Bharat Rakshak

markos wrote:here is an article on SEI CMM ratings from CIO magazine
http://www.cio.com/article/32138/Softwa ... ype?page=1

After a few initial niceties, the executive leaned across the table to Smith and another lead appraiser who had accompanied her to the meeting and asked, "How much for a Level 2?"

"That’s when I got up and left the room," Smith recalls. "The other appraiser stayed. And the company got its rating."
....
Indeed, CIOs who look to CMM for guarantees won’t find them, says Rick Harris, director of application development for OnStar, a division of GM that provides communications inside the company’s vehicles. He recalls confronting a manager from one of his CMM Level 5 offshore outsourcing companies who did not know how to do a testing plan for software. "My people had to train him to do it," he says. On another occasion, Harris’s staff discovered that the offshore provider had fallen far behind schedule in one of its projects but had not told him. "You’d think a Level 5 company would have told me months before that the schedule was slipping and we needed to do something," he says.

Like gartner and TPI that vina quoted, SEI is also very reputable....

CMM appraisal business is a big time racket going on.

Sometime, I get a feeling that it was designed by goras to keep us Indians busy. It has ended up killing productivity big time. In some places the daily nagging by QA process Nazis is alarming.

vina wrote:

Most of these companies have questionable ethics ... Most of these companies do doctor resumes of candidates

Hello ? . I am not talking about your company's ethics and your resume, which may fall under "most". I am talking about some specific companies, where if you or someone else on your behalf puts in false resumes or misrepresents in a bid , you are fired. Got it?

Rather rude, but to the point. A fallacy (displayed by many here on BRF as well) as that every business is devoid of ethics. It is just not true. Fraudalent business practices are simply not sustainable.

Injuns need to circle the wigwams and fire back at the cavalry. This is not the time to go into std vs non-std processes or Wipro/Satyam are/were doing the right things. At least not on a national security oriented forum. All the processes in this world are there to make a large crowd of people compliant to an agenda in a non-disruptive manner. In private sector, the agenda is profit. but elsewhere, it is sometimes somethinig else.

Right now, something did not check out. We need to figure out why World Bank, an american establishment pillar is doing this targeting in a rather focused fashion. It has everything to do with these firms being Indian. Somewhere in South Block, someone did not agree to accept a part of the tab of wall street. As I mentioned before, this might be our Recruit Cosmo moment and will need some deft work in the media by the Indian establishment/businesses. This has to be handled carefully by India.

Yes they are crooks but WB is acting on some other agenda. I think it legitimizes curbs on out-sourcing by incoming new Admin. Either way India Inc takes hit for software was supposed to be the take off industry for the knowledge economy.

Interesting comments on this blog post. Why is there so much support for Raju? Because he's our SOB?

http://www.pluggd.in/indian-it-industry ... bsite-3448

Abhijeet wrote:Interesting comments on this blog post. Why is there so much support for Raju? Because he's our SOB?

http://www.pluggd.in/indian-it-industry ... bsite-3448

Something doesnt add up and if you know Andhra poliitics its like Raju was pointing to something. He seems to have wanted a probe by his ridiculous statements.

try to read the politicsparty site.

It is extremely complex. As per hearsay is that Raju paid to the tune of 1500Cr bribe to AP -CM to get something done and the one he paid for did not materialize. He played a role of let me teach a lesson to politcians and investors. I do not know all this is speculation or he is just foolish. I have a feeling that someone else's goose is being cooked.

The new CEO Ram Mynampati is respected extremely well and everyone thinks that Satyam is what it is because of this guy. He grew it all the way in terms of number of verticals and also customers. The sharpest gents gets dented in this image shifting situation.

I think most of the people commenting on that blog in support of Raju are probably doing so because of state or caste affinity rather than anything deeper.

I was just surprised that someone who is clearly dishonest, and has probably caused many small investors to lose their hard-earned money, is still thought of as some paragon of virtue at least by a few people.

