Indian IT Industry

[cdbatra]

Golden Age Of Indian IT comes to an End - Sic -

Very hard hitting article this :-

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... e-research

Recently, I read an article about this year's Google's Code Jam contest, which is a sort of Olympics for programming skills. At the qualifying stage, 17% of the contestants were Indians. By the third round, as the competition intensified, Indians were down to 0.7%.

Although India began with the highest number of participants, just three Indians lasted till round three, compared to 83 Chinese, 77 Russians, 36 Japanese, 25 Americans, 21 Poles, 13 Belarusians, 11 South Koreans etc. In fact, the code Olympics look much like the sports Olympics. So much for the IT superpower.

I wounder we lost the script somewhere.

[hnair]

Indians should conduct code-jams, not participate

[pgbhat]

^Code Jam would not be the best method to benchmark IT skills.
Would suggest that we do not go down the route of H&D loss due to a competition etc. You see, money talks and competitions are worth just that much.

As far as bench-marking IT skills based just a single code-jam is concerned you are correct. However it would be good to see desis win.

[ArmenT]

Golden Age Of Indian IT comes to an End - Sic -

Very hard hitting article this :-

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... e-research

Recently, I read an article about this year's Google's Code Jam contest, which is a sort of Olympics for programming skills. At the qualifying stage, 17% of the contestants were Indians. By the third round, as the competition intensified, Indians were down to 0.7%.

Although India began with the highest number of participants, just three Indians lasted till round three, compared to 83 Chinese, 77 Russians, 36 Japanese, 25 Americans, 21 Poles, 13 Belarusians, 11 South Koreans etc. In fact, the code Olympics look much like the sports Olympics. So much for the IT superpower.

I wounder we lost the script somewhere.

India was never in the script saar. The vast majority of Indian students don't bother to learn anything outside of course-work or as part of a job. They have a lot of theoretical knowledge, but lack the skills or experience to apply them. That experience only comes to them when they start working in some IT company, because almost no one wants to put any extra effort and see how things are done, when they're in college. This is why they tend to be rather late-bloomers in the IT field. Indian students in a code-contest are like fish out of water.

By the way, this sort of attitude also continues outside of school unfortunately. For example, in my local perl mongers meetings, the only yindoo in the last 8 years of meetings has been me (and mind you, I'm not really much of a perl programmer anyway). And in case you're thinking that maybe Indians are largely java jockeys, not perl monkeys, my company has started to hold java enthusiasts meetings as well and there's only one other Indian guy (who was an ex-amgen employee) who attends. Mind you, the downstairs office and the one across the road (both major companies) have IT departments heavily loaded with Indians, but all of them seem to be interested in only doing 9-5 job and then going home for mijjile-maalish session instead of gaining knowledge for knowledge's sake.

Just my 2 cents.

Incidentally, IT course syllabus in Indian colleges might also need some improvements. For instance, the vast majority of Indian colleges seem to use Turbo-C 1.0 or 2.0 to teach C programming. Not only is the compiler somewhat non-standard, it also generates code for a long obsolete OS.

[svinayak]

Indian CS course can be upgraded without much capitol investment!

[vina]

TOI(let) is claiming that Most Revered has taken a bite of Fruit for annual run rate of around 1400 FTE / $65 to $100m per annum.

Also, looks like Revered was involved in developing quite a few apps for iThings and had hand in iCloud. They had an ODC for Fruit long long ago, where they did development for Fruit long ago, so it is not a new relationship, but actually quite an old one.

[Singha]

but Fruit always like to keep its pure tfta all-american image with no riff raff offshore centers and zeal against outsourcing ... "we design our own screws and mix our own white paint" strong square jawed posture.

be interesting to see if this news item gets carried on international media or whether appl imposes a gag order...and the reaction of appl fanboys on forums to see the dal roti in their soup heh heh

[Rishirishi]

[quote="ArmenT"][quote="cdbatra"]Golden Age Of Indian IT comes to an End - Sic -

Very hard hitting article this :-


Sir I believe that the problem lies within the education system. Indian education system is very exam-focussed. The pressure is so great that students are forced to mug mug mug. There is no time left for developing a passion and interest in the stuff you do. Not only that, they fail to develop social and physical skills.

A lost childhood, bad health and maturity problems are the result.

[Sachin]

Sir I believe that the problem lies within the education system. Indian education system is very exam-focussed.

