Phaneesh Murthy, chief executive officer, iGATE Global Solutions, is also the founder of Primentor, an advisory firm headquartered in Fremont, California, which is closely associated with Quintant as its strategic advisor.

Phaneesh was formerly worldwide head of sales and marketing and a member of the board of Infosys Technologies. He was instrumental in launching Progeon, the BPO arm of Infosys, and was its chairman.

Here's a freewheeling chat with the IT whiz kid on the gizmos he likes or dislikes.

What do you carry?

A Blackberry, a cellphone and an iPod.

First crush?

My first love was an Atari game console.

True love?

My true love is The Blackberry. I can work on it anytime, anywhere.

Latest squeeze?

The iPod.

What makes you mad?

That's clearly cellular services in the US.

Your biggest tech disaster?

I was driving along a road completely lost. I had my Blackberry, cellphone and a car phone -- but none of them worked near the Pacific Ocean. I also had my GPS which could not track the place down, since it was a private road.

Dream Gadget?

I have pretty much bought everything I wanted to buy.

PC or Mac?

PC.

Linux or Windows?

Windows.

Google or not?

Yes.

How wrong have you been?

I have been wrong in terms of governing technology. I have always felt that GSM would win out.

Instead, we see a lot CDMA and other chic technologies, which tout themselves as cheaper, still around.

I also thought Sony would come out with cooler audio devices. I was wrong; it turned out to be Apple. There are plenty of surprises in the technology world. Even if I was not wrong, there were things that came back and I said, "Wow! That's strange."

(Above) Phaneesh Murthy with wife Jaya.  Photograph: Primentor

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