Social Gaming

Q&A: Andy Donkin goes There - There News for PC at GameSpot: Instead of slaying monsters or zapping bounty hunters, the emphasis in There is on social interaction.The chief marketing officer of the recently-launched massively multiplayer 3D simulation title, There, talks about its beta program, social life, realistic economy, and military applications.

Mid-Day Keywords

Mumbai on the Web
META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Mumbai,city,Bombay,destination,Web,Internet,website,Capital of Maharashtra,Metropolis,Megapolis,Commercial Capital of India,Business Capital of India,Gateway of India,News,Bollywood,Business,Sensex,BSE,Bombay Stock Exchange,Sports,Local Guide,train routes,,suburban trains,BEST bus routes,taxi,auto-rickshaw,Flora Fountain,Mumbai Marine Drive, ,Sexual Health Therapist,Sex Therapist,Stress Therapist,Beauty counsellor,Agony Aunt,BMC,Bombay Muncipal Corporation,Mumbai Police,Hindi Films,Hindi Movies,Hindi cinema,Chowpatty,Apollo Bunder,Cinema studios,events,music concert,theatres,beaches,weather,Chor Bazaar,Real Estate,Mumbai Propert.

These are the keywords for Mid-Day the afternoon tabloid of mumbai which is available in the mornings. To see this keywords open mid-day site in browser and click VIEW > SOURCE. Henceforth, please remember go to http://www.mid-day.com for sex therapist. before marriage or after marriage...Have you done something wrong when you were kid, wipe your hands now....

Where is India going wrong?

Where is India going wrong?: "Where is India going wrong?
Arindam Banerji writes in Rediff a strategic plan to make corporate India and the Indian nation forces to reckon with globally. The second of a three-part series."

Join the IIT Debate

Do we need more IITs? The Indian government has decided to increase the numbers of IITs and Rediff is hosting this debate DO WE NEED MOERE IITs.?
Well yes and no? Yes for - such a wonderful brand called IIT has to grow atleast one per each state. No for - What happens to REC, they are running on their own - some are having good education and indstury interface and most of others are nothing but a big godown like buldings with lots of corruption and no education. It will be a narrow minded thinking to concentrate just on IIT because there are millions of eligeable and talented student outside IITs also. What kind of quality and assurance do the REC student get, are they IInd class student citizens of this world. When they shell out a heavy fees for their education why can't they get a comparable if not equal standards. There is a wide level of difference between the standards of REC & IITs, we need plan for both and not just IIT. And why just REC also?. What about primary and secondary education. This is because our government doesn't have an wholesome thinking, they just want to convey news and not the right messages. As Mr. Nehru had once said there is Unity in Diversity of India, I think it must be a typo or his ignorance over the matter. There is always Diversity in Unity of India and our politicians and goverment knows how to maintain it, remember they have inherited this from Divide and Rule government.

There are many companies / brands / products whose names were derived from strange circumstances.

*Mercedes
This was actually the financier's daughter's name.

*Adobe
This came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock.

*Apple Computers
It was the favorite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple
Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 O'clock.

*CISCO
It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco.

*Compaq
This name was formed by using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small integral object.

*Corel
The name was derived from the founder's name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland REsearch Laboratory.

*Google
The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor,they received a cheque made out to 'Google'

*Hotmail
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service,he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters "html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It wasinitially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing.

*Hewlett Packard
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

*Intel
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

*Lotus (Notes)
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

*Microsoft
Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

*Motorola
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.

*ORACLE
Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called
Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL code by IBM. The project eventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for
the company.

*Sony
It originated from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.

*SUN
Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a
UNIX-based OS for the computer.

*Yahoo!
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book 'Gulliver's Travels'. It represents a person who is repulsive in
appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

India Shining

The election commission always reminds us that there is democracy in this country and politicians are also answerable. Cheers!!!

The campaign with "economic reforms" as the theme had been launched on September 9 as a part of programmes under the India Development initiative, it said. In continuation the second phase with India Shining was launched on October 10, it added.

The Election Commission felt that the advertisements provided an "undue advantage" to the party in power and could "influence" voters, it said in a communication to the Cabinet secretary and the I&B secretary. Rediff

Linus, Linux & opensource everywhere

Leader of the Free World A wired article about modest dictator of the linux world and find out how open source is spreading EVERYWHERE like a epidemic.

