primarily on data generated within the company and is pretty much its IP.
- The data is also governed by export regimes, meaning a company in US cant just send its IP data to any vendor in India unless that vendor is given an export-compliance. Thats why most service companies have an onshore presence.
- Then comes banking sector data which is really really dangerous to host on the web. It cannot be given to anyone beyond the respective companies office space.
- Customization which is where bulk of the money is, cannot be simply done with this kind of a setup as there is no code base shared as such, just the services and so does not make lot of sense.

Where will cloud work:
- Where data is not a big thing.
- Where data is loaded from own location, some computation/workflow is done on that data via the cloud model and finally the data is deleted. Unless this kind of a thing happens, I'm not sure how will this work.

That is called TN3270 terminal (back to the future of IBM original MVS/360, now sysplex)

Got some news on aSatyam saga from insider chai-wallahs!

Apparently Mr Raju did not steal any money from the company. In reality he put more than Rs 1000 crores of his personal wealth into the company. He inflated the revenues since 2000 to keep up with the competition (in terms of CAGR) in order to make the investors happy (raising share prices and opportunities to win larger multi-year $100++M contracts).

In order to make these inflated numbers believable he created false invoices, false employees, false salary slips, and what not. He even paid income tax on the inflated revenues and associated profits. He paid more than Rs 1000 crore excess IT {apparently the new management is asking the govt to return these excess IT payments and the file is with Pranabdaa. The funny thing is if this request is approved Mahendra tech gets Rs1000 cr of its Rs2000 cr investment from Mr. Raju's pockets (50% equity?)}

Mr. Raju sold his equity, borrowed money and what not, in order to keep the company running and growing It became so unbearable for him that he decided to call it a day by acquiring Maytas (reverse Satyam) with the inflated cash reserves. If this deal were to go thru, Satyam's books have balanced once and for all and Mr Raju can focus on real growth of the company instead of inflated growth.

At the end of the day, Mr. Raju's net contributions are
- Creation of ~25000 hi-tech direct employment in AP. This in turn created at least 25000 rupee millionaires and at least 250 $$$ millionaires
- Putting Hyderabad on international hi-tech map
- Introducing 108 service in Hyderabad (YSR's group false-fully claims the credit for this scheme today)
- Developing at least 200-300 villages in coastal Andhra.

P.S: He personally paid and has been paying for all its mistakes. But the benefits are being enjoyed by others

Life is such I guess.

^ newb question, what's a rupee millionaire, one who has a million rupees? Or is it something fiddly with exchange rates?

^ It is kinda benchmark I used. Rupee millionaire is one with Rs 10,00,000 net worth. In fact, many of them are self-made (or IT propelled) crorepathis now.

Till 2000s there were very few Rs millionaires in 20-30 age group in India. Average IT engineer made Rs 1-3 Lakhs per year. For comparison, think how long it will take someone with a $100k annual income to have $1M net worth.

RamaY ji, Seriously your chai-walla is smoking something from Afghanistan

1. Raju has 1000 Cr to invest freely even before satyam started making good revenues (which as per you they never made)
2. Raju was able to hide actual status of revenues (in terms of 1K-2K Cr) from all people from Account Manager/Engagement Manager onwards in the organization who actually keep track of these numbers. He was able to hide fake employees from HR too. If this is true then he must have fooled at least 1000 different people in his organization from Manager to CEO from 2000-2008.
3. he inflated the share prices (a huge chunk of what he owned himself) then put his equity on sale without recovering the 1000 Cr.
4. He fooled the external auditors all this year about the revenues.

he is a dharmata who didnt used satyam money to feed his lust for more land and fuel his sons ambitions.

What about all the shareholders who lost money because they believed Satyam's growth was real??

^^^The amount of Real Estate they had bought and their development plans were all gigantic......and the alignment and extension of Hyderabad metro was part of the same.

I see a pattern in these arguments:

1. There was never any money in the first place - So all Raju did wrong is limited to establishing a fake empire which enriched many employers (though many of them were fakes) and made many shareholders rich over a period of 8 years before some of them were shafted. The argument that he invested his own 1000 cr into satyam is a new one. Now they are trying to project him as the one who lost money in doing something good for common man.

2. He did a lot of philanthropy - 108 ambulance, services towards his community etc. Whats new...how he bought Hyd to Global map single handedly...hmmm..did we forgot about some guy called Chandrababu Naidu to whom this honor originally belongs to? Well he did bring Hyd to global map by his corruption and greed if you want to give him some credit of it. so whats going to be next argument in this line -he invented internet too?

3. He did all this singlehandedly ...no one was involved..he used to write all statements himself under a lamp in his village in night when everyone was asleep.

For anyone who has worked in IT services industry in management position this is load of bullshit. Satyam bought Raju to the heights he enjoyed and his greed led to his fall from there. The spin seems to be that Raju bought Satyam to where it was in 2008 before the fall and Satyam led to his fall....

Guys,

Kindly refer my earlier posts on this issue. I was never sympathetic to Mr. Raju. What I posted yesterday is what I came to know thru very reliable insiders. I have long association with many "leadership level" associates of this aSatyam company. I do not have any reason to believe they are sympathetic to Mr. Raju.

