The country’s software industry body Nasscom has proposed a new category of service visas for the US to replace the controversial H-1B visa. The service visa will enable companies to send their employees to the US on work for a certain period and will not lead to immigration or permanent residency.
Nasscom has initiated dialogue with key Congressmen and industry groups, such as TechAmerica, Compete America and the US India Business Council, for the proposed change in visa. It is also encouraging a more comprehensive debate on the issue of immigration abuse rather than limiting it only to H-1B or L1 visas.
“We do not wish to encourage the abuse of visas for immigration. Our objective is to get the work done and bring back our people. There are 11,000-12,000 Indians who go to the US for work and their average stay is less than two years,” said Som Mittal, president, Nasscom. He said the service visa, along the lines of the work permit that Europe currently has for overseas workers, would help address the concerns of visa abuse.
In April this year, US senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durban proposed a legislation to limit both H-1B and L1 visas and force firms with over 50% of their staff as H-1B and L-1 visa holders to hire US locals, sending alarm bells through the Indian IT industry. Nassscom’s move, if successful, will protect the interests of the Indian IT industry by allowing them to continue sending their employees to the US on service visas for the duration of the work. “There is a need to differentiate between matters of trade and immigration,” said Mr Mittal.
“The service visa will enable US companies to avail the best of Indian talent without worrying about immigration issues. It will not have residency or permanent citizenship implications,” said Ganesh Natarajan, vice-chairman, Zensar Technologies.
Technology firms, both Indian and multinational, are one of the largest users of H1-B visas. In the past few years, there have many unsuccessful attempts to restrict the use of H1-B visas through legislations that have proposed a cap on the number of visas that can be issued.
According to industry estimates, there are about 12,000 employees from Indian IT firms and 10,000 from American IT firms that go to the US annually on these visas.
This year, however, because of the slowdown and reduced demand for technology services, only around 45,000 H-1B visas have been issued compared to the total available 65,000 H-1B visas. “Usually, the entire H-1B quota is filled up in a matter of days. This year, there are only four months to go and the quota is still not filled,” said a senior IT industry executive.
Monday, August 31, 2009
HCL, Layoffs in India, Wipro
Wipro, HCL engineers commit suicide
In the last one week two young IT engineers, one was working with Wipro and another with HCL, committed suicide. Both the engineers died by jumping from their office building.
Wipro engineer, Vishal Yadav (29), had a BE in electronics and hailed from Madhya Pradesh. Since May 17, 2004, he was working with Wipro as a Business Analyst and had gone on leave for two months. Interestingly, he had put in his papers via e-mail and was supposed to be relieved of his duties on August 31.
At around 10:20 pm on Wednesday, Vishal jumped from the top floor of S-II building of Wipro that has 12 storeys. When security supervisors heard a loud thud, they rushed to the spot and found Vishal down with blood around his body. They took him to the hospital, but it was in vain as doctor declared him brought dead. Doctor said, "With multiple head, spinal and thigh fractures, he might have collapsed within minutes after the fall."
HCL (Hindustan Computers Limited) engineer, Vikas Kumar Sharma (26), hailed from Munger district in Bihar. Since January 01, 2009, he was working with HCL as a Senior Network Analyst. He was living with a cousin in Delhi's Katwaria Sarai area. Though he was on a official off on Wednesday (August 19), he decided to report for the duty. The company cab had brought Vikas to the office around 4.30 am. Around 5.50 am Vikas jumped from the 5th floor of the office building. He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him brought dead.
In both the cases, Police have been trying to find the reason of the death as they could not find any suicide note or any threat related information till now. In the case of Vishal, police framed eight questions and sent them to the human resources department of Wipro, but even after 24 hours, they were unable to get any personal details of the dead man. However, an HR executive of Wipro said, "We have been directed not to reveal any information or photograph of the employee. It is just that he had quit the job and was serving the notice period."
A police officer said, "We are not ruling out murder. There are lots of unanswered questions and it is for Wipro to clear the doubts."
In the case of Vikas, Noida's Superintendent of Police (City) Ashok Tripathi said, "The company's officials did not inform the police about the incident. Authorities at Max Hospital, where the victim was taken to, informed us."
In 2009, two suicide news of big IT companies' employees came in limelight. There are many engineers who are being harassed and forced to resign from the company. Last week, one of the former Wipro employees had informed media of the way he was sacked from the company.
Wipro engineer, Vishal Yadav (29), had a BE in electronics and hailed from Madhya Pradesh. Since May 17, 2004, he was working with Wipro as a Business Analyst and had gone on leave for two months. Interestingly, he had put in his papers via e-mail and was supposed to be relieved of his duties on August 31.
At around 10:20 pm on Wednesday, Vishal jumped from the top floor of S-II building of Wipro that has 12 storeys. When security supervisors heard a loud thud, they rushed to the spot and found Vishal down with blood around his body. They took him to the hospital, but it was in vain as doctor declared him brought dead. Doctor said, "With multiple head, spinal and thigh fractures, he might have collapsed within minutes after the fall."
HCL (Hindustan Computers Limited) engineer, Vikas Kumar Sharma (26), hailed from Munger district in Bihar. Since January 01, 2009, he was working with HCL as a Senior Network Analyst. He was living with a cousin in Delhi's Katwaria Sarai area. Though he was on a official off on Wednesday (August 19), he decided to report for the duty. The company cab had brought Vikas to the office around 4.30 am. Around 5.50 am Vikas jumped from the 5th floor of the office building. He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him brought dead.
In both the cases, Police have been trying to find the reason of the death as they could not find any suicide note or any threat related information till now. In the case of Vishal, police framed eight questions and sent them to the human resources department of Wipro, but even after 24 hours, they were unable to get any personal details of the dead man. However, an HR executive of Wipro said, "We have been directed not to reveal any information or photograph of the employee. It is just that he had quit the job and was serving the notice period."
A police officer said, "We are not ruling out murder. There are lots of unanswered questions and it is for Wipro to clear the doubts."
In the case of Vikas, Noida's Superintendent of Police (City) Ashok Tripathi said, "The company's officials did not inform the police about the incident. Authorities at Max Hospital, where the victim was taken to, informed us."
In 2009, two suicide news of big IT companies' employees came in limelight. There are many engineers who are being harassed and forced to resign from the company. Last week, one of the former Wipro employees had informed media of the way he was sacked from the company.
IBM, New Deals, Outsourcing, Satyam, Wipro
TechM, Wipro, IBM vie for $400-m Loop Tele deal
LOOP Telecom, where the Essar Group has a stake, has shortlisted Tech Mahindra, Wipro and IBM for an IT outsourcing contract worth around $400 million. The contract is believed to be spread across a period of 10 years and will not include Loop Mobile’s operations, said two industry officials familiar with the deal. Loop Mobile provides cellular services in Mumbai, while operations in the rest of the country is under Loop Telecom.
The outsourcing contract is for the telco’s system integration and maintenance of IT systems across 22 cellular circles. This deal does not include BPO services since most of the back-end operations are done by Essar Group’s Aegis BPO. Loop Telecom has recently launched its services, selectively in Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka.
A Wipro spokesperson said the company was in talks with a few telcos and would not comment on specific engagements, while Tech Mahindra and IBM declined comment on the deal.
A Loop Telecom spokesperson said, “We are constantly exploring ways to enhance our business model, launch plans and operational decisions and regularly engage in dialogue with vendors to