+1 to that. Many of the IT-Vity folks (especially in the recruit to 1-2 years experience) seems to have no conceptual ideas about software engeering. All claim to be experts in C and Java, but what I could make out was that they just mugged up what was taught to them in their Engineering colleges. And that was purely to clear the exams. What surprised me even further was that many of these folks have scored 70%-80% marks*. So I dont think they come in with a very innovative mind. The plan seems to be to get into some IT-Vity Major (colonel or brigadier) with a pay packet which enable them to buy the latest electronic gadgets.

I read a news article in one of the Malayalam dailies. There is a deluge of privately managed Engineering colleges in the "communist heaven of Kerala". So this means that pretty much every one who gets a decent mark in the entrance exams land up in any one of these. The government now says that the pass percentage from these colleges are even worse. The news article says that, people complete the course with 7-10 out standing papers to be cleared. Some get thrown out at this stage, others mug up even further to clear the backlog.

And what next? These 'Engineers' then start trying for banks and other PSU jobs, mainly as clerks. The author had one advice for the parents as well. They also should get out of this Engineer or Doctor mind set.

* This percentage is still a dream for me. I was more on the 40%-60% range.

[Vipul]

What can one expect when anyone passing +2 is assured admission in engineering collage (ther are 671 Pvt Engg colleges in AP and another 500+ in TN, Maharashtra with Karnataka not far behind).

[Bade]

^^^ but what about the top 5% in the best even, how come they do not come up on top in these competitions ? Of course, I am quoting the usual wisdom that the top 5% has to be good, irrespective of the quality of the institutions they attend, but based solely on the quality entrance tests of any flavor that is used to admit even the top 5%.

[SaiK]

All these extran engineering colleges is not based on genuine needs, but created by market forces. people who really love to prove themselves with such education is 5% perhaps, and the added reason for poor show in competitions [while the real needy might not have qualified by way of the enterance exams].

for many, >80% of people do engineering just for qualifying factor filtering out requirements for parental arranged marriage. hamara beta/beti needs a equal match. all for better name and to satisfy self needs. goals and objectives are totally different for the >80%.

[negi]

^^^ but what about the top 5% in the best even, how come they do not come up on top in these competitions ? Of course, I am quoting the usual wisdom that the top 5% has to be good, irrespective of the quality of the institutions they attend, but based solely on the quality entrance tests of any flavor that is used to admit even the top 5%.

One reason which comes to my mind is; folks who are good hackers or even good at winning such code jams are essentially the types who love to create and crack code for the love of it not because it has a monetary/materialistic value attached to it however our system does not do a good job of promoting such folks up for this bunch might not necessarily confirm to widely accepted definition of what qualifies as a good student. Majority in our system today opt for CS stream because of the ITVTY boom and not because they wanted to study CS in the first place, a huge number of applicants for CS will mean the cut offs will filter a lot of potential prodigies who might be good at hacking code but might not necessarily do well in the entrance tests.

[vera_k]

^^^

That doesn't make sense. India is a socialist country with the government being the largest part of the economy. Indians would be expected to be overrepresented in commie movements like Wikipedia, free software, code jams and such, where the monetary motive is not paramount.

[negi]

^Boss code jams these days are these supposedly 'cool' events conducted by chi chi institutes ; as far as India is concerned mostly Engg colleges conduct/participate in suc events, hence my post IMHO is relevant.

[vera_k]

Doesn't change the fact that this argument is really reaching for an explanation. You'd imagine that at least someone from the IIT system would be able to win, given that the Tsinghua folks have won twice.

Simpler explanation is that quality of Indian education needs to be improved across the board from middle school onwards.

[Singha]

of the UG CS batch in iit cawnpore I was exposed to, out of around 28 students there were around 5 who could be considered extremely versatile in all respects and another one a single individual who was prodigiously good at maths (and hence had a low GPA because they did not score highly in rest of subjects). now these 5 would have been successful in whatever they wanted to do - afaik 3 ended up post Phd in corporate r&d , 1 became a prof in a top3 univ.......the rest were very good but not necessarily interested in CS .... some went to IIM, some in big3 consulting, some into Mba in massa, one into operations research, some must be in industry ...I dunno what became of the maths prodigy...he could not get MS in any good univ in Massa due to low overall GPA, I believe he was interested either in doing a phd locally or in civil services.

so thats the scene.....people dont get into CSE here because they wanted to be in CSE. first , regardless of what you want, you need to clear the JEE with a very high rank, then based on the prevailing winds of the day you go for either EE/CSE which is what 90% of top rankers go for...then you make a meal of it in 3rd and 4th yr once the subjects really start...if you dont like the meal tough luck...look out for other options and end the CSE/EE business the day one passes out or write a good SOP, do a chalu MS , work for 1-2 yrs and then go for MBA ....

p.s. I am not blaming anyone concerned, but perhaps the "advance college placement courses" and generally better adhunik high tech infra in khan high schools give students some exposure to engineering and what they'd really like to do?

branch changing also seems very rife in Khan UG level....a lot of people simply drop out...and a lot change branches....branch changing is VERY competitive in IITs AND NITs and again onlee the top rankers in 1st yr exams get the chance...is it restricted in Massa or they have better buffer capacity to welcome new believers in the 2nd yr? in my days just around 2 people from other branches might get into ECE or CSE in 2nd yr via branch change....this I have seen in NIT for sure and heard about it in iit.

