Indian IT Industry

manish · Post by **manish** » 26 Feb 2009 17:40

bart wrote:What will be the impact of the below on the IT/BPO industry?

http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/feb/25 ... -obama.htm

I am not so familiar with the business model and tax structure used by outsourcing companies, so would appreciate if some guru would elaborate. From what I gather this should impact companies with captive offshore units and not those that have contracts with US/Indian outsourcers, right? Also wouldn't it be shooting themselves in themselves in the foot if companies like Coca Cola, GE etc that have most of their consumers abroad lose a larger proportion of the profits they make for foreign operations?

I am no guru, but I fail to see how they plan to enforce that. I mean, almost every/any US co worth its name outsources *some* work from India or some other low cost country. And its not like companies can cut out the outsourcing arrangements and leave overnight AFAIK - the time, effort and costs involved in de-linking from your outsourcing service provider(no matter what service/product you outsource) should be significant I believe. Just see the Satyam example - IIRC one phirang analyst had commented on how most of the client's stuff was 'inside the head' of Satyam employees which made breaking the links very difficult unless they took entire teams (both on and offshore components)on board. My limited experience taught me one lesson and that was 'Documentation is not all that it is made out to be'. Ask Nayak if you want

On a serious note, I think some IT service gurus here can elaborate more.

sum · Post by **sum** » 26 Feb 2009 19:53

shyam wrote:
sum wrote:Ummm,Singha-saar,
Are these HW related jobs, i.e, RTL/verifcation or are these SW jobs?
Check this site if you are looking for a job in Bay Area.

http://www.aprius.com/company/careers.php
We want to talk to you if you are a seasoned software professional or recent graduate with experience in one or more of the following areas:

Real-time and embedded system architecture
Embedded software for network switches, servers, or appliances
Operating system kernel, communication protocols, and I/O driver design
Network, systems management, or data center provisioning software

Thanks but im into HW(board, RTL) and the Q was only for my colleagues who were looking since even our co not doing so well in B'luru!!!

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 01 Mar 2009 16:12

Goldman "I am a fraud" Sachs has shed 10 % of its workforce on Friday last week. The slaughter was across the entire BDU in India.

A specific bandwidth of overpaid MBA's and @n@l-cysts were identified and given the boot.

Allah has predicted that no more moon of bonus shall be seen for many cycles to come.

Rumors are abound that post march one more round of blood-letting is predicted.

sum · Post by **sum** » 01 Mar 2009 19:43

Nayak-uddin saar,
Did you finally hook onto a new job?

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 01 Mar 2009 20:17

Nayak wrote:Goldman "I am a fraud" Sachs has shed 10 % of its workforce on Friday last week. The slaughter was across the entire BDU in India.

A specific bandwidth of overpaid MBA's and @n@l-cysts were identified and given the boot.

Allah has predicted that no more moon of bonus shall be seen for many cycles to come.

Rumors are abound that post march one more round of blood-letting is predicted.

Verily, Allah has deemed the same for promotions across many other companies as well

For he is the most merciful, the most benevolent

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 01 Mar 2009 20:20

Naah man, not yet, I am still digging my way out of the hole I fell into 3 years back.

But I am not worried. I am totally into gaming, fiddling with my D-90 kit, bird watching 24/7 to think about getting back into the grind. Situation is very bad here, so what is the point in running around for a job when nothing is present. I will wait for the riff-raff to leave B'lore, then plan my attack.

The pickings are lean and the drought is killing the herds.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 01 Mar 2009 21:53

Nokia seeks 1,000 voluntary layoffs (AP)
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090224/ ... a_job_cuts

VRS in private industry, hain?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Mar 2009 21:58

I heard HP has done a 20% paycut to defer layoffs if possible. its a good
idea and humanistic in perspective. efficiency pro-chipanda hawks of the jack welch mould would be displeased ofcourse.

and a sales person in another PC major tells me targets have been kept
very high for this tough env so that bonus/commisions which make up significant compensation for sales guys will naturally not need to be paid up 100% of target.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 01 Mar 2009 22:01

Raja Bose wrote:Nokia seeks 1,000 voluntary layoffs (AP)
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090224/ ... a_job_cuts

VRS in private industry, hain?

VRS in pvt companies do happen.