Abhijeet wrote:I think most of the people commenting on that blog in support of Raju are probably doing so because of state or caste affinity rather than anything deeper.

Not sure if this is purely coincidental, when I clicked that link, I saw an ad from "Sogeti" at the top of the page. Weren't they a consulting company associated with Capgemini?

May be they are sponsoring these type of sites to keep Raju in the news which is good for their business

Nandu wrote:I am not sure the Wipro thing can really be considered corruption, if all they did was allot IPO shares to WB CIO. That kind of thing is SOP for anybody doing an IPO.

Usually financial institutions have strict guidelines on what is considered a gift. I don't think receiving preferntial allotment of IPO shares will be viewed as an ethical practice by any bank. I am just wondering why it took so long for them to take action

I just wanted to repost what I posted in the "Indian economy" thread yesterday about the ethics of Indian offshore companies like Wipro

TCS, Wipro,INFY all did bodyshopping and they still do that. Most of these companies have questionable ethics though none of them may be outright foolish as Asathyam, but that doesn't mean practices of these other companies qualify them to be put on a pedestal.

Most of these companies do doctor resumes of candidates. Many of these companies have CIO buddies(rumoured to be on the take) in certain corporations and as those buddies move from company to company, they give sweet deals to these vendors(some of the sweet deals include ability to place candidates without any interview even if they are purely staff augmentation - i.e. bodyshopping - projects).

I am glad to see my opinion vindicated so quickly.

Also the part about Satyam billing much lower than other companies, is not really true based on some client sites where I have seen Satyam contractors.

markos, did WB have an explicit guideline against IPO share allocation or did they decide after the fact that it is unethical?

Every IPO from Netscape to Google has done this. Set aside a certain number of shares to allot to friends and business partners. Since the allottees get the shares at the exact same price as the general public that participates in the IPO, I am not sure it can be considered a gift.

Looks to me like WB wanted to hit the nail, so they looked around until they found something that can be made to look like a hammer.

Nandu
What I wrote here regarding "gifts" is what I know from experience. You are supposed to report gifts that are worth more than a nominal limit like $50 or $100, depending on the company.

Here is a sample gift policy for a small community bank in NC. As far as I know all regulated entities - banks, insurance etc.- have stringent policies like this. I am not sure what the git policy of WB is, but it won't be very different from this

http://www.firstsouthnc.com/aboutus/new ... /gifts.htm

II. ACCEPTING GIFTS MAY BE A CRIME

It is a federal crime for any representatives of First South or any of its affiliates to seek or accept anything of value, for themselves or others, in connection with business of First South where there is a corrupt intent that such representatives shall be influenced or rewarded related to First South business. It is also a crime for anyone (including customers, vendors, and others) to offer or give anything to representatives of First South with corrupt intent.

This is provided in Title 18, 215 of the United States Code (“Section 215”). A copy of that statute is attached to this policy as Exhibit A. It should be read. Violations are punishable by fines and imprisonment. Section 215 applies to officers, directors, employees, agents or attorneys of First South and its affiliates. Such persons are referred to below as representatives of First South.

It is usually an open and shut case once they can establish the intent. I am guessing probably that is why it took WB so long to take action

Since the allottees get the shares at the exact same price as the general public that participates in the IPO, I am not sure it can be considered a gift.

Very few in the "general public" gets the stock at the offer price, so I don't think this logic holds. Usually if you get the stock at offer price, it means you are getting a substantial upside in near term which could be considered a gift.

Plus we don't know if Wipro offered the stock at IPO price or at a discount to that.

One Indian company goes and another replaces at WB. This is the trend for the last few years. Everyone has a presence at somepoint or other. TCS, Satyam and Wipro. Satyam was the one that exited recently. The current company that is here is EDS/Mphasis. This whole building is filled with desis and I carpool with these guys occassionally.

.. "Vindicated". My foot.