[Bade]

Isn't it ironic that if someone who did poorly in his weak area in the first year cannot get an appropriate branch change to something where his strong points may lie. So he/she continues to do poorly and eventually seek the MBA generalist route out. This is where the Indian system fails, even after post entrance exams.

[hnair]

As one passes through the bowels of western systems, one realizes that as a country, it is better to conduct code-jams than participate in one
If you organize these thingies, you can pontificate endlessly and at the same time reel in some smart fish that took your bait....er, "prize". You can later serve up the winner as expensive sushi later. These jams are like those lanterns they put on top of the Kerala fishing nets, to attract fish

Bade-saar/Singha-saar, I sort of dislike the prep-school/feeder school thingies for TFTA univs, but am a huge, huge fan of the Community college system in massaland. geez... it is an entire educational system based on test-driving a few subjects per quarter and help choosing what to delve into deeper! And what is even more nice is that it is dirt cheap and its credits are bona-fide for even TFTA univs.

If there is one thing that I would love to see in India, is this local community college style part-time (or full-time) and inexpensive govt/state schools that don't give out a degree as such, but provides credits that are acceptable towards full degrees. If we have evening time classes on various non-IT disciplines, I am sure a lot of mid-level IT-vity munnas (who had no choices when they jumped unhappily into careers) jaded by the rat-races would explore new areas that they always wanted to explore. Including, arts, political science, music, drama, soap-making.....whatever. People would leave their office-desks faster or get off their fat-asses off from in front of TVs and flourish. The evening tutors could be professors from more formal universities, who want to moonlight a bit. Heck, even industry can provide feedbacks for fast-turnarounds that is needed to increase talent pool for a hot new area!

khan's post-PG research and community colleges are "hi-lo" systems to study in depth, IMHO.

[Vayutuvan]

khan's post-PG research and community colleges are "hi-lo" systems to study in depth, IMHO.

hnair ji, while I disagree on one of the points you make (more later), a +1 for community colleges. Some community colleges have campuses, libraries and lab facilities that would put even some engineering colleges in India to shame. By the way, they do offer associate degrees.

[Vikas]

Folks,
I desire for a job where I get to travel for 1/3 of the time while I work from my home office for rest of the time. The travels are shorter and not more than 3-4 weeks at a stretch. Outside sales, what kind of a role should I be scouting for ?
Proper consulting with big 5 or Desi-4 does not work because thats what I am doing currently and it requires me to be away from home for months together.

[pgbhat]

^Solutions engineer for a product company??

[SRoy]

^Code Jam would not be the best method to benchmark IT skills.
Would suggest that we do not go down the route of H&D loss due to a competition etc. You see, money talks and competitions are worth just that much.

Very short sighted view.
Money talks? So why should we pay obscene amount of money for an OS license or a RDBMS license (plus add up years of maintenace cost) to foreign MNCs? Think of large GoI projects, funded from your and mine tax monies.

One fallout of your point of view (shared by so-called IT companies) is that there has not been independent product development by companies big or small.

To be fair its not just the companies but the "IT workers" in India that are responsible. Someone above pointed out that the IT crowd are content with 9-5 working hours. Well they do spend extra hours off normal times or over weekends when forced by bosses (that in turn are incompetent to plan realistic project schedules).

But computer science as a subject are not of any interest to these people. Despite earning fat pay-packets that allows an affluent lifestyles most do not have a decent personal computer and a good internet connection at home, in other professions any professional will have such "tools of trade" at his/her disposal. But they have money for really obscenely priced smart phones and tablets. Such is the committment towards profession.

Yes, desi companies have monetized IT but the overall directions of industry remains with innovators. We will remain followers and fight for crumbs that is passed off as IT work; an industry full of con artists and crooks.

[Vipul]

Far from Silicon Valley, tech industry finds an oracle.

Anand Shimpi is one of the most influential tech industry figures you've never heard of.