Winners Never Quit

Through Email
A winner is NOT one who NEVER FAILS, but one who NEVER QUITS! . read on..

A candidate for a news broadcasters post was rejected by officials since his voice was not fit for a news broadcaster.He was also told that with his obnoxiously long name, he would never be famous.
*He is Amitabh Bacchan.

A small boy - the fifth amongst seven siblings of a poor father, was selling newspapers in a small village to earn his living.He was not exceptionally smart at school but was fascinated by religion and rockets.The first rocket he built crashed. A missile that he built crashed
multiple times and he was made a butt of ridicule. He is the person to have scripted the Space Odyssey of India single-handedly -
*Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

In 1962, four nervous young musicians played their first record audition for the executives of the Decca recording Company.The executives were not impressed. While turning down this group of musicians, one executive said, "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."
* The group was called The Beatles.


In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modelling Agency told modelling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You'd better learn secretarial work or else get married."
*She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, Fired a singer after one performance. He told him, "You ain't goin' nowhere....son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck."
* He went on to become Elvis Presley.

* When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. After making a demonstration call,President Rutherford Hayes said, "That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to see one of
them?"

* When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process."

* In the 1940s, another young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country.They all turned him down. In 1947, after 7 long years of rejections, he finally got a tiny company in Rochester, NY, the Haloid company, to purchase the rights to his invention -- an electrostatic paper-copying process.Haloid became Xerox Corporation.


*A little girl - the 20th of 22 children, was born prematurely and her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old, she contracted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralysed left leg. At age 9, she removed the metal leg brace she had been dependent on and began to walk without it. By 13 she had developed a rhythmic walk, which doctors said was a miracle. That same year she decided to become a runner. She entered a race and came in last. For the next few years every race she entered, she came in last.
Everyone told her to quit, but she kept on running. One day she actually won a race. And then another.From then on she won every race she entered.Eventually this little girl - Wilma Rudolph, went on to win three Olympic gold medals.

A school teacher scolded a boy for not paying attention to his mathematics and for not being able to solve simple problems. She told him that you would not become anybody in life.
* The boy was Albert Einstein.

The Moral of the above Stories:

---

* Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
* You gain strength, experience and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face.
* You must do the thing you cannot do. And remember, the finest steel gets sent through the hottest furnace.
*In LIFE, remember that you pass this way only once! let's live life to the fullest and give it our extreme best.
* "Failure is the pillar of success!"
* "Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win."

India Outsourcing Summit

CIOL : News : India outsourcing summit kicks off: "India outsourcing summit kicks off
The two-day summit is creating a platform to debate and discuss topics considered crucial to India like selling outsourcing offshore, brand and market presence."
The 2003 India Outsourcing Summit

October 15-16, 2003
The Leela Palace
Bangalore, India

Produced by Michael F. Corbett & Associates, Ltd. in association with Fortune® Custom Projects and Trade Fairs & Conferences International. Supported by NASSCOM. Hosted by STPI.

Win-Win Outsourcing

Ronen Sen, Indian high commissioner to Britain writes in Hindustan Times and its a very simple thing to follow for the anti-india anti-outsourcing crowd of the developed nations. A must read...

This is what developed nations get...

According to conservative estimates, US companies saved $16 billion and British firms saved around £1 billion through outsourcing to India last year

Not just costs, but quality

It is not just lower labour costs that are making India an increasingly attractive global location for outsourcing. It has been the experience of virtually every British, or foreign, company that savings in labour costs in India become secondary to the marked improvement in quality and consumer satisfaction.

This applies not just to relatively low skill operations like call centres, but higher value added services involving financial management, sophisticated software development, realignment and optimisation of total business operations and so on.

This is what I also say...

In a globalised economy, one cannot reasonably expect unhindered movement of capital and free trade only in selected goods and services, and impose barriers in other areas that do not suit the short-term interests of some nations.

Countries like India do not need aid or handouts but greater market access in goods and services, not on concessional, but on an equitable and mutually advantageous basis.

[ Source :
Outsourcing: A win-win strategy of partnership : HindustanTimes.com ]

Lump in the Bed

Through Gargi

"Roses are red/Violets are blue/Oh my, lump in the bed/How I've missed you."

"Roses are redder/Bluer am I/Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy."

"The dogs and the cat, they missed you too/Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe/The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier/Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier."

