India IT News Capsule - June 2006, Issue 1

Cricketer Srikkanth launches cricket gaming portal : Former cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth has launched a cricket gaming site, www.krishcricket.com. This allows visitors to play online cricket games for free. One can also download the games to one’s mobile from the site for a price. IBM rapidly expanding its base in India : IBM, India has been on a hiring spree to expand its base in India. With just 9000 employees in mid 2003, the Indian arm of the Big Blue today has 43000 employees on its rolls. This huge expansion is due to the huge availability of skilled labour at low wages when compared to pay rates in North America and Europe. NIIT ties up with Sun Microsystems : Software and training institute, NIIT has tied up with Sun Microsystems to make available specialized education and training programmes for its students. NIIT students will have access to the latest Sun technologies, tools, technical resources and curriculum on Java and Solaris platforms. NIIT also plans to include the Sun Java Platform as a part of its elite GNIIT program. India building its First X-Ray telescope : Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is building a soft X-ray telescope to be put on board the Astrosat, India's first astronomical satellite due to be launched in 2008. This telescope will be useful in studying a number of deep space objects like black holes, supernovae and quasars. Infosys plans on foray into West Bengal : IT bell weather, Infosys has shown interest in expanding its reach into West Bengal and has requested the State government to provide it the about 100 acres of land for setting up a software park. Previous News Capsule

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India not conducive to Silicon Startups.. But why?

Silicon Startups mushroom by the hundreds in cities like California, Boston, Chicago and Miami. Why don't we see a similar effect in our own backyard ?We have the necessary human resource, the best institutions for higher education, the same democratic setup that America has. Even venture funding is big business in India these days having its own share of multi millionaires who have made it to the Forbes list. With Web 2.0 close to 2 years old now, we still see a precipitation of Web 2.0 application startups in America that get listed everyday on various sites like TechCrunch, TechMeme, etc on the Blogosphere. Why is it that India or any other developing nation does not see a similar hatchlings? The answer partly came in the form of Paul Graham's detailed analysis of what is it that other nations lack in comparision with America that makes them non-conducive to silicon startups. In the article that is incidentally the keynote address delivered by him at some conference, he takes the case of each country that is a key candidate for a possible spurt of silicon startups and lists the key deficiencies vis-a-vis the USA that act as the key barrier for a replication of the success that America has enjoyed over the years and continues to do so. In India's case, the key deficiency that Paul puts forth is the poverty ridden society. Though he acknoledges the steady improvement India has been registering with each passing year since the economy opened up in the 90s, he is unsure of how much time it might take for India to fully walk the distance from being a land where one still sees swarms of beggars, to one where we can see swarms of silicon startups. The reasons he puts forth are two Poverty brings with it the lack of infrastructure and the slow pace of development. The incremental changes in the attitudes of a society that take several generations to span a new line of thought. I have my own set of reasons that I feel might be apt if thrown in here. The culture of the country also is a key determinant. Ours is a 'relational culture' where we do not see anything wrong when we patronise our relatives, friends and people of importance to us. Of whether they will be able to add value to the team is a secondary matter. The lack of huge consumer based local market that does its business over the Internet. Red-tapism and bureacracy...[More of an extension of the 2nd point by Paul.] The lack of a unified de-facto language across the nation, making it necessary for regional language support to tap the 25 odd, million-strong regional market in India. The article goes on taking up China, Japan, Singapore, Europe on a case by case basis. Though there are points where I beg to differ from the author, it does give a fresh look at the oft asked question. Worth a read. This day in Indian IT - Click for details

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#1 Myth Regarding a Computer Career