CalvinH · Post by **CalvinH** » 01 Mar 2009 22:14

manish wrote:
bart wrote:What will be the impact of the below on the IT/BPO industry?

http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/feb/25 ... -obama.htm

I am not so familiar with the business model and tax structure used by outsourcing companies, so would appreciate if some guru would elaborate. From what I gather this should impact companies with captive offshore units and not those that have contracts with US/Indian outsourcers, right? Also wouldn't it be shooting themselves in themselves in the foot if companies like Coca Cola, GE etc that have most of their consumers abroad lose a larger proportion of the profits they make for foreign operations?
I am no guru, but I fail to see how they plan to enforce that. I mean, almost every/any US co worth its name outsources *some* work from India or some other low cost country. And its not like companies can cut out the outsourcing arrangements and leave overnight AFAIK - the time, effort and costs involved in de-linking from your outsourcing service provider(no matter what service/product you outsource) should be significant I believe. Just see the Satyam example - IIRC one phirang analyst had commented on how most of the client's stuff was 'inside the head' of Satyam employees which made breaking the links very difficult unless they took entire teams (both on and offshore components)on board. My limited experience taught me one lesson and that was 'Documentation is not all that it is made out to be'. Ask Nayak if you want

On a serious note, I think some IT service gurus here can elaborate more.

Doesnt affect India IT outsourcers but captives units run by US firms.

whats "inside the head" of a provider resource is what client allowed them to have, what client outsource and more specifically what stage of life cycle you are in . If you have few IT person with most of them as ad-hoc managers leading the big Development and most of the team is made of provider's resources then its hard but once you are done and apps is in production you can easily roll off 90% of team and in source the support if you want.

A lot of product development companies have dedicated ODC at indian IT service companies but what is done there is very tightly controlled. De coupling is not much of an issue IMO.

CalvinH · Post by **CalvinH** » 01 Mar 2009 22:18

Singha wrote: and a sales person in another PC major tells me targets have been kept
very high for this tough env so that bonus/commisions which make up significant compensation for sales guys will naturally not need to be paid up 100% of target.

Companies which are still doing OK are using innovative ways to reduce commissions, variable pays, promotions and merit increases to reduce cost.

Most admirable company suddenly wants the employees to have a work life balance and has thus put a upper limit on paid leaves that can be encashed. Now beyond one number they will lapse if not utilized.

paramu · Post by **paramu** » 01 Mar 2009 22:45

Singha wrote:I heard HP has done a 20% paycut to defer layoffs if possible. its a good
idea and humanistic in perspective. efficiency pro-chipanda hawks of the jack welch mould would be displeased ofcourse.

CEO takes 20% cut. Exec takes 10% cut and all rest takes 5% cut

paramu · Post by **paramu** » 01 Mar 2009 22:49

manish wrote: Just see the Satyam example - IIRC one phirang analyst had commented on how most of the client's stuff was 'inside the head' of Satyam employees which made breaking the links very difficult unless they took entire teams (both on and offshore components)on board. My limited experience taught me one lesson and that was 'Documentation is not all that it is made out to be'. Ask Nayak if you want

Govt has assured the clients of Satyam that they will take care of this within a year. They may allow clients to buy into a new satyam cap structure.

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 02 Mar 2009 09:09

CalvinH wrote:
whats "inside the head" of a provider resource is what client allowed them to have, what client outsource and more specifically what stage of life cycle you are in . If you have few IT person with most of them as ad-hoc managers leading the big Development and most of the team is made of provider's resources then its hard but once you are done and apps is in production you can easily roll off 90% of team and in source the support if you want.

A lot of product development companies have dedicated ODC at indian IT service companies but what is done there is very tightly controlled. De coupling is not much of an issue IMO.

In a perfect environment maybe. But I have worked on 3 biggie contracts (Gorilla, Gobermand of Karnataka, biggie (dis)investment bank). Most of the projects were on cross department connection of reports and consolidation of data both at macro and micro level. The only piece of documentation available was the printout taken by me at the end of project handover. There is a lot of pain and frustration involved when the code coolie leaves. The management maulanas need constant back patting from the ayatollahs on top and hence keep promising the moon, when the code jehadi decides to convert to a different religion, the knowledge is lost and the search for a new mahdi starts who will deliver them promised land.

My personal experience is to document but giving them to the top jehadis depends on the supply and quality of opium I get.

sum · Post by **sum** » 02 Mar 2009 09:48

krishnan wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:Nokia seeks 1,000 voluntary layoffs (AP)
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090224/ ... a_job_cuts

VRS in private industry, hain?
VRS in pvt companies do happen.

TI has recently done it...

manish · Post by **manish** » 02 Mar 2009 10:25

manish wrote:.....
.....'Documentation is not all that it is made out to be'. Ask Nayak if you want
....
....