-- None other than Mr. Bush

To find more about the Lump in the bed, go to CNN

Big BPOs Big Jobs

Dollar economics, availibility of english speaking masses, hi-tech talent and loads of industry enthusiasm and proven results encourages multinationals to set up shops in India. Even with a lavish infrastructure & salaries they are bound to invest/spend less compared to US or any other developed nation. Many patriotic drives and local concerns are raising their voice agains this phenomenon, but always get to see counter reports on the merits and demerits of outsourcing. If US would try to save the local jobs, that will mean more expensenses and hence hard survival of these corporations and utltimately it would affect their economy only. This hatred is creating anti-india sentiments and taking a political shape. Ofcourse local interests are important, but these issues are raised by developing nations from a long time. Why there is hue and cry when you are beaten in your own game?. When developing nations raise their concerns they are told about 'global market', 'free-trade', 'fair-trade' and blah-blah, but when it comes to them 'global turns to local'.

V.k.raghunathan reports in The Straits Times Business outsourcing brings top jobs to India :: Centres serving multinationals earn $4b and employ 170,000 Indians - this will increaseto $31b and nearly one million jobs by 2008 Professionals looking for high-paying jobs do not need to go abroad - more and more multinationals are moving their operations to India.According to The New York Times, US companies are expected to farm out jobs worth US$136 billion by 2015. India, China, Russia and the Philippines are expected to benefit.

Netscreen acquires Neoteris

Sam Srinivas, Shyam Davuluru and Surya Koneru -- are selling Neoteris, an Internet security company, to Netscreen Technologies, a Nasdaq-listed company.Neoteris has pioneered the rapidly growing secure socket layer technology in the VPN market and also emerged as a market leader with over 36 per cent of market share. Neoteris attracted the interest of Netscreen, a leading developer of integrated network security solutions, as wares developed by the former would help in expanding its existing product offering.
[ Source : Times Of India ]

Neoteris (ne-o-ter-is) - Noun: A new land or territory.

Neoteris is pioneering new territory by providing instant, secure access to selected internal network resources to a defined group of employees and partners from any Internet Web browser.Neoteris was conceived by four founders, Sam Srinivas, Theron Tock, Surya Koneru, and Shyam Davuluru. Originally named DanaStreet after the coffee shop where the founders often met to discuss the technology before incorporating, the company changed its name to Neoteris in September, 2001, to reflect their mission of pioneering "new land" in simple, secure remote access.

[Source : Neoteris.com]

India can break US grip on hi-tech

Andrew Grove founder of INTEL said this at a global technology summit in Washington via satellite on Thursday. "Observing that India and China are "key threats" to continued US dominance in important high technology sectors, Intel Chairman Andrew S Grove has said India could surpass America in software and tech-service jobs by 2010. "
[Source : Kerala Next]

XStormTech gets acquired

SAN management software startup AppIQ Corp. has acquired XStormTech Inc., a garage-stage outfit that has developed a storage resource management (SRM) application. AppIQ did not disclose financial terms of the deal (see AppIQ Acquires XStormTech

XStormTech is founded by Vijay Sarashetti, previously global engineer of applications and storage management at Deutsche Bank AG. He claims that he started his own SRM software company last year after examining the tools available in the market -- and finding none of them suitable for his needs. XStormTech, which has fewer than five employees, has no paying customers for its still-in-beta software.

[Source : Byte&Switch]

High Tech and Middle Class Growth

Middle class is seeing change in the way they live, opportunities in the job markets are rising and people are now little more hopeful compared to recent bad times we have seen. The graduates atleast now can get a job on the basis of their language skills alone in a call center. And as I have said in my recent post that , the small towns are also seeing the growth and opportunities. Where the middle class lack is , the entreprenurship. But since we going through a change, we will surely catch up sometime on entrepreneurship also.

High tech fuels India's growth: "Although economists agree that India's middle class is growing rapidly, estimating its size is difficult because there is no consensus on its definition. By American standards, the lifestyle enjoyed by Chakrabarty would hardly be considered lavish. But according to a ranking system devised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, which recently completed a survey of Indian consumption patterns based on interviews with 300,000 households, Chakrabarty and his family belong to the category of 'very rich,' one of whose attributes is car ownership.

Based on those definitions, Executive Director Suman Bery said, about 550 million of India's 1.04 billion people could have been considered middle class in 2000, the latest year for which survey data are available. That's a big jump from 1990, when the number of middle-class Indians, both climbers and consumers, was estimated at 310 million."....