From his start as a teenager building PCs for students and faculty at a college in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, he's become one of the semiconductor industry's most closely watched reviewers. His website, AnandTech.com, is all about product performance, plain and simple.

Shimpi measures exactly how fast the latest Intel processor really is, how quickly that graphics chip will render the latest video game, how long that laptop battery will last.

At age 30, Shimpi is courted by technology executives and followed by Wall Street analysts keen to hear his well-informed product views. He briefs Intel executives, dines with Asian PC executives and commands a loyal following of tech enthusiasts, with AnandTech.com drawing 12 million unique visitors per month.

His workbench at his home in Raleigh is cluttered with high-end storage drives, laptops and recently released tablets, one of them playing a Harry Potter movie in an endless loop. A storage room is filled with hundreds of other products shipped to him over the years, and he says UPS drops more gear off almost every day.

"All of this is used in one form or another," Shimpi says, gesturing toward the stacks of equipment.

Poor marks in one of his so-called benchmark reviews, focusing strictly on performance data, can mean trouble for a new product.

And because Shimpi amasses performance data on a wide range of chips and other products, he sometimes has more insight in certain areas than companies' own design engineers, said Alex Mei, chief marketing officer for enterprise storage vendor OCZ Technology .

"His criticism carries more weight," said Mei. "He really has a bead on what his readers are looking for."

Indeed, OCZ altered the design of a solid-state drive a couple years ago to take into account Shimpi's suggestions about how customers would likely use the product.

AnandTech is not alone in the benchmark review business; sites including The Tech Report and Tom's Hardware have a similar obsession with performance data, though smaller followings.

But many chip executives, Wall Street investors and technically minded consumers see Shimpi's meticulously collected test results as the most authoritative and highly trustable.

Dozens of widely read blogs write more subjective - and often more easily digestible - reviews of laptops, phones and tablets based to a large degree on how much the reviewer likes the product. Increasingly, those reviewers conduct limited tests of their own, using "off the shelf" benchmark tools.

Still others make mention of Shimpi's data, painstakingly collected using proprietary tests he has developed over the years.

"We have known Anand for a long time," Jonney Shih, chairman of the big Taiwanese computer-maker Asus <2357.TW>, told Reuters by email. "We definitely share a passion for technology and we respect his in-depth knowledge and the thorough testing that he does."

Today, reviewers are turning to benchmark tests to evaluate the chips, touch screens and batteries in the latest tablets and smarpthones, a fast-growing market in which Apple , Samsung <005930.KS>, Intel, Qualcomm and others are competing fiercely.

But the niche business made its mark during the personal computer boom of the 1990s, when chipmakers fought for bragging rights about everything from clock speeds to latency.

Developing scientific ways to verify manufacturers' claims and compare the performance of motherboards, processors and other components became a hobby among a small group of tech enthusiasts.

Data was compiled in reviews and posted on websites where they were read by legions of other technophiles, who in turn have become an important target for tech industry marketers.

"They're the decision makers, influencers, guys who work in IT jobs during the day and play games at night, that people go to for advice when they have questions about technology," Chris Angelini, who started reviewing PC parts while at college and is now editor of Tom's Hardware, said of his readers.

As they gained attention in the industry, the benchmark reviewers grew more sophisticated - and attracted yet more attention from industry watchers.

Stock analysts, for one, have come to rely on the data when projecting product sales.

"We don't have tools to go out and measure these things ourselves, so we depend on independent third parties to take the devices and tell us things like what does the performance look like and how does it stack up relative to the competition," said Shawn Webster, a chip analyst at Macquarie.

This year, stock analysts have cited AnandTech measurements in more than 70 reports about Intel, Nvidia and other chipmakers.

With AnandTech attracting a large, specialized audience of cutting edge techies, it has plenty of advertising. The website has more than a dozen reviewers and editors, and has done well enough to make Shimpi a wealthy man.

The rise of smartphones and tablets has presented some new challenges to performance testers, but those devices have also created demand for more reviews. Shimpi believes he can continue to prosper by sticking to a simple mantra.

"What are they not telling me?" he regularly asks, referring to the companies whose devices he tests.

Shimpi recently demonstrated how he works, running scripted videogame sequences on a MacBook Air to test the performance of its graphics chip. That's just one example of several tests he runs on each device he reviews. The Harry Potter movie playing over and over on a Google Nexus 7 tablet was part of a test to document its battery life.

Shimpi carries out measurements several times for each device, with the results feeding spreadsheets with thousands of data points. It's a never-ending process as Shimpi adds new products to his database and runs new benchmarks on older ones.