It is this time of the year that frustrates me no end. Time when the 10+2 students need to opt for a career path. Inadvertently all and sundry who have secured 60% and above opt for a career either in medicine or engineering, given the society trends. Of the lot that opts for engineering, more than 50% would already have decided to pursue a job in the booming computer science field irrespective of which branch of engineering they have secured. With all this in place, I usually have a stream of visitors who drop in with their parents and guardians with a single query in mind. Though worded and mouthed differently, all of them convey this "People of late have been saying that the computer industry has already reached saturation. So think wisely before you send your ward off to engineering. Who knows whether the industry will be flourishing by the time he/she passes out of college" It beats me as to how people turn so naive as to believe any Tom, Dick and Harry's views on the computer industry and worry themselves to death. When I question them as to who mentioned so, I get ridiculous answers. "Our college principal told us" ( The college principal is a Sanskrit professor ) or "My neighbour warned me" ( the neighbour turned out to be a hotel owner ) or "My friend, a local press correspondent happened to mention about bad times ahead for the computer industry" ( turns out that the so-called press correspondent happens to be a small time reporter who covers local events in the town and who incidentally does not even know what an e-mail address is ). The most amazing one and common one is where the people quote with all seriousness their computer tutor, having asked them to reconsider their decision. When I investigate who this person is, it is almost always the computer teacher from the local computer center who has reconciled himself to teaching BASIC and FORTRAN all his life to students who unwittingly join his institute. Some even go to the extent of pointing out examples of students who finished a degree in computers and yet are jobless. A background check reveals that he has never even made a honest attempt to find himself a job or that he was pushed to learn computers following his parents dictum. Gosh !!! People are indeed naive and gullible and ...I am at a loss for words. I don't blame them. I just blame the meteoric rise of the computer industry in India. Being bitten by the meteoric rise and fall of the Indian Sensex, the layman can be excused for his mistrust on anything that has gained center stage so rapidly. I take different approaches to convince people that the computer industry though booming will never all of a sudden disappear into oblivion. The global economy, society, man's luxurious ways are too potent a force to allow such a thing to happen. My debate starts with a question that tries to draw their attention on the all too obvious. Something like this... Didn't you see Narayan Murthy's concern about lack of work force in the newspapers yesterday? Do you think the world will one day decide to just shut down all computers and decide to go back to stone age ? Do you think that the people in the developed world will suddenly take a decision to accept salaries that Indians are paid and avoid further outsourcing? For people who flash the "I am unconvinced" look on their face, I persist...with more sublime questions. Will you stop using Microsoft Word one fine day and announce I am going back to the typewriter? That might be a strong reason for Microsoft to stop working on new software and cut down on its employees. Will you accept if your bank decides to switch back to the traditional manual teller and withdraw its ATM services? What if Airtel, Spice, Hutch and BSNL stop their mobile services and ask their customers to revert back to land line use? My whole attempt is to get them to realize that the computer industry is here to stay albeit a few ups and downs. Most people realize the folly of their uncalled fears and beat a hasty retreat. For the ones who still refuse to accept the stark reality, I serve my punch line that catches them totally off guard. I look into their eyes and ask, "Do you actually believe what your friend/neighbour just shot from his mouth?". The majority quickly take refuge with an understandable, 'No'. For those who answer 'Yes', I indicate that the conversation has come to an end with, "Medicine I feel would be a better option for your ward...'coz the doctor's profession has shown itself never to die as long as there are humans on this planet" They get the message. This day in Indian IT - Click for details

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India IT News Capsule - May 2006, Issue 9

Google predicts India to become the largest Net Market : Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has predicted India to become the largest Online Market in the coming 2-3 years. He also goes on to say that Hindi along with English and Chinese would become one of the world's 3 Internet languages. Government aims at 500 million phone connections : Telecom and communications minister, Dayanidhi Maran, has said that the government is aiming at 500 million telephone connection in India by 2010 at a investment of $ 11 billion. Spectrum of wavelength to accommodate 3G services too would be expanded. BPO Majors eyeing Tier III cities : BPO majors like Progeon ( the BPO arm of Infosys ), Genpact are moving to Tier III cities in India like Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kochi, Nagpur, Indore and Vadodara in pursuit of rich talent, low wages and low real estate costs. Tier 1 Cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Tier II cities like the Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata have inflated real-estate costs and wages that discourage further expansion. Airtel to Beam Info on FIFA 2006 Soccer : Airtel has offered its customers the chance to follow the World Cup Soccer , FIFA 2006 on their mobiles. From June 9, 2006, Airtel subscribers all over the country will be able to get two-and-a-half-minute preview clips on every World Cup 2006 match to be played till July 9, 2006. Airtel subscribers will now be able to download football games, wallpapers, ring tones, and video clips on their mobiles, on payment of Rs 10, Rs 15, and Rs 30 respectively, and payment ranging between Rs 50 and Rs 99 for games. Samsung, Tata Launch WIDEO phones : The country's first wide screen CDMA phone, "Wideo," available exclusively for Tata Indicom customers has been unveiled by Samsung and Tata jointly. The Wideo is a trendy high-end phone, packed with a host of multimedia features that include 262K TFT horizontal swivel screen, one mega pixel rotating camcorder with up to two hours of video recording, dual stereo speakers, 3D gaming, MP3 player, Speaker phone, and a Pen drive memory with 45 MB storage space. Previous News Capsule

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Cross-Sourcing - Start of Reverse Outsourcing ?