Rural Movement

Recenlty the rural india was neglected completely from the business point of view. Other than agriculture, nobody is concentrating on anything, atleast there can be some value addition in agriculture alone. Some initiative are happening and some really encouraging results are also appearing. Businesses are now looking forwards towards the Rural Marketing and understanding the minds of Rural Indian Consumer. Lots of opporunities can be created for rural sector so that rural india finds encouragement and enthusiasm in their own environment instead of looking towards cities, who are turning out to be skyscrapers and slums bazaar.

Rural India is on the move - The Times of India: "In just three years, Raj Narayanan from Kerala turned his life around and shrugged off the tag of poorest of the poor. A man, who once couldn’t eke a living, now takes home over Rs 8,000 a month."...

BPO RUMPUS

Business Standard .. BPO rumpus: Nasscom says US could lose a $2 trillion opportunity:
This reports finds out the cost of the protectionism for the US governement and about the shortage of manpower in high tech areas in the near future. So ulitmatley we can save the superpower, is it? find out...

According to the report, for every $100 of call-center work offshored by US firms, $143 is invested back into the US economy in the form of repatriated profits, increased sales of telecom equipment and cost-savings.
Similarly, in the case of IT services offshoring, for every $100 of work offshored, $133 is invested back into the US and $142 is invested back in case of high-end knowledge services like equity research, underwriting, tax preparation and risk management."....

BPO in small towns

The BPO companies are now targetting the recruitment from the smaller town and cities [BPO firms head-hunt in smaller cities | Rediff] , some are even starting their operation at these places. Infratructure might be a issue, but everything else seems to be fine here. Metroites have a very expectations from their job and the workplace environment since they have an opportunity to compare with other companies, other industries and moreover other batchmates who are doing well and are in the real technical jobs. But there grads from the small places don't have any such exposure and most of the times find themselves in the heaven. They find that compared to others in their town they are getting a 5 figure salaries, posh and air-conditioned workplace, canteen & pick up facitlities, training and workshops and many more things. Since the life in these areas is not so hectic the frustration levels and atrition rate is also very low in these places.

Murphy's law in project management

Government Computer News (GCN) daily news -- federal, state and local government technology; Murphy’s Law in project management: "In the world of managing government projects, 'Murphy’s Law is alive and well.' And according to James Brooke, a project manager who spoke today at the Project Management Institute’s global conference here, complex projects have a better chance for success if they are broken into bits. "......

BPO moving up the value chain

BPO companies are trying hard to move up the value chain.Evalueserve is one of them and it is doing this by providing value added services like patent writing, market research and multilingual services. The kind of possibilities they are handling are :-
* Evaluating the commercial prospects of inventions in Russia and China. Evalueserve’s client, which specialises in extraction of intellectual property from Russia and China, was hired by the U.S. Commerce Department to analyse such inventions with the objective of keeping such technology out of the “wrong” hands.
* Research for a hedge fund’s database, tracking financial statements of 2,300 companies. This is soon expected to grow to 6,000 companies.
* Research and analysis of value-chain segments and industry developments for a market research firm specialising in information technology and telecommunications.
* Market forecast studies for an OTC drug worldwide for a research firm.
[ Source : Business Standard ]

The rise of outsourcing

Outsourcing and selective outsourcing is on rise. But now we should also start focussing on the Product Development . It's very hard to digest that firms like WIPRO and INFOSYS are just large manpower and service providers, but when it come to products they don't have anything substantial to offer,atleast to my knowledge. Wipro seems to be trying its hand in health care and other sectors but still it has not carved it's name. There are very few examples like i-flex. We need to understand that tomorrow may not provide us with waves like y2k, euro conversion, dot com, outsourcing, call centres and bpo. We need to create the wave instead of just riding on the wave.

UK - Do not blame Indiia for JOb Loss

Atleast somebody is thinking sensibly. It is also very important at these times that India (NASSCOM & GOvt.) does some brand building and PR to spread some goodwill and erase the 'anti-outsourcing-anti-india' sentiments.::

Asking Britain's trade unions to show a sense of fairness towards India, British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has said that it was "unfair" to blame India for loss of British jobs because of "outsourcing" and India must be gi ven a chance to develop its skills and markets....
[Source : The Hindu]

iNDIA , the economic superpower?