Chip executives have embraced the most professional of the benchmark reviewers and ship them samples of their new products, often ahead of their release. In return, they get objective feedback.

"We literally go into every review site in the world we can find, and our teams read the reviews, and they decide internally whether it was a good review for us or a good review for the competition," Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive of chipmaker Nvidia , told investors at a conference in May.

To make sure his reviews are ready in time for product launches, Shimpi pulls all-nighters and lays out his testing gear in hotel rooms during his frequent travels.

"If you put in an honest seven days of work - I'm not saying eight hours a day or less, I'm saying if you don't sleep for a couple of nights, and that's all you live and breath and do - I think it's possible to deliver a good review within that seven-day period," Shimpi said.

"Anything less and you start making sacrifices."

Evaluating PC processors is a matter of connecting them to one of the motherboards on Shimpi's table and running standard tests established over a decade ago. Testing the components in a mobile device like an iPad is trickier because it cannot easily be opened up and tinkered with.

To adapt, reviewers are resorting to some decidedly low-tech tools like stopwatches and cameras to measure the quality of tablet displays, how quickly web pages load, and battery life.

Soon after his start in high school building PCs for students and faculty at Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, where his father taught computer science, Shimpi created a website and started writing about components. He quickly gained a following with a rapidly growing niche of PC enthusiasts.

"I would build the PC for free and then say I want to review this stuff before I give you your computer," Shimpi said. "As I got popular, a couple of resellers wanted to put ads on my site. So I gave them ad spots in return for more hardware to review."

As the website grew, Shimpi started getting invitations to visit with companies and attend trade shows. Self-conscious about his age, he wore suits to meetings.

AnandTech soon made the teenager financially independent. He went on to study computer engineering at North Carolina State University while continuing to build his business.

Today he stills wears a suit to meetings and trade shows - sometimes accompanied by sneakers. He deliberately maintains a distance between his personal life and the tech world, even if that means frequent, long flights to Silicon Valley to visit chip execs.

His sprawling house, which he had built, includes a storage room for the parts companies have sent him over the years. It also includes a professional-quality home theater, carefully designed with the help of a reader and controlled by a computer Shimpi cobbled together for the task.

Plastic guitars and drums - the virtual instruments of the Rock Band videogame - are strewn across a sofa but Shimpi complains that he and his girlfriend, a sculptor who lives with him, are too busy to play much.

He takes phone calls from investors who pay him for his advice and spends more and more time hunkered down with design engineers. But Shimpi says his main focus will remain AnandTech's readers - the sort of tech fans who spend hours reading up on new products before deciding which to buy.

"I don't care so much how this affects the companies," Shimpi said. "They're going to be okay. It's the guy putting $200 down that he worked really hard for, and some guy he's never met is telling him he should do that. They're the reason I get to do this."

[SriKumar]

Slightly OT for IT but....

branch changing also seems very rife in Khan UG level.....and a lot change branches....

It the system allows it, this is the natural thing to do...typically, one is not expected to know with 100% surety that one will spend the next 3-4 years studying EE or ChemE. The first 1-2 years of UG, the student is expected to learn phycs/chem/math courses and feel out different areas by taking intro. courses in areas of interest, and after that pick the course of study. (Asking one to decide the branch even before they start the first day of classes i.e. on counseling day, is asking a lot). And even after they are well into the course of study, they can change their minds and switch the major field of study.Of course, this means that the student 'loses time' doing pre-requisite courses for the new/related field.

....a lot of people simply drop out..

True...and this makes eminent sense too. If you start taking courses in circuits and find it difficult/unappealing, would you still want to continue in this area. The entry barriers are not too high, but once you are in, the courses are not easy to pass and your grades reflect your competence in the area. The first 1-2 years are a weeding out process and the courses are made tough. If you can not cut it there, your grades tell your story and you have a decision to make.....work harder, change majors/fields or drop out.

branch changing is VERY competitive in IITs AND NITs and again onlee the top rankers in 1st yr exams get the chance...is it restricted in Massa or they have better buffer capacity to welcome new believers in the 2nd yr?

competitive because Desh has a heirarchy in fields of study. CSE > Electronics > EE/Mech> Mech/EE> Civil > Metallurgy > ChemE > Ceramics (dont know if this scale of TFTA-ness still holds or has been revamped). massa does have a buffer capacity but this subject-matter heirarchy seems missing, or atleast, it is watered down (atleast in engg). For some reason,in Desh CSE has always been # 1, even before the IT boom.