Wipro is perfectly above board, from both an ethical AND legal stand point. The guys from WB, who participated gave a written undertaking that they have no conflict of interest and that it is consistent with their internal policies. As for the MegaSoft guys, their management was on TV, saying they got fired, because they formed a JV in China with people who LEFT WB! But apparently the WB guys did not clear the Wipro IPO participation with their internal guys and that forming JVs with people even after they leave the WB is against their policies apparently.

And ,oh, everyone (including the employees) got the share at the IPO price. So the "benefit" is really zero , ie, they carry the same risk-rewards as everyone else , who got the IPO shares including the institutional investors and public. There is an interview with one of the Jt.CEOs in today's Business Standard, which I read in the morning , where he answers all these questions in detail.

The IPO that the WB CIO and his friends and associates got was a grand total of 1750 shares around $72000 worth, which they paid for. The WB after getting raked over the coals for all the massive corruption in the recent years and the infamous Wolfowitz "affair" with his gf ? getting employed and everything, they basically have been "cleaning the stables". I think the Wiipro and MegaSoft are an attempt at showing that "due process" and "equal equal" and all that, with Satyam and other vendors who were fired, to cover their Musharrafs against litigation. In fact, in the interview, the Jt CEO says that they had an agreement with the WB to keep the information confidential (I suspect to cover WB's Musharraf, Wipro has ZERO business with WB for a long time) and now with the WB disclosing because of "changed policies", Wipro too came out public with the story.

So finally the curtains came down and reality hit everyone today.
My company announced no appraisal/Focal for this year and salary/promotion freeze with no hope for next year too.
Well when every Abdul and his unwashed uncle is Director or VP in the company, how do you expect it to pay salary hikes to the employees.
The fat cats cannot stop partying,staying in expensive hotels and travelling international and that too Non-billable, and yet ask us ordinary Ayesha and Javed to make sacrifice and work harder
The bestest statement was ,"After all we are giving you so much of job satisfaction, then why you folks are focussed on money"
Its time like JuD to lie low and wait for the opportunate moment till Taliban take over the Isloo and Sharia rules. We shall bring down the RAPE to their knees.

Muppalla wrote:One Indian company goes and another replaces at WB. This is the trend for the last few years. Everyone has a presence at somepoint or other. TCS, Satyam and Wipro. Satyam was the one that exited recently. The current company that is here is EDS/Mphasis. This whole building is filled with desis and I carpool with these guys occassionally.

One of my colleagues was joking that Indian IT companies need to ban WB business should be a strict no-no with them...

Yogi_G wrote:

Muppalla wrote:One Indian company goes and another replaces at WB. This is the trend for the last few years. Everyone has a presence at somepoint or other. TCS, Satyam and Wipro. Satyam was the one that exited recently. The current company that is here is EDS/Mphasis. This whole building is filled with desis and I carpool with these guys occassionally.

One of my colleagues was joking that Indian IT companies need to ban WB business should be a strict no-no with them...

my apologies, I just noticed that a new thread has been created for this and a specific request was put in not to post Satyam news in this thread....

So finally the curtains came down and reality hit everyone today.
My company announced no appraisal/Focal for this year and salary/promotion freeze with no hope for next year too.
Well when every Abdul and his unwashed uncle is Director or VP in the company, how do you expect it to pay salary hikes to the employees.

Even our co did the same yesterday!!!

How short sighted these companies are.....
Why stop appraisal as that is important to give feedback and future direction for the employee? It is not just for raise or promotion.

If you are working for such management, try looking for a job at better place.

paramu wrote:How short sighted these companies are.....
Why stop appraisal as that is important to give feedback and future direction for the employee? It is not just for raise or promotion.

If you are working for such management, try looking for a job at better place.

There is appraisal(feedback n all) but no pay hike

Hersh wrote:

paramu wrote:How short sighted these companies are.....
Why stop appraisal as that is important to give feedback and future direction for the employee? It is not just for raise or promotion.

If you are working for such management, try looking for a job at better place.