Nayak wrote:

In a perfect environment maybe. But I have worked on 3 biggie contracts (Gorilla, Gobermand of Karnataka, biggie (dis)investment bank). Most of the projects were on cross department connection of reports and consolidation of data both at macro and micro level. The only piece of documentation available was the printout taken by me at the end of project handover. There is a lot of pain and frustration involved when the code coolie leaves. The management maulanas need constant back patting from the ayatollahs on top and hence keep promising the moon, when the code jehadi decides to convert to a different religion, the knowledge is lost and the search for a new mahdi starts who will deliver them promised land.

My personal experience is to document but giving them to the top jehadis depends on the supply and quality of opium I get.

I guess this is where one gets to say I-Told-You-So

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Mar 2009 12:32

need this info: what kind of gross salary can be expected for a person with 8 yrs exp in application sw support...say its support for a CRM/DB type soln...in blr ?

sum · Post by **sum** » 02 Mar 2009 14:05

Big MNC:

Gross= ~2 X years of exp?

Is this a right indicator, jingoes?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Mar 2009 14:47

er, pls read my post. for the role described it might be lucky to obtain 1xyears of exp right? esp in this scene...

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 02 Mar 2009 18:20

Singha wrote:er, pls read my post. for the role described it might be lucky to obtain 1xyears of exp right? esp in this scene...

No. of years in X 1.5, but depending on CRM/DB combo the multiplicative factor may be 2.

Some pointers however.

What kind of skills are being talked about?

Mere developers skills will not go far nowadays in this domain. The said developer, if is able to look into the adminisitration, installation and support of those COTS that will fetch a good pay (X 2 type).

An increasing trend is to continue with development teams all through the support and maintainence, particulary with those on onsite assignments (customer facing techies).

sum · Post by **sum** » 02 Mar 2009 19:14

Singha wrote:er, pls read my post. for the role described it might be lucky to obtain 1xyears of exp right? esp in this scene...

True, Singha-saar... in these times, salaries are anyone's guess...

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 03 Mar 2009 14:17

Layoff meter at IT cos in India.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 03 Mar 2009 15:49

In these troubled times, the advice is not to worry about salary, and take what is given. Beggars (pakis excepted) can't be choosers.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Mar 2009 22:30

My co is doing big time layoffs and most of the guys( even those who preemptively jumped ship) are thanking their stars f they get the same salary as at present since most of the cos are offering 70-80% of last drawn salary!!! (Ok, my co does pay pretty well but even then...)

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Mar 2009 23:02

chipzilla? the risc embedded uk competitor to chipzilla? athletic-chipzilla?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Mar 2009 02:28

Surely not the 2nd one! I love their stuff and use them in all my work

Avinash R · Post by **Avinash R** » 04 Mar 2009 16:17

Now dont outsource groups will start attacking microsoft.

H-1B visa major contributor to our success: Microsoft
Washington Observing that the H-1B work visa programme helps hire the best available talent of the world, American software giant Microsoft has said H-1B visa holders has contributed significantly to its success.

sum · Post by **sum** » 04 Mar 2009 20:01

Singha wrote:chipzilla? the risc embedded uk competitor to chipzilla? athletic-chipzilla?

Is chipzilla= Intel?
I assume UK competitor= ARM?

Anyways, my co isn't either.

It has been in the news a lot lately( for the wrong reasons in the wireless space. Its Amrikan and into HW) and is pretty close to the pride of Gorilla, the ORR campus.

Im sure you got the name by now!!!!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Mar 2009 21:20

live free or die?

manish · Post by **manish** » 04 Mar 2009 21:52

sum wrote:
Singha wrote:chipzilla? the risc embedded uk competitor to chipzilla? athletic-chipzilla?
Is chipzilla= Intel?
I assume UK competitor= ARM?

Anyways, my co isn't either.
It has been in the news a lot lately( for the wrong reasons in the wireless space. Its Amrikan and into HW) and is pretty close to the pride of Gorilla, the ORR campus.

Im sure you got the name by now!!!!

You mean the spun-off semiconductor arm of the struggling amirkhan telecoms player?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Mar 2009 23:22

yes I guess thats it... Sum by an chance you arent married with one kid?

I finally started reading about the new religion called "Cloud" (thanks to vina sir for alerting me of this new
threat). very impressive and needs very scalable sw and hw designs in provisioning and fwding planes. lot of
small cos are trying to make "virtual appliances" or some value add to the "Cloud".
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

I like it . The Cloud ... sees everything..knows everything...hosts everything...its common back end will
be Skynet...even easier to take over the world by taking control of humanity via Clouds.

huge threat to enterprise vendors and their cozy relationships with the CIO pyramid. if the enterprise just
takes a "wire" from the "utility" lots of product strategy realignment will be needed.