The Economic Times Intelligence Group studied the latest monthly data from Emerging Portfolio.com Fund Research (EPFR) and found that India offers the second-highest return across the world — which came to 13% in August ‘03 — to these funds. India is the fourth most preferred destination for parking funds....
[Source : Economic Times]

India BPO & Outsourcing Watch

VCs, private equity firms fund over $180 m in Q2 | ET
Over $180 million flowed into 16 Indian companies in the second quarter (Q2) of current fiscal ending September by way of funding from venture capital (VC) and private equity firms.

Also the number of deals in Q2 increased compared to the previous quarter ending June.As in the past, BPO (business process outsourcing) continued to be the darling of VCs. However, in a significant departure from the past, VC have started looking beyond the IT and BPO sectors....

Techumseh to crank up outsourcing | Business Standard
Techumseh Products Company (TPC), the $2 billion US compressors maker, is increasing the amount of work outsourced from its Indian subsidiary, Tecumseh Products India Pvt Ltd (TPIL).

Technovate top BPO co with $160m valuation | ET
European online travel company ebookers has divested a 6.25% stake in its fully owned Indian BPO subsidiary, Technovate, for $10m to Kipotechniki, a Belgian subsidiary of Mikal.

With this transaction, Technovate is one of the highest valued BPO companies in India, with a valuation of $160m.....

Nasscom Points To Big Deals As US Govt IT Budgets Grow | FE
Infotech spending by the US federal government for 2004 is estimated to be $59.37 billion, according to a new National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) report. Spending by US state governments has been hovering around the $40 billion mark, the report targeted at software companies aiming to tap this lucrative market said.

Die Another Technology

Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die: Some technologies are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were summarily executed. A humorist and science fiction writer offers some candidates."

Blame it on Gandhi

Yesterday on 2nd October India celebrated Gandhi Jayanti. Earlier when I was in school it used to be the time too see movie "Gandhi" on television. I think this movie is the only movie where India is shown so strong. Gandhi ji is just a brand name today, congress has ruled this country more than 40 years by cashing on names like him and Nehru, then Indira and then Rajiv. Now their image is no more than anti-BJP and BJP, even though has a image of Hinduism and some say fundamentalism, according to me it has no image whatsover. It has the only image of a 'struggler', it is just struggling to be in power in the name of anything. They are so busy in holding their seats that any ideology cannnot stay with them. They are trying to please to many lords.

Speaking of brand name Gandhi, there are two people in india who according to their holistic knowledge either love gandhi or hate gandhi. I am one of the rare categories, who is complete neutral. I like people and I respect them but I treat nobody like god and never hate anybody like devil. Today it has become very fashionable to blame gandhiji for each and everything in India to relationship with Pakistan. Whatever may be the actual thing, I am having no knowledge of history but I know that there were few leaders in this country who didn't construct or hold any thing for themselves and among those one was Gandhi ji. But may be his ideologies might have not been applicable everywhere but we cannot blame him for that. That time was different, that battle ground was different and it's very easy to pass comments in the comfort of our democracy where nobody cares.

I praise gandhi ji for....

*Showing the path of Satyagraha
*Preaching Non-Violence
*Quit India Movement
*Boycott of foreign goods at those times
*Preaching Truth

Instead of blaming and digging the past if we would have concentrated on rural development which was hihgly stressed upon by gandhiji, half of India's problem would have been solved by now. So my request to everybody is that however fashionable you may find critisizing and blaming gandhiji, yeh public hai .. yeh sab janti hai.

I only blame gandhi ji for one thing "KHADI", the ultimate formal wear of political devils.

Appointment Letter from Microsoft

Rajiv sent his bio data to America to apply for a post in microsoft.
 
A few days later he got this reply:-
"Dear Mr. Rajiv,
You do not meet our requirements.
Please do not send any further correspondance.
No phone call shall be entertained.
Thanks"

Rajiv jumped with joy on receiving this reply.He arranged a party and when all the guests had come,he said "Bhaiyon aur Behno,aap ko jaan kar khushi hogee ki mujhay america mein naukri mil gayee hai."
 