[SRoy]

^^
Marten,

It really doesn't matter if Google organizes a code jam or not. Can Infy/Wipro et. al. organize one? What I'm pointing out is sheer lack of interest towards the profession, by companies and workers alike.

I'm not putting down our IT workers. But really talented desi IT folks need a good homes in form of desi product companies. As an Indian one wishes to see intellectual property being generated and owned by Indians. Since you talk of money, monetizing intellectual property via license fee feeds you well for years one, profit margin is too high. And this profit is higher in order of magnitude of what is earned from low end system integration and maintenance work.

[negi]

Folks,
I desire for a job where I get to travel for 1/3 of the time while I work from my home office for rest of the time. The travels are shorter and not more than 3-4 weeks at a stretch. Outside sales, what kind of a role should I be scouting for ?
Proper consulting with big 5 or Desi-4 does not work because thats what I am doing currently and it requires me to be away from home for months together.

Well if one is willing to stay in the trenches with the boys i.e. R&D, product development or say even in performance engineering then in most of the cases you won't have to travel at all . However the moment you drift towards the side which is more customer facing be it sales, implementation/integration one cannot avoid travelling.

[negi]

Doesn't change the fact that this argument is really reaching for an explanation. You'd imagine that at least someone from the IIT system would be able to win, given that the Tsinghua folks have won twice.

Simpler explanation is that quality of Indian education needs to be improved across the board from middle school onwards.

Well yes it does; writing code in a lot of ways is just like writing a poem. One might be a very good student of a language and yet he or she might not be able to necessarily write a good poem; same is true with writing code i.e. knowing a programming language and it's construct does not necessarily mean that one will be able to write 'elegant' code (working yes).

People who write beautiful poetry or elegant code can do so because they apart from thinking on different lines love their craft and not merely because it pays well (that can be a reason but not the primary driver); the point I made in my first post was; in our country given the rigours of the selection system and ratio of seats in decent colleges to applicants there is a high likelyhood of a significant percentage of candidates never getting to pursue their dreams.

[vera_k]

This contest is about writing code or "art" only tangentially, and much more about math, logic, and algorithms. I would imagine anybody who does not do a fair job in the last three would not be allowed to get even an undergraduate degree in the field. But clearly they are, and if the standard of education was better, we'd have more people getting filtered out, and many more trained to a higher standard.

[Gus]

is it restricted in Massa or they have better buffer capacity to welcome new believers in the 2nd yr? in my days just around 2 people from other branches might get into ECE or CSE in 2nd yr via branch change....this I have seen in NIT for sure and heard about it in iit.

My experience is in PG in massa, from what I observed, people get admitted to a program and they don't have a structured first yr course, second yr course and so on. Typically there are some core courses (and its pre-reqs) that are mandatory for the program, then some courses for an optional specialization (if available) and a whole bunch of electives that may or may not be related to your core and specialization.

This allows them a lot of freedom to try out different courses (some allow you to even drop classes and pick something else if you find it too hard or it not for you), move between disciplines and move between colleges as well.

It is truly land of the free and home of the brave in that respect, coming in from India - where I did not even have my say in picking my UG, did not get my first choice. And then after a semester, they moved me up to another discipline because of some seats becoming available there. I was not asked if I wanted to move. It was just posted on a notice board and somebody told me.

I rounded up some fellow 'victims' (couple of friends were transferred out of mech to chemical and leather etc - a disaster for them) and petitioned the VC and basically showed our sorry faces to him every time he passed by until he could take no more and rescinded the transfer for those who did not like it. It has become better in TN with counseling etc. It used to be horrible earlier.

[pgbhat]

My experience is in PG in massa, from what I observed, people get admitted to a program and they don't have a structured first yr course, second yr course and so on. Typically there are some core courses (and its pre-reqs) that are mandatory for the program, then some courses for an optional specialization (if available) and a whole bunch of electives that may or may not be related to your core and specialization.

In my PG I hardly studied anything related to my BE stuff. Entire course was mostly operations research, statistics/probability and economics.

[Vikas]

Folks,
I desire for a job where I get to travel for 1/3 of the time while I work from my home office for rest of the time. The travels are shorter and not more than 3-4 weeks at a stretch. Outside sales, what kind of a role should I be scouting for ?
Proper consulting with big 5 or Desi-4 does not work because thats what I am doing currently and it requires me to be away from home for months together.

Well if one is willing to stay in the trenches with the boys i.e. R&D, product development or say even in performance engineering then in most of the cases you won't have to travel at all . However the moment you drift towards the side which is more customer facing be it sales, implementation/integration one cannot avoid travelling.