How does transferring part of the outsourced work back to homeland sound ? Intriguing ? Baffled ? Well, don't be...For that is exactly what a Nebraska based Information Technology company has decided to do. Xpanxion, an Atlanta-based provider of global software development services, has announced plans to relocate a segment of its software testing operations and quality assurance (QA) program from Pune, India to Kearney, Nebraska. Dubbed by the company as Cross-Sourcing, the aim is to get the best of both lands. Extract high quality top-end work from Nebraska rural community, as claimed by the company...and at the same time take advantage of the cheap labour available in India. The company's statement goes like this "Cross-Sourcing allows us to parlay the economic value of our programming team in India, the expertise of on-site project managers in Atlanta, and the high work ethic and quality standards of the Nebraska workforce," said Paul Eurek, Xpanxion's CEO, a Nebraska native who grew up not far from Kearney. "It also allows us to take advantage of several government incentive programs in Nebraska aimed at increasing the presence of IT industries in rural areas." What is surprising though is that the American media has not evinced as much interest as the Indian media has done on this. When you have an American company that is fighting back total outsourcing and trying to win support of the people back at home, it is natural that it would be given a hero's welcome by the local and national press. However the way the American media choose to ignore this piece of news shows the pessimism wrought across the American media about this being just a flash in the pan and nothing more. Equally strange is the attention that the Indian media is showing it given that the coverage might just get other American companies to start thinking on the lines of cross-sourcing. Indian business leaders might already be on their toes to gag the Indian media and do some damage control. Whether the company in question, Xpanxion, has opted for cross-sourcing as a means to get the best of both worlds as they claim to or is just a step taken under pressure from political circles in its home state back in US would remain a speculation. One look at the Xpanxion website will indicate the amount of caution the company is advocating when choosing a company to outsource to. What is more important from the Indian perspective is to do a thorough analysis of what factors in the BPO industry in India, if any prompted this backward step by the US company. It could be any of the following Poor Quality processes being followed. Under trained staff. Less than adequate English communication skills. Un tolerable English accent. Poor infrastructure. Lack of government response to industry problems. Lack of domain specialists. Breach of security with respect to data. Poor work ethics. Rising BPO costs due to inflated salary packages. India Inc. cannot afford the stray incident to turn into a mass exodus. The only way to ensure that it does not happen is to do a thorough post-analysis of this incident and set right the short-comings. Read more on Outsourcing here and here This day in Indian IT - Click for details

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India IT News Capsule - May 2006, Issue 8

Stage set for EDS acquisition of Mphasis BFL : The IT big shot Electronic Data Systems (EDS) based from Plano, Texas has shown interest in acquiring Indian IT major Mphasis BFL for $380 million. This acquisition should pave the way for EDS to enter India and establish a mighty presence here. HTMT launches subsidiary in Phillipines: HTMT, owned by the Hindujas, a famous Indian business house, has opened a $25 million worth call centre subsidiary in Phillipines. Dell to start PC manufacturing in India : Dell, the PC maker has unveiled plans to start PC manufacturing in India and hopes to kick start a plant by year end. This would be Dell's 8th plant across the globe. MS XBox 360 gaming console to make Diwali entry in India: Microsoft India has announced plans to make the XBox 360 gaming console available to Indian gaming fans by Diwali this year. The base edition would be priced close to 20,000 INR ISRO ties up with UK university: ISRO has collaborated with University of Leicester, UK to integrate special hardware developed by Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) into a X-Ray camera. This camera is planned to be flown into space aboard the AstroSat, India's first dedicated astronomy satellite later. Previous News Capsule

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India churning out mobiles for world market

India seems to be hotting up as a destination for mobile giants like Nokia, Motorola and Sony these days. Everybody is making a beeline to set up phone manufacturing units in India to not only cater to the domestic segment, but also churn out a significant part of the world demand from India. Several reasons have been thrown forth by the media to explain this sudden spurt of interest among the phone companies. Distributing risks is a primary concern for most of these mobile companies that already have a unit in China. India offers them a far more stabler option when compared with the Dragon country. India has a huge domestic market that adds close to 30-50 million new subscribers to the mobile segment every year. The domestic market in India is also a vibrant and dynamic one composed of a huge slice of youth whose demand for new models with snazzy features is nearly unquenchable. The Indian market is fast realizing the power of the cellular market in India and a slew of new mobile campaigns have kicked off to woo the mobile Indian. The presence of the booming software revolution in India helps the mobile companies to reduce research and design costs by setting up firmware centres in India that take advantage of the talented human resource pool and the low wages. Ex : More than 40 percent of the software that goes into Motorola Inc.'s iconic and ultra-thin RAZR handset is developed in its Indian R&D facility. Examples of this new trend with the mobile/phone manufacturing companies is revealed by a casual glance at newspapers Nokia, which controls nearly half the $2.5 billion Indian handset market, and its suppliers are investing about $150 million in its Chennai unit, which makes a few million handsets a month and has already exported phones to south east Asian nations like Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. South Korean conglomerate LG Electronics Inc., for its part, operates a plant in Pune that will churn out 20 million GSM and CDMA handsets by 2010, roughly half of which are earmarked for export. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson in Stockholm is planning to make radio base stations in India. Elcoteq Network Corp, an Espoo, Finland based electronics manufacturing services company, is also setting up a manufacturing facility in Bangalore, India. Trends like these turn out to be the trickle before the flood. With Bangalore's Electronics City and Hyderabad's upcoming Fab City boosting hardware capabilities of the country, even chipsets for the phones might be available right here in India. That would be the moment that might tip the scales in India's favour. It may then be just a matter of time before India can also call itself the Mobile Manufacturing Base of the World. This day in Indian IT - Click for details

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