Everyone was delighted. Rajiv continued "Ab main aap sab ko apnaa appointment letter padkar sunaongaa par letter english main hai isliyen saath-saath hindi main translate bhee kartaa jaongaa.
Dear Mr. Rajiv-----pyare Rajiv sahab
You do not meet----aap to miltay hee naheen ho
our requirement----humko to zaroorat hai
Please do not send any furthur correspondance----ab letter vetter bhejnay kee zaroorat nahee hai.
No phone call ----phone vone kee bhee zaroorat nahee hai
shall be entertained----bahut khaatir kee jayegi.
Thanks----aapkaa bahut bahut shukriya
[Through Email]

India Outsourcing Updates

Microsoft to outsource more work from India | Times of India
Microsoft, as part of plan to increase outsourcing from India, is investing $100 million over the next five years. The number of developers working on Microsoft technologies is expected to double during the period.Currently, Microsoft technologies constitute around 20-25 per cent of the total $8-billion offshoring work done from India.

Outsourcing to boost big software firms' topline | Economic Times
"The primary reason for the growth in topline is India's emergence as an attractive destination for outsourcing. Though the global as well as US' IT spending still remains subdued, India has gained more visibility as an outsourcing destination," said the report.

think3 Delivers Design Outsourcing Services and Complete Product Development Solution to Universe Corporation | Market Wire
Universe Corporation has already realized solid productivity improvements through previous projects with think3's professional services group. In one project, think3 developed and implemented a new methodology for Universe Corporation to transition its 2D development process to a 3D parametric design process over three weeks. Another project, executed exclusively by a think3 offshore team in India, reduced Universe Corporation's product development cycle time from 5.5 weeks to 4 weeks.


ITtoolbox Study Reveals Steady Increases in IT Outsourcing Worldwide | Yahoo Biz
When asked about the top strategic reason for outsourcing, 36% of participants cited the lure of cost savings, followed by 15% who voiced a need for special skills and/or services. The survey findings further demonstrated that companies are increasingly outsourcing to foreign countries in order to cut costs and tap into a less expensive labor force. Of the 31% of participants who indicated they presently outsource abroad, a significant 21% are outsourcing IT functions to India.

Offshore outsourcing drives IT service sector | FT
According to preliminary market data from Gartner, the technology research group, the growth rate for the sector will rise to 7 per cent next year from around 6.6 per cent this year and 6.3 per cent last year. This is being driven mainly by the need for companies to trim IT maintenance costs by moving operations offshore to countries such as India.

India BPO Updates

ebookers Secures $10m Investment in India Business, Valuing Entire Subsidiary At $160m and Gives Trading Update | Yahoo Biz
ebookers plc (Nasdaq: EBKR, LSE: EBR) the No.1 online pan-European retail leisure specialist, today announces an investment of $10m in its India BPO subsidiary, Tecnovate, and gives an update on trading.

Evalueserve: Establishing presence in the growing BPO mkt | Economic Times
Providers of BPO services move beyond call-centres and routine data-crunching tasks toward higher-end services. Among this emerging group of BPO firms is Evalueserve, which is headquartered in Bermuda and has its main operational centre in Gurgaon, some 10 miles outside New Delhi, India’s capital.

ADC to expand India operations | Economic Times
With India focus going mainstream and leveraging Indian cost and talent considered as the right way to do business, ADC is making significant additions to its operations in Bangalore.

Jobless Recovery

Alan Kohler points out that even when the market is recovering in developed nations it is not creating any jobs for the localites. His cries"Australia will become a nation of salespeople, waiters and - one sincerely hopes - journalists. The Mumbai Morning Herald, anyone?". Why these concerns were not developed countries become the grand father of the third world and try to dominate and be bullish on them. Dear Alan we feel the same when things like turmeric and basmati rice get patents.

Blame India for that jobless recovery - www.smh.com.au: "It is mostly a labour cost arbitrage play. An Indian PhD costs less than $US10,000 a year - 80 per cent below the starting salary of a similarly qualified person in the US. Indian universities are producing 2 million graduates a year, all of whom can speak perfect English."

The next level of outsourcing — IT infrastructure management.

Now the companies like Wipro, TCS and Infosys are eyeing for the IT infrastucture management which involves from hardware to the security of the network and systems.

Managing IT infrastructure the next frontier - The Economic Times: "“Wipro has been providing IT infrastructure services for over 22 years now. We pioneered the concept of managed IT infrastructure services in India and extended this to global clients,” said GK Prasanna, VP (technology infrastructure services) Wipro. "....