..And Yes, I want to get out of trenches and move to the Darker side preferably in Sales. Target is to learn something about sales/customers before I start my own venture in next 1 years time.

[Multatuli]

It's not really related to Indian ICT, but it's nevertheless important. Alert others.

Criminals push malware by 'losing' USB sticks in parking lots

Summary: Here's a case of corporate espionage you've probably never heard before: infiltrating a corporation by "losing" malware-infected USB sticks in the company's parking lot. Thankfully for this multinational chemicals firm, the attempt failed miserably.

Cybercriminals recently attempted to infiltrate DSM, a multinational chemicals firm, by 'losing' malware-infected USB sticks in the company's parking lots. Thankfully for DSM, an employee who found one of the USB sticks dropped it off at the IT department, which in turn found spyware on the device, issued a warning, and collected the remaining USB devices.

Unfortunately, details on this story are scarce. For example, it's unclear what malware was used in the attack. All we know is that its purpose was to steal usernames and passwords, according to Dutch news site Limburger. DSM also blocked the IP addresses which the malware communicates with and sends stolen data to.

A DSM spokesperson said the company did not report the incident to the police because it was a rather clumsy attempt at data theft. Furthermore, the corporate espionage effort did not result in any damage.

This is a failed case of curiosity killed the cat. The perpetrators were clearly hoping that employees would plug in a found USB device to see what was on it. By that point, it would already be game over.

Frankly I think this is an ingenious way to infiltrate a company and something tells me it's not the first time it has been attempted. From what I gather, it's simply the first time that the method was discovered and easily thwarted.

It's hard to say if the employee in question let the IT department check the USB device because he or she was being cautious, or just wasn't curious. I know I would check the device myself without hesitation, though I would probably use my own computer, not one from work. Actually, that would probably depend on the time I found it: it would make sense for the criminals to "lose" the devices in the morning as opposed to the evening. Anyway, I'll definitely think twice when finding a USB device now, and so should you.

http://www.zdnet.com/criminals-push-mal ... 000000729/

[Vipul]

India plans fastest supercomputer by 2017.

The government has drawn a blueprint for developing the next generation of supercomputers that could be 61 times faster than existing machines.

Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal is understood to have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sharing the roadmap to develop "petaflop and exaflop range of supercomputers" at an estimated cost of Rs 4,700 crore over 5 years.

"In his (Sibal) letter, he has said that C-DAC has developed a proposal with a roadmap to develop a petaflop and exaflop range of supercomputers in the country with an outlay of Rs 4,700 crore," a government official said.

A petaflop is a measure of a computer s processing speed and can be expressed as a thousand trillion floating point operations per second. Exaflop is one quintillion computer operations per second. Simply put, one exaflop is thousand times faster than one petaflop.

The fastest supercomputer in the world, Sequoia, has registered a top computing speed of 16.32 petaflops which is equivalent of computing of power from over 7.8 lakhs high-end laptops put together.

If the Indian government approves building exaflop supercomputers, these will be at least 61 times faster than Sequoia, officials said.

India's top supercomputer at present ranks 58th globally in terms of computing speed.

Sibal has cited the past record of Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) which was set up in 1987 by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi after technologically advanced nations denied supply of supercomputer to India in mid-1980s.

"The Minister has written that C-DAC developed first supercomputers in the country, the PARAM series. Presently Param Yuva with 54 teraflop computing power is serving many researchers through Garuda Computing Grid," the official said.

Sibal has proposed that Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) should be given tasks to coordinate overall supercomputing activities in the country as it has been done in the past.

The proposal made in the letter says that DEITY should be given tasks to set up a National Apex Committee to oversee the implementation of the proposed Supercomputing Mission and C- DAC should establish peta and exascale supercomputing facilities and development activities.

[svinayak]

http://www.cioinsight.com/it-management ... 012STR2TOC

CIOs: Foreign Nationals Are the Answer to Your Labor Shortage
Posted 10-09-2012
Foreign nationals are well-educated, motivated and could just be the solution to your staffing challenges.

By Mark J. Schiller

Recruiting (and retaining) high-quality IT staff has always been a challenge for CIOs. But it’s about to become an absolute nightmare.

Over the past 12 months numerous private and public institutions, including the U.S. Congress's Joint Economic Committee, have published reports highlighting the growing gap between the number of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs that need to be filled in the U.S. and the diminishing number of qualified STEM graduates.
And don't expect the situation to get better any time soon. Despite the efforts of a few innovative educators to build interest in the sciences, the vast majority of US educational institutions continue to see a decrease in STEM degrees. The situation has become so bad that in some cities high-tech companies are partnering with local high schools to build a competent work force.
That approach may work for a few mighty high-tech firms but what about the rest of the IT world? How are the rest of us supposed to recruit the right talent to succeed in the coming years?

