DOEACC drops Microsoft

In what could hit Microsoft’s interest in Indian market, the government owned non-formal software education outfit DOEACC has silently modified its syllabus dropping subjects on Microsoft technologies and increasing focus on open operating systems such as Linux

Nasscom : Outsourcing Facts

Here on the said page you would a good summarize report of what does outsourcing do for America and India. What are the benefits for both of them. This is specially for all those who think that these contracted nations are just scavengers and having a party exploiting rich nations.

NASSCOM - Outsourcing: "The perceived notions about outsourcing need to be addressed placing the facts and figures in perspective - to ensure that this healthy trend grows and flourishes
Outsourcing a part of the main business to outside vendors has been an acceptable and popular business strategy of global corporations for years. The trend has recently caught the attention of the worldwide community and become the latest buzzword doing the rounds of US media, industry and political circles due to the depressed economies world over. Recent studies on the benefits of IT outsourcing by business intelligence organizations such as McKinsey & Co. and other leading research companies have indicated the following:
The ITES/BPO market is likely to touch US$142 billion in 2009, against the current cost of US$532 billion for these services. The difference of US$ 390 billion represents the net saving the US economy can expect from offshoring
Such savings have a huge economic impact on dollar savings, leading to value creation for shareholders and the common man
US banks, financial services and insurance companies have saved US$6-8 billion in the past four years owing to IT outsourcing to India
Helped by these savings, companies have prevented layoffs and instead added 125,000 more jobs
Offshoring to India has resulted in quality and productivity gains of the order of 15-20 percent
US BFSI sector has managed to register customer satisfaction of almost 85% due to Offshoring to India vis-a-vis their European competitors "..............................................

Forbes Face Of The Year : Kiran Karnik

Forbes recognises India's IT prowess, puts face to it : HindustanTimes.com: "Kiran Karnik, the president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), is Forbes’ Face of the Year 2003. If Nasscom is the self-proclaimed voice of India’s IT industry, Karnik is “the man trying to direct the path of the offshoring tsunami”, says America’s premier business magazine."

In additions :- Forbes puts it: “Despite concerns in the US about unemployment and lost innovation, there is no turning back. The pressure on US companies to cut costs and compete globally is too compelling.”

Forbes acknowledges India’s strong credentials, pointedly referring to its annual crop of 75,000 IT graduates. Little wonder, IT now accounts for 3 per cent of India’s GDP, or $16.5 billion, up from just $1.7 billion nine years ago. And the big driver in all this is exports of software and services to the US.

Forbes says under Karnik Nasscom has been true to its charter of promoting India’s technology strength to the world and fostering a business-friendly environment for companies setting up shop in India. Over the past few years, many crucial white-collar tech jobs such as application development, database design, integration and services have moved to India.

AOL to recruit developers in India

AOL is coming to India in search of talent and cost effectiveness.
InfoWorld: AOL plans to hire developers in India

Localizing the Net

Daily Herald: "The Internet is far from being a useful tool globally "
Internet is a great tool used globally, but is it useful as a local tool. How well connected you find yourself locally other than mails. The Internet is mostly english and the content is more available for the developed nations, for developing nations you really need to drill down the internet because any useful information you find is in tits and bits and that also replicated on 1000s of pages. There has to be abundance of 'local' and 'intelligent' information availability which can 'really serve' the locals. Something like Ryze, which again is english speaking but is targetting the right audience, but what if there is RYZE-like thing for rest of the Indians in their local language. We may say why any villager or non-english-speaking would get 'connected', but why won't he get 'connected' if there is somethting 'in it - for him'. Ofourse the localized net doesn't mean 'content and news and blah blah blah', localization means - the ability of the localite to do something useful with the internet.

VCs Venture into BollyWood

VCs now turn to Bollywood - The Economic Times: "VCs now turn to Bollywood" ---- It's Different

Intel ISEF

Eight budding young scientists will represent India at the Intel International Science Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) to be held at Portland, Oregon in the US during May 9-15 next year.