INTC dominates the server market with x86_64 solidly. they are going have a feast of red meat
as lakhs of servers get pushed into these "wal mart" sized data centers.

I used to be a router fanatic in early years(thats all I worked on)..but lately as I grow older have
become agnostic...seems to be paradigm shifts every 5 yrs ..... mobility, virtualization, ethernet everywhere,
clouds, tons of security stuff, xml, LTE ... the head spins trying to keep tabs on the stuff floating around.

manish · Post by **manish** » 04 Mar 2009 23:48

^^^
This whole Cloud/SaaS thing has been in vogue for quite some time now. The incumbent enterprise guys apparently are not too happy about it, especially since they have to contend with some pretty smart and nimble new entrants who are putting up quite a fight for a piece of the pie. Although I do not have much knowledge about the enterprise side of things, I do recall reading about SAP's attempts at taking on upstart startups like Salesforce.com etc last year with its not-so-successful Business By Design (BBD) initiative (apparently it was done out of BLR - was quite a high flying initiative I am told). It is another matter altogether that Salesforce.com seems to have run into a bit of a rough weather in the past couple of months or so. Everyone and his uncle is now racing to get on the 'cloud' bandwagon, with major initiatives having been announced by pretty much everybody out there.

But MS has sort of surprised everyone by some of the recent deals it has won. See this monster deal with GSK for example:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=698

Everyone thought Google will be the Big Dawg here. Add to it the recent GMail outage and suddenly the field seems a little more even. Also the Yindoo backed/owned startup Zoho is also fast carving out a good name for itself with its ever evolving online office suite, with some people actually claiming its better than Google Apps.

As and when MS puts its entire Office franchise on to this so called 'cloud', things will get really interesting. JMT etc...

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 05 Mar 2009 01:40

manish wrote: You mean the spun-off semiconductor arm of the struggling amirkhan telecoms player?

Sorry no fan of muft-scale....used their ZigBee solution....as high performance as a bengali after lunch.

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Mar 2009 05:01

Apologies for my ignorance but are you folks talking about the company based out of land of 'cowboys' and 'Chainsaw massacre' fame ?

sum · Post by **sum** » 05 Mar 2009 09:32

Dang,
The BRF-ite jirga consists of too many Chankyan Maulanas with earth-e-shatter knowledge....

Sum by an chance you arent married with one kid?

No sir...I am single onlee . Im just a bachha myself still!!!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Mar 2009 09:34

BR is also a distributed "Cloud" - sees everything. knows everything.

we talk via pppoe and multicast channels over Skynet infrastructure

there are books being written on "intelligence of crowds", "crowdsourcing",
"intellgence of swarm" and so on...

Sum, ok...you handle rhymes with someone you probably work with if you add three more chars suffix.

vina · Post by **vina** » 05 Mar 2009 09:37

Telisma Sold for $12m

Shows truly that WiMax is dead . $80m of investor funding flushed down the toilet!

sum · Post by **sum** » 05 Mar 2009 09:41

vina wrote:Telisma Sold for $12m

Shows truly that WiMax is dead . $80m of investor funding flushed down the toilet!

I had high hopes on this co esp with the WiMax auction etc happening.
Absolute shocker.

vina · Post by **vina** » 05 Mar 2009 09:52

Singha wrote:live free or die?

More like "live free and die" . Frankly, with Auto in deep trouble, and ex parent flirting with death and "black berry conserve" having alternate sources of chipsets via Marvel, the scene is very murky there. Also their PE investor (KKR if I am right?) aint going to exit with fat returns anytime soon. That is the positive, they will continue to hold it and nurse it, or they will have to take huge immediate losses.

vina · Post by **vina** » 05 Mar 2009 10:11

Singha wrote:huge threat to enterprise vendors and their cozy relationships with the CIO pyramid. if the enterprise just
takes a "wire" from the "utility" lots of product strategy realignment will be needed.

Ah, now my ears stand up on interest. Not just product strategy, but entire corporate strategy and business models will have to change . And that is where 'Ol Vina makes a living saar. My kid is growing up fast, I need to eat,live, save, go on vacations and also send the kid to college no ? Just doing the Lord's work onree.

Like our boor-o-crats say, "Government's Work is God's Work" (it is there right on Vidhan Soudha if I remember) or in Tamil "Makkal Sevai, Maheshan Sevai" (People's Work, is Mahesh's (God's) Work)!.

AoA.