Just TIFIW. We will know the truth soon

Texas Instruments: Work centers around low cost innovation.

Twenty five years ago, when Dallas headquartered chip maker Texas Instruments (TI) bet on Bangalore as a back office destination it had to transfer equipment — from satellite dish to servers — on bullock carts.
A quarter century later those images are part of Texas Instruments' archives, history and folklore. Those were the days when eyebrows were raised over the decision to move to India and few would venture to set up even a call centre, let alone a high-tech chip design facility.Today, a visitor to Bangalore will find all global majors from GE to Samsung getting some part of their global R&D done out of the city.

Check the Photo in the article. For some reason i am not able to upload it.

Indian IT funding cash-strapped client projects

Indian software companies such as Infosys Technologies and Wipro are entering the unfamiliar area of vendor financing, at the urging of cash-strapped US customers, by using reserves accumulated over years to invest in so-called software platforms that run activities like payroll processing.

But as customers such as JPMorgan, Philips and Citibank attempt to cope with lower IT budgets by avoiding expensive licensed software, they are asking vendors to invest in building systems and to link payment to the number of transactions.

Indian vendors are buying licences from business software makers such as SAP and Oracle, and are developing a ready stack of solutions that can be offered on a pay-as-you-go basis. Going forward, these vendors can even rope in hardware makers such as IBM or HP and offer bundled solutions, thereby reducing capital expenditure for customers even more significantly.

{ha ha ha ha - who said that clouds will make India less important? ha ha haha hahaha. Never underestimate the elephant. }


What this means is cloud-computing is being packaged by IBM, Microsoft etc. as a bundle sold to customer. The bundle consists of the services from outsourcing firms like Infosys etc. So this new packaging will firmly have India printed all over. In the end India actually may reap a lot more than what is being perceived here and elsewhere.

^ hmm...

Could that be the reason why Mr. Narayana Murthy hinted at a phirangi CEO for the most admired company?

India's outsourcers wary of China

When Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest outsourcing services group, said last month that it was doubling its headcount in China, it was a clear signal that the Indian sector is keeping a wary eye on a market that could one day evolve into a competitor.

The Chinese government has offered strong support to the industry, including incentive packages and tax breaks, in the hope of emulating India's success and creating millions of jobs.
Beijing's declared goal is to create ten internationally competitive outsourcing hubs, encourage 100 multinational companies to outsource to China, and develop 1,000 Chinese outsourcing services vendors qualified to serve the global market.

China's IT services exports were worth just $9.6bn last year while India's were $49.7bn, according to CLSA, the brokerage.

At US$8.1bn, China's domestic IT services market was bigger than India's with US$5.8bn last year, according to CLSA, and many Chinese outsourcers are now increasingly looking to the local market.

What Indian Govt/Army organizations must learn from other's mistakes, its not about HP but any large IT consulting organization even the homegrown ones, once outsourced to, they all exercise a lock-in on your infrastructure which can be very difficult to shake
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08 ... rk-hostage

eh....you are still having hopes on that?

I am always hopeful...these kids have gone further than any before them.

EMC Corp unveils second global command centre in India

Leading infrastructure solutions provider EMC Corporation unveiled its second global command centre along with critical incident response centre at its India centre of excellence in Bangalore, the company said Thursday

The first global command centre supports IT services for EMC's 45,000 internal users and its vendors, partners and customers on its websites in 80 countries worldwide.

The critical incident response centre provides proactive global threat monitoring, data leakage prevention and comprehensive security incidents response and protection to enterprises.

EMC announced an additional investment of $1.5 billion for the India centre of excellence a year ago, illustrating the important role India plays in its long-term strategic plans for Asia Pacific and Japan and its global growth.

Outsourcing deals continue to be discussed

The US' anti-outsourcing tirade over the last few weeks has left Indian IT industry fuming and stroked fears that the political rhetoric may actually be indicating the direction that the largest IT export market is headed towards. Interestingly, however, most small and companies that Business Line spoke to say they are yet to see actual client behaviours being influenced by political sentiments.

Mid-size companies such as Zensar Technologies, Mascon Global and NIIT Technologies say that despite all the rhetoric, deals continue to be discussed and signed.

Indian IT cos claim they are creating jobs in the US http://in.news.yahoo.com/248/20100920/1 ... eatin.html

Far from taking away US jobs, Indian IT companies are actually creating huge employment in the US. In fact, dismissing US president Barack Obama's argument that Indian IT companies are responsible for rising unemployment, these companies say it is the shortage of talent in the US that is forcing them import talent from India.

"The fact that we are not contributing to the US economy is totally baseless. The Indian IT companies have created about 2,50,000 jobs in the US in the last three years and most of them are high paid jobs," said Ameet Nivsarkar, vice-president (global trade), the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

According to Nivsarkar, the advantage is not just in terms of cost but also in terms of knowledge base and a large talent pool that is available in India. US has a scarcity of talent base.