Mumbai on TV5

For the first time ever, an Indian city will be featured on TV5’s 24 Hrs. TV5, the only worldwide public French speaking television channel which profiles four prominents cities of the world every year by telecasting a 24 hours special on the channel. 24 Hrs... has chosen Mumbai to be featured on its most widely watched special series across the USA, UK, Africa, and Asia.

The Outsourcing Debate

The debate will again start since many agencies will grow up the value chain.

ITworld.com - Outsourcing debate to rage again in 2004:

What appears perhaps most threatening to the Western IT worker in the long term are efforts on the part of more experienced outsourcers to move up the labor chain, from basic programming jobs to high-end design and project management work."
In the U.S. alone, the value of IT services provided by offshore labor will double to US$16 billion next year and triple again to $46 billion by 2007, according to market research company IDC, in Framingham, Massachusetts.

American Digestive System & Outsourcing

Americans swallow layoffs, but can't digest outsourcing - The Economic Times

India's Software Growth

Asiatimes reports :
In line with its earlier projection, Indian software exports are on track to grow at 26 to 28 percent during the current fiscal year, National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) president Kiran Karnik said on Tuesday.

"We are on track to grow at 26 to 28 percent in software exports in 2003-04," he said on the sidelines of the Asia Tech Summit, adding the October-December quarter looked good.

Nasscom had projected Indian software and services were likely to register US$12 billion in revenue

Googling in India

S. Rajagopan reports in Hindustan Times
Google, the king of Internet search engines, is homing in on Bangalore for its first research and development centre outside the US. The centre is slated to open in March and will initially employ about 100 engineers, the Mountain View, California-based company announced on Thursday.

Significantly, Google's decision has been driven not by the usual cost-cutting quest, but by a wish to tap India’s "considerable engineering and technical talent". The new facility will enable the company to continue to develop services for its users and customers worldwide, a spokesperson said.

The Biotech Growth

Indian biotechnology sector is expected to rake in a global market share of 10% in the next five years from the present one per cent. The consumption of biotech products in India is estimated to grow ten-fold to $1.5 billion by 2007 and to $4.5 billion by 2010.

High-Tech Outpost for U.S. Patents

Indian units for companies like Cisco Systems, General Electric, I.B.M., Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments are acting as High-Tech Outpost for U.S. Patents & have filed more than 1,000 patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Some applications, with patents already granted, date to the early 1990's. But most applications from India have been filed in the last two years and still await decisions by the patent examiners in Washington. Chandra Srinivasan, chairman of the Indian unit of the consulting firm A.T. Kearney points that , "In the process of getting low-end work done in India, multinationals discovered that there are not too many locations where they can find this abundance of superior talent at these kinds of costs."

The Mumbai Brand Wagon

Mumbai's brand is pure magic - The Times of India: According to a sample study conducted across eight centres in India by Rediffusion DYR, 86 per cent of the rest of India sees Mumbai as a distinctive brand as compared to 58 per cent of Mumbaiites.

IT Park in Mumbai

Mumbai-based property developer Royal Palms India (RPI), is building a seven lakh square feet IT park at Goregaon where IT and ITES companies can get fully built up office space at a lease rental of Rs. 32 per square feet per month.

The Outsourcing Effect

InfoWorld: Offshore outsourcing: Little effect on US jobs: December 11, 2003: By : Application Development: "With most estimates saying 500,000 or fewer U.S. jobs have moved offshore to countries like India, offshore outsourcing has had little impact on the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 5.9 percent in November, said defenders of the practice during a forum, sponsored by the Information Policy Institute, in Washington, D.C. Instead, a more complex series of problems is causing the current 'jobless' economic recovery, with the U.S. economy failing to create new jobs over the past two years, said Erica Groshen, assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "

India : The land of opporunity

: : Sify : :Terming India as a 'land of opportunity', Fortune said that in Mumbai there would be about 62,050 outsourcing and IT workers focusing on financial research, back office, software led by Morgan Stanley, TCS, Citigroup, Mphasis and i-Flex Solutions.