There is appraisal(feedback n all) but no pay hike

Better job in current scenrio eh! Holding onto current job would be a big achievement.
Like Mujhahids of Baitullah Mahsud, Lie low till the enemy has walked past you and then raise your AK-47.

Can any IT guru suggest which among the MS networking certifications MCTS, MCITP or MCSE .. which MS networking course has better application prospects ?

IIRC MCSE used to be big craze in the 90s, what is the latest trend ?

VikasRaina wrote:

Hersh wrote: There is appraisal(feedback n all) but no pay hike

Better job in current scenrio eh! Holding onto current job would be a big achievement.
Like Mujhahids of Baitullah Mahsud, Lie low till the enemy has walked past you and then raise your AK-47.

Absolutely no two ways about that fact!!!

Raju wrote:Can any IT guru suggest which among the MS networking certifications MCTS, MCITP or MCSE .. which MS networking course has better application prospects ?

IIRC MCSE used to be big craze in the 90s, what is the latest trend ?

Coincendence just got a link from work colleague on this one..
Hope this helps
http://www.globalknowledge.com/training ... on=English
I am interested in the MCITP myself but will require major josh to get it done..
Balancing Work life will get even tougher...

--Jayram

thanks Jayram, I was still of the opinion that MCSE was the be all end all.

Wipro IT+BPO headcount actually went down this quarter

Wipro employee strength falls

Pratik Kumar, executive VP (HR) in Wipro, said involuntary attrition accounted for 2% of the total attrition. "Poor performance and integrity issues (background verification checks) were the key reasons for involuntary attrition. Otherwise, the quarter has seen a flat attrition at 11.09%, from 11.07% in Q2.''

Attrition is up as compared to Q2. Thats some news hard to digest.

Bhai Log,
How wonderful (Or stupid) this idea is to move from S/W Consulting to Pre-Sales ? No I don't have a job offer in hand but I am planning to work on those lines. Target is before fall this year,
I should be part of the attrition statistics in my current group.
Is it like moving from Eye-raaq to Afghanistan or life does takes a turn for better and you come back to warm waters of Orange county.
If anyone of you has worked or is working in Pre-Sales or has any perspective on Pre-sales side of the s/w industry, I would like to know your thoughts. Enough of working for thankless fat cats for me.

TIA

Circa 2000 I interviewed a number of candidates with MCSE. NONE (That is NO ONE, nada, zilch) knew what is IP Address, netmask and gateway.

This was after Bill Gates (and Al Gore, and many others) invented Internet.

VikasRaina wrote:Bhai Log,
How wonderful (Or stupid) this idea is to move from S/W Consulting to Pre-Sales ? No I don't have a job offer in hand but I am planning to work on those lines. Target is before fall this year,
I should be part of the attrition statistics in my current group.
Is it like moving from Eye-raaq to Afghanistan or life does takes a turn for better and you come back to warm waters of Orange county.
If anyone of you has worked or is working in Pre-Sales or has any perspective on Pre-sales side of the s/w industry, I would like to know your thoughts. Enough of working for thankless fat cats for me.

TIA

Vikas,

From my experience, you'll be still be working for fat cats, though a different set.

Jokes apart, do it if you like it, or better, if you have a passion for it. Pre-sales work can be challenging. You analyze industries (verticals), work with consultants to design solutions for targeted customers, manage RFPs/RFIs/RFQs/etc. Communication is super-critical since you'll have to do a lot of customer-interaction. Understanding different cultures, depending on your customer set is important.

Positive thing is - pre-sales gives you enhanced visibility to mgmt compared to service delivery. BTW, this is all based on my own experience. Someone else may have a different perspective. I chose to make the same transition a year back.