Well, it turns out that the answer is literally right under our noses. I’m referring of course to the large number of well educated and highly motivated foreign nationals with STEM degrees that are eager to work and live in the U.S.—many of whom are graduates of U.S. institutions and currently reside in the U.S.



The problem it seems is that the combination of misinformation, poor experiences with some overseas contractors and the general anti-immigration bias of our political leadership has made the idea of specifically targeting foreign nationals a non-starter. But sorting out fact from fiction and navigating this situation in order to prosper is possible … at least for a little while until others catch on.



Strategy #1: Target foreign students studying at U.S. colleges and universities.



This is truly a no-brainer. Most employers don’t know this but any international student studying in the U.S. can obtain a one-year Optional Practical Training (OPT) employment authorization document to work in a related field. STEM graduates (because of the shortage) are entitled to 29 months. Here’s the best part: You, the employer, don't have to do a thing. No forms, no paperwork.


What a gift. You get nearly two and half years to evaluate, grow and develop a U.S.-educated resource. That gives you plenty of time to decide whether you want to sponsor them for an H-1B visa or possibly even Lawful Permanent Resident (popularly known as a “Green Card”). And since this is the goal of many foreigners who study in the U.S., imagine the motivation they bring to work every day.



Strategy #2 - Seek out foreign nationals already in the U.S.



Of course recent graduates won’t always be the answer to your staffing needs. What then? This is when you will need to reach for the H-1B visa category. The problem: There is a cap on the number of these visas issued every year (currently about 65,000). The cap for 2012 has already been reached.



So, while there may be many fine candidates from around the world that can qualify for this category of visa, your best bet is to seek out foreign nationals who are already in the U.S. That’s because once they have been approved for one H-1B visa they do not get counted again for purposes of the cap when transferring to a new employer.



So don’t be drawn in by the fabulous resumes being shown to you by overseas employment agencies. They may indeed have wonderful candidates but the likelihood of getting them an H-1B visa is far less than for a similar candidate that is already here.



Strategy #3 - Go after the very best and brightest in their home countries.



If you're a company that has meaningful work for real rocket scientists (not regular old Computer Science guys like me), then you have another option. It’s called the EB-1 visa and it’s designed for individuals with exceptional skills or talent. No jokes here. You really have to be world-class to qualify for this visa.



This visa has a stringent set of criteria and has a higher threshold than other visa categories and should only be considered for genuinely world-class candidates.



This ain’t politics, It’s business.



Let the politicians rage on about how the fence with Mexico and implications of immigration on the future of America. As an IT leader you know the truth—that we (that's you, me and the American economy overall) need the best and the brightest from around the world to succeed in the hyper-competitive tech field.


Don’t be shy going after the accomplished and competent foreign nationals. You need them for your operational success and your company’s bottom line.

[Cosmo_R]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 76700.html

"U.S. officials have long considered Iran as a second-tier cyberpower, behind China, Russia, France, Israel and the United States. They now are debating the extent to which Iran has the capability to damage the financial system and other U.S. infrastructure. "

So where's India? Home of IT? Seems instead of the Brahmos solution to everything, we ought to think about cyber war. Iran seems to have spent ~$1 billion to gain a cyber attack capability.

[Singha]

I have observed that france and israel are routinely accused of industrial espionage against US entities for commercial and military gain. russia and china were anyways in that game from day1. perhaps our dharmic leaders have forbade whatever assets we have from going against the khan, and that accounts for the "rating".

[Yagnasri]

Sorry sir, See all the Hindi Movies - U will know how good we are at copying Khan movies.

Seriously we are doing low end jobs and confortable for that. We can not find even a single Compute lingo develpoed by a Indian Company in world wide use. In fact I do not know any one major lingo or programme any Indian company made. We do low cost low end work and ok with it. Just like Cheap garments

[Arjun]

Seriously we are doing low end jobs and confortable for that. We can not find even a single Compute lingo develpoed by a Indian Company in world wide use. In fact I do not know any one major lingo or programme any Indian company made. We do low cost low end work and ok with it. Just like Cheap garments

Other than revealing the state of your ignorance, not sure if your statement has much else of value in it.

India is second only the US in most areas of enterprise software products or services.

[Vayutuvan]

Enterprise software services may be but sorry not products - enterprise or otherwise.