In Delhi, there would be about 73,000 IT professionals of Indian companies doing both captive and outsourcing jobs where the focus is call centres, transaction processing, ship design and software spearheaded by GE, American Express, ST Microelectronics, Wipro Spectramind, Convergys and Daksh.

The hot spot Bangalore has the highest number of IT professionals at 1,09,500 working for Intel, IBM, SAP, SAS, Dell, Cisco, Texas Instrument, Motorola, HP, Oracle, Yahoo, America Online, Accenture, Wipro, Infosys and Msource.

Bangalore focuses on chip design, software, bio-informatics, call centres, tax processing and IT consuting, the magazine said.

Intel to create hot spots in India

Intel has decided to create ‘hot spots’, or Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) zones where a person can hook to the net wirelessly, across the country, by offering invaluable benefits to the travellers, corporate honchos, professional students and host of others.

Taking advantage of its next generation technology called - Centrino Mobile Technology (CMT) (a wireless technology for net access) coupled with the growing demand for wireless network and higher bandwidth availability in the country, Intel has started working with its various partners to create 1000 ‘hot spots’ by mid of 2004 to make the wireless computing an invaluable proposition.

A Personal Guide to Offshoring to India

Business Wire News Reports.
Majesco Software President Writes New Book Outlining Process for Successful Partnering with Indian IT Firms

Outsourcing technology development projects offshore to Indian software firms creates new benefits for American corporations and stimulates the American economy, writes Atul Vohra, president of Majesco Software, in a new book, "A Personal Guide to Offshoring to India."

But to leverage the maximum benefits of offshoring to India companies must know and follow proven processes for outsourcing work, Vohra writes in his new book, scheduled for release in December.

"India represents America's next great frontier. Working together, the United States and India will grow exponentially stronger. India's strengths in offshoring match up well with the needs and interests and culture of the most powerful nation on Earth. As China is America's foundry, India is the back office. And India is well positioned to become the back office for America, so that America may deploy her resources most effectively elsewhere," Vohra writes in the book.

In his book, Vohra analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of moving projects offshore and particularly to India. He utilizes extensive research and his own experience as president of the U.S. operations for a global software development company to give a step-by-step plan that takes advantage of the strengths of the Indian IT firms. Vohra cites examples of how some of the largest American and British companies have learned to work with Indian firms.

According to Vohra's analysis, U.S. corporations reduce costs significantly by offshoring projects, and thus they free up resources to innovate, design and develop new products and ventures, which create new, higher-paying jobs and stimulates the economy. "It is the business of America to design and innovate," he writes.

Indian firms, in turn, are setting up more operations in America, generating thousands of new technology jobs. "You just have to look at the Silicon Valley today to realize how many new companies are being started by Indians," he notes.

The book identifies and analyzes the advantages for American companies of working with Indian firms. While demonstrating that the much-discussed cost savings are substantial and will continue well into the 21st century, Vohra also points out that Indian firms bring high quality and predictability to the process of IT software development. For example, of the 74 companies worldwide that have attained Level 5 of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) process, 50 are in India.

"The bottom line is that offshoring to India represents potential savings of 40 to 60 percent since there needs to be a mix of onsite and offshore activity. Hourly rates in India range from $20 to $30 an hour compared to the U.S. where they vary from $70 to $100 per hour," Vohra writes. "Even with the added cost of remote project management, these labor rates give tremendous savings." MORE....

Vajpayee on Outsourcing

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee Saturday told developed countries that outsourcing of business was 'inevitable' and was the result of 'barriers to free movement of people' they had created.

'If people cannot go to where the business is, business will eventually come to where the people are,' Vajpayee said in an address to a special plenary session of the India-European Union (EU) business summit, coinciding with the fourth India-EU political summit."

Outsourcing Benefits US

According to San Francisco-based McKinsey Global Institute, an independent research group with McKinsey & Co.

">US benefits most from outsourcing: For every dollar spent on offshoring by the US in 2002, the total value derived by the global economy was $1.4 to $1.47. While 78 per cent of the value, $1.12 to $1.14, was retained in the US, only 22 per cent, $0.33, was accrued to offshoring destinations like India."