A $300 mn join venture fund

US firm in JV for $300-mn fund - The Times of India: "Resource Financial Corporation of the US will set up a $300-million private equity fund — Indian American Capital Partners — with the Mumbai-based Brescon Corporate Advisors."

The healthy Job Market

Jobs abound in India's booming tech sector : HindustanTimes.com: "India's software sector, including the back-office services industry, added 130,000 -- nearly 25 per cent -- to its workforce in the year to March, taking the sector to 650,000. Wage costs are rising but are not yet a threat for a nation that churns out about 200,000 engineers per year, analysts say."

Bhartiya Yuva Shakti Trust

Bhartiya Yuva Shakti Trust:

"Developing entrepreneurs by providing young disadvantaged people in India with loans against no collaterals and a business guru"

ASIAN SUMMIT ON YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP & EMPLOYMENT : Highlights >>

Asian Conference
Thought Leadership; Concepts and Models; Action Plan for National Agendas; Public-Private Partnering
Awards:
JRD Tata Young Entrepreneurs Awards for Business Excellence
Launch:
BYST's Asian Centre of Excellence
Showcase:
Entrepreneurship Programs & Products
Go & See:
Urban and Rural Entrepreneurs
Fusion Concert:
By Leading International Artistes for Celebrating BYST's Tenth Anniversary

Growth in BPO

'BPO market in India to touch $7 bn by 2006' : HindustanTimes.com: "The BPO market in India, which stood at $2.1 billion in 2002, was expected to increase to about $7 billion by 2006, Singh said at the sidelines of a conference on ITeS, 'IT East 2003', organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry."

Classic Definitions & Cool Meanings:

Through email...

Cigarette : A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end & a fool at the other.
Love affairs : Something like cricket where one-day internationals are more popular than a five day test.
Marriage : It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her master
Divorce : Future tense of marriage
Lecture : An art of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either".
Conference : The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.
Compromise : The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.
Tears : The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water-power ..
Dictionary : A place where divorce comes before marriage.
Conference Room : A place where everybody talks, nobody listens & everybody disagrees later on.
Ecstasy : A feeling when you feel you are going to feel a feeling you have never felt before.
Classic : A book which people praise, but do not read.
. Smile : A curve that can set a lot of things straight.
Office : A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.
Yawn : The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.
Etc. : A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.
Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.
Experience : The name men give to their mistakes.
Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.
Philosopher : A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.
Diplomat : A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
Opportunist : A person who starts taking bath if he accidentally falls into a river.
Optimist : A person who while falling from Eiffel Tower says in midway "See I am not injured yet."
Pessimist : A person who says that O is the last letter in ZERO, Instead of the first letter in word OPPORTUNITY.
Miser : A person who lives poor so that he can die rich.
Father : A banker provided by nature.
Criminal : A guy no different from the rest... except that he got caught.
Boss : Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.
Politician : One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.
Doctor : A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills.
ME : An engineer, who when dosent have anything to do, writes something like this.

Narayan Moorthy on Uniting Asia

Murthy moots free movement of IT professionals across Asia : HindustanTimes.com:

"'We need to move beyond visas and create an environment and culture that encourages free flow of people across the region,' said Murthy, adding Asian nations should follow a 'cooperation and competition' model and make use of each other's competitive advantage for mutual benefit.
'To realise the true potential of globalisation and free trade, as an entrepreneur, I should source capital from where it's the cheapest, outsource work to where it's the most cost-effective and sell where it's the most profitable,' said Murthy."

IT industry faces new woes: "* The H1-B visa category was created in 1952 to provide the US economy with technically skilled foreign workers.

from today, the official number of H1-B visa’s will be officially reduced from 1,95,000 to 65,000 and though the immediate impact may not be felt, there is no denying the fact that the industry may take a hit in the years ahead......


* Almost 50 per cent of the H1-B visas issued worldwide last year by the US went to Indian professionals.

* India is also currently the second largest source, after Mexico, of legal immigrants to the US.

* Currently, there are some estimated 900,000 H1-B employees in the US, 35-45 per cent of whom are from India, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

* The US is the prime export destination of the Indian software industry, whose export revenues increased from $164 million in 1991 to around $10 billion in 2002, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 45 per cent.

We dont want your code

India cold to Microsoft's code offer - The Economic Times What Microsoft is trying atleast I cannot understand, it is trying hard to crush open source softwares by revealing the code to selected few. But who cares?