If you don't mind me asking - will you be in a frontline BDM role or a back-office solutions-design role?

suvod wrote:

VikasRaina wrote:Bhai Log,
How wonderful (Or stupid) this idea is to move from S/W Consulting to Pre-Sales ? No I don't have a job offer in hand but I am planning to work on those lines. Target is before fall this year,
I should be part of the attrition statistics in my current group.
Is it like moving from Eye-raaq to Afghanistan or life does takes a turn for better and you come back to warm waters of Orange county.
If anyone of you has worked or is working in Pre-Sales or has any perspective on Pre-sales side of the s/w industry, I would like to know your thoughts. Enough of working for thankless fat cats for me.

TIA

Vikas,

From my experience, you'll be still be working for fat cats, though a different set.

Jokes apart, do it if you like it, or better, if you have a passion for it. Pre-sales work can be challenging. You analyze industries (verticals), work with consultants to design solutions for targeted customers, manage RFPs/RFIs/RFQs/etc. Communication is super-critical since you'll have to do a lot of customer-interaction. Understanding different cultures, depending on your customer set is important.

Positive thing is - pre-sales gives you enhanced visibility to mgmt compared to service delivery. BTW, this is all based on my own experience. Someone else may have a different perspective. I chose to make the same transition a year back.

If you don't mind me asking - will you be in a frontline BDM role or a back-office solutions-design role?

Thanx for your thoughts Suvod. I don't have any offer in hand but I am actively going to search for such a role within or without my organization.
It is more about my attempt to break the glass ceiling and get out of what I have been doing for so many years. I don't know if I have passion for it unless I try it out.
I would prefer to be a frontline BDM but then I will cross the bridge when it comes. I was getting so many conflicting views on pre-sales, so I decided to check out my resident Google a.k.a BRF.
Since you have made the transition, can I ask you as how hard did you find the transition and if there is any downside to this career path?

Passing Shot: I hope with this transition, I get some left over milk/cream which fat cats hog. Currently in service delivery, we don't even get left over crumbs.

Yahoo chat board, IBM is cutting 20K employees WW. Are any Indian employees affected by this?

It does not make much sense for these companies to cut staff in low cost locations. The reason for staff cuts are purely financial in nature while the demand (especially in emerging economies) is brisk. IMO, if anything, the staff in offshore location should see increases in near future and not cuts. We can safely ignore the shrill cries on how higher unemployment in US will nullify the need for outsourcing; no one in US is going to work for 17-25K in IT and yet deliver what DOOs can.

Pre-sales is mostly backend job and pretty gruelling one for that matter. Usually pre-sales is the liasion between Solutions group (if a company has a dedicated one), various delivery streams and Sales/engagement guys.They usually put together a response for a particular request (RFI/RFP/RFQ) by understanding the requirements from the sales person and then coordinating with different groups. You need good documentation skills but they can be learned over a period of time.

The good part about pre-sales for a service delivery guy is its usually the way towards a sales/engagement position (where you get the commission) but then this may be a long and winding road (depends on the organization). Also it helps you in networking. If you are really good with communication and documentation skills than this is the place where you can rise fast.

Pre-sales can be frustrating if
1. You are not in a very fast growing company
2. Sales team is already very heavy

Both means you dont have much chance to reach your end objective of moving to the fat cats groups. One thing for sure. This job needs a lot of patience. You may not see anything turning up on horizon for a long time. I have seen pre-sales folks who were never able to move to sales and came back to consulting.

Intel is reducing by 6000 and closing some older fab line in santa clara and portland.

BBC

Microsoft to cut up to 5,000 jobs

Microsoft has said it will cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, including 1,400 immediately.

The firm also reported a net profit of $4.17bn (£3bn) for the three months to 31 December, down 11% on last year and less than analysts' expectations.

Microsoft added it was "no longer able" to give a profit and revenue outlook for the fiscal year amid current volatile market conditions.

Shares in Microsoft fell 7.9%, dragging Wall Street lower.

This is what Suraj was calling the after the black swan- an unknown area and WS demands forecasts and guidance

excerpt from gsachs report on IT spending 2009: they are predicting global
decline of 4%, but 8% decline in developed markets and 3% growth in developing.

