The IT Amendment Act, 2008, if notified, will give the government blanket power to block news portals and other sites for 'offensive' content.
The Airtel Net PC is a plug-and-play online computer, inclusive of a 15-inch LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse and Nivio companion (which enables the PC to connect to a backend Linux-run server for storage and applications) and priced at Rs 7,999 exclusively for Airtel broadband customers.
The contract, which involves upgrade of LIC's front-end IT application programmes to make these accessible through the web, is said to be worth about Rs 200 crore, and will be done over five years. It is understood that most large Indian IT outsourcing companies, including TCS, Infosys and L&T Infotech, had competed for the contract. It was considered prestigious, not because of its size but because it involved a prestigious public sector organisation like LIC.
It is not clear which groups of the Indian operations have been affected by the cuts which are learnt to have been carried out across diverse functions. However, a company source said that a sizeable number of Microsoft's sales and support personnel in Hyderabad and a few in Bangalore were among those affected. The Response Windows team has also been dismantled completely, the source claimed.
The recent multi-million dollar deals by the likes of TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies buttress the fact. If the economy does not lose more steam, these companies say the IT sector may see a semblance of normalcy by year-end.
Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is understood to be contemplating legal action against P S Saminathan, managing director and one of the promoters of Pyramid Saimira Theatre (PSTL), and Nirmal N Kotecha, another promoter of the company.
Keeping a reserve pool of staff is proving to be a liability. This is forcing companies to devise ways to reduce bench strength, by posting in other areas and paying them less till they become productive assets. Moreover, while the physical bench had always been there, mid-sized IT firms like Hexaware and Mastek have coined the word 'virtual desk' to define a certain section of their unutilised resources who will be enjoying lesser privileges and perks.
"Performance management tools have been always used by companies to reward good performers and weed out the bad ones. However, due to the significant growth over the last few years, they were not enforced. With the industry facing the economic downturn, it is using this tool fairly effectively. And it is being done all over the world," explained Som Mittal, president of software body Nasscom.
Wipro sees a silver lining in Q1; others say recovery by 2009-end.
The jury is still out on whether Tech Mahindra should retain the Satyam name. Srinivasan Swamy, CMD, R K Swamy BBDO, says. "Brand Satyam took a beating for only one reason -- accounting irregularities by its erstwhile chairman. The employees were not even aware of the fraud. The company's core values and foundation have not been impacted." The task for the new management, he believes, is to retain its clients and people and the brand image would get resurrected.
In the current fiscal (2009-10), the company expects that this may further go down to about 50 per cent. "In fiscal 2010, we expect the variable pay for the senior management to be less than 58 per cent," said Infosys head of HR, education and research T V Mohandas Pai. He is also a member on the Infosys' board. Variable component is as high as 50 per cent in the total pay packet of the senior executives whereas the fixed component constitutes the other half.
The impact of the global meltdown has forced India's second largest IT bellwether Infosys Technologies to freeze wage hikes and hiring in new fiscal 2009-10.
Google allows users to phone a toll-free number and make a query. The 'voice search' uses a combination of automated voice recognition engine and operators to provide this facility. To make the service faster and better, Google is also experimenting with voice recognition technology, which will ensure 24-hour support. Currently, the automated system offers results in English, but the operator-driven system offers results in only Hindi and Telugu.
The company has told its employees that there won't be wage hikes for the financial year ending July 31, 2009, due to tight demand in the US and Europe, declining volumes and the need to further tighten expenses across business divisions. In a harsher step, the company has slashed retainer bonus, which averages 10 per cent of an employee's salary, from April 1. Travel allowance has been sharply reduced, if not curbed, in most cases.
It's a digital prototype called "sixth sense" that is currently being evaluated by major companies like Microsoft, Google, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung. The brain behind this device is the 28-year-old Indian-born Pranav Mistry, a researcher at the Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Global clients continue to keep purse strings tight and very few deals are coming from traditionally large markets like the Americas and Europe, which account for almost 80 per cent of revenues of most Indian IT firms. The billing rates of most Indian IT firms in the third quarter were either flat or were cut, compared with the second quarter of the current financial year.
"We have not lost a single customer in Asia, despite the news (its bankruptcy protection filing in Canada and the US)," said Francois Lancon, President Enterprise EMEA and Asia. He admits, though, that "what works for us (stickiness of clients) also works for our competitors," adding, "The slowing economy is helping us retain clients, since customers don't like taking big decisions like changing vendors during times of uncertainty."
The last couple of years of frenzied activity in the MRO space made many believe that time is not far when umpteen number of MROs will start servicing narrow and wide-bodied aircraft on the Indian soil like motor garages. While many of the projects announced over the last couple of years have not seen the light of the day, Aviation firm AirWorks which launched India's first MRO in airline segment at Hosur (Tamil Nadu) is yet to land their first anchor customer.
The Satyam board may present prospective bidders for the troubled Satyam Computer Services with operating statements for two quarters - October-December 2008 and January-March 2009 - to help them arrive at a decision.
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