According to commerce minister Anand Sharma, in August itself Indian IT companies created 7,000 jobs in the US but the recent protectionist measures taken by the US, such as hiking professional visa fees, could hamper such economic activities.

Infosys employs around 12,000 people in North America, including about 1,300 US citizens and permanent residents. The company announced that it is planning to hire 1,000 more US locals during this fiscal. TCS has hired about 1,350 people in the US recently and is planning to hire more.

However, Indian IT companies are citing talent crunch in the US as one of the reasons for importing workforce from India. "Those who say that we do not hire because of the cost factor, are wrong. At present the salary of Indian IT professional is at par with the US, especially post recession. But even we are willing we find it difficult to get high skill professionals," said a senior HR manager from Infosys.

The same concern was expressed by the Cognizant Technology Solutions. The company said that it has hired about 50 recruitment staff in the US looking for IT professionals there but without much success.

The company says it is forced to import Indians on work visas. "If you look at the core of what we do, the technology work, the US simply doesn't have the talent base today," said Francisco d'Souza, president and chief executive, Cognizant, said last week. Similarly, TCS, Genpact and Wipro said that they are planning to hire more locals from the US.

According to Ken Chan, vicepresident, Moody's Investors, "The added costs of higher visa fees, if passed on to US clients, are also not likely to shift either the secular growth in outsourcing or its geographic pattern away from India to elsewhere." Moreover, it says that government- funded work represents only a small, single- digit percentage of the business of Indian IT companies, so even if other US states took up Ohio's ban, business derived just from banking and financial service firms would still dwarf the lost revenues in magnitude.

Indian IT companies are not the sole beneficiary of outsourcing. According to McKinsey, every dollar of costs the US moves offshore, it brings US a net benefit of $ 1.12 to $ 1.14, apart from benefitting them in terms of higher productivity, new export markets and a talent pool.

The Indian software companies pay over $ 1 billion each year to the US government in the form of social security for their Indian IT professionals who go for short term contract in the US.

Infosys employs around 12,000 people in North America, including about 1,300 US citizens and permanent residents. The company announced that it is planning to hire 1,000 more US locals during this fiscal. TCS has hired about 1,350 people in the US recently and is planning to hire more.

10% are US citizens. They are creating jobs in US but not for US citizens.

Actually people on H1B visa are less burden to US economy. Moreover USA consumes their SS-taxes.

EMC has built a Eisengaard of sorts on ORR named Bagmane2.0 .... this has two towers.

So how many jingos signed up for Notion Ink's early access program to their Adam Tablet, hain?

Clicky

RamaY wrote:Actually people on H1B visa are less burden to US economy. Moreover USA consumes their SS-taxes.

SS, instead of "FICA"... good choice of words.

So tablets have a new competitor. Needs to be seen if smartphones get this port too.

Microsoft porting Windows to ARM

I am awaiting a Pixel Qi Notion Ink sometime in January. See notionink dot wordpress dot com for details of the tablet, UI etc. There is a lot of info in that blog.

vera_k wrote:So tablets have a new competitor. Needs to be seen if smartphones get this port too.

Microsoft porting Windows to ARM

Er, isnt that called WinMobile 7?

nsriram wrote:I am awaiting a Pixel Qi Notion Ink sometime in January. See notionink dot wordpress dot com for details of the tablet, UI etc. There is a lot of info in that blog.

Notion Ink is a Bangalore based Indian company started by a few IIT/IIM folks 3 years back. Their product "Adam" is creating quite a storm in the Tablet world and is billed to be the true competion for "ipad". I wanted to order one, but it was sold out within a week of its release. I heard the Pixel Qi version got sold out in 2 days.

We have seen many products from India creating a lot of buzz initially and finally ending up to be a vapor ware. The $10 computer, the simputer etc comes to mind. This one seems to be real as they have actually started selling it on the market. The specs are pretty impressive and some nice innovations too, including the sensor for the camera and panel based UI. I hope the company succeeds. Will inspire a lot more kids from India and elsewhere to dream big.

Here is the link to the Indian site for the company. http://www.notionink.in

Tanaji wrote:Er, isnt that called WinMobile 7?

Yes. But that report seems to be talking about NT. The original report has this -

The software would be tailored for battery-powered devices, such as tablet computers and other handhelds, the people said.

rgsrini wrote:

nsriram wrote:I am awaiting a Pixel Qi Notion Ink sometime in January. See notionink dot wordpress dot com for details of the tablet, UI etc. There is a lot of info in that blog.

I heard the Pixel Qi version got sold out in 2 days.

It was gone in a few hours (but probably no more than a few hundred or max thousand of those on pre-order). I was probably one of the last people to get one of the Pixel Qi screen Adams. The key founder is Rohan Shravan (IIT KGP, 2007) who is an outlier in more ways than one. His blog at notionink.wordpress.com has more than 4 million views, most of them fairly recent. He has actually used a lot of input from blog readers into small aspects of the product (e.g., language on the website) and his blog has a lot of the details on how design/prototyping/manufacturing/support is done in the consumer electronics industry. See for example,
http://notionink.wordpress.com/2010/10/ ... -the-eden/