US IT Services
(Quinteros, Lin)
Neutral •
Technology spending more significant for consulting and outsourcing
sub-sectors, and our posture regarding spending remains guarded.
• We see limited opportunity for revenue and earnings upside, dampening
potential for multiple expansion.
• We see selective opportunities in specialized outsourcers which offer
services directly aligned with cost cutting initiatives and are benefiting
from counter-cyclical revenue drivers.
• Our top CL-Buy rated name remains Lender Processing Services. Top
Neutral-rated names with solid positioning and fundamentals include
Accenture and Affiliated Computer Services.


Indian IT Services
(Quinteros, Lin)
Cautious
• Technology spending more significant for Indian IT sub-sector, and our
posture regarding spending remains guarded.
• We now view the Indian IT sub-sector as a cyclical growth sector as
secular tailwinds appear to have abated.
• For the near term we remain concerned about slowing demand, reduced
pricing leverage, margin compression due to pricing declines, increased
competition, and FX pressures.
• TCS.BO is our only Buy-rated stock given attractive relative valuation.

and this is their claimed sequence of sector recovery:

We view SPE, semiconductors, and transaction processors(visa,mastercard) as more early-cycle beneficiaries, with commtech, hardware, software, and consulting more mid-cycle, and outsourcing later-cycle

SPE - semi process eqpt

As Calvin has rightly pointed out, backend pre-sales work is the road to frontline sales positions like BDM, Relation Managers, etc. if you are coming from service delivery. And things can really 'happen' for you if you are part of a growing company.

As for me, I was doing solutions design and effort-estimation kind of work for the pre-sales group in my BU in addition to my service delivery role for a couple of years before I made the actual move. In course of that work, I had to do some customer presentations (capability, services offered, case-studies type) for clients all over the world. Found out that I actually had quite a passion for this kind of work, and then asked for and moved into the pre-sales role.

The role is challenging and also rewarding in its own way. Effective pre-sales requires domain knowledge, and coming from a pure IT background, its hard. And if your pre-sales group does not have dedicated solution architects, it's harder, since you have to get work done by and sometimes impose your will on a group of people that don't report to you. A lot of responsibility without the authority, you see. And on top of that, you'll get into tussles with the slick MBA types (ppt champions). For me, being married with a kid, the too frequent travels (both domestic and international) present another challenge.

But the rewards are good too. In IT, typical sales cycle is 1-2 months, and I actually thrive in that month-long adrenaline rush. I believe its a personality thing. It takes an insane amount of multi-tasking and negotiation with a lot of people to put a good proposal/bid in place. And if/when that bid actually bears fruit, there is a feeling of sweet success which I never felt in delivery. And like I told you earlier, presales can give you lot of visibility to top mgmt - so if you can play it right, can translate to bigger opportunities. Also, in frontline roles, you get to network with imp ppl from potential clients, which can open some doors for you personally too. For me, I get bored very easily, so I liked the chance to work on a new set of problems almost every month.

One caveat - the next couple of years, or at least FY10, is going to be very hard. Intense competition and the pie is actually shrinking. Billable service delivery roles will be more secure than sales/presales, if you cant bring the dough. From the Indian IT services viewpoint, the pipeline looks dismal at this point. No big deals after the credit bubble burst. I'd suggest making a move only after 2nd qtr FY10, when the picture becomes a little clearer.

And Vikas, presales or not, I wish you all the very best in your career and your life. May you have the wisdom and strength to be successful in whatever you do.

Forgot to add - you'll need pretty decent technical writing skills to make a mark. But this is skill which is pretty easy to pick up.

Thanx a ton CalvinH and Suvod for your insight. You guys are life-savers.
Will jot down my thoughts later in the day.

Bhai log,
I'm in Java/J2EE (1 year experience, presently unemployed ) and have an IT background and thinking of making preparation to switch to Information security(network security) for better challenges, job security and pay prospects. What are the predictions for the Java industry till 2011. Is it worthwhile to go for Sun certifications? How should one go about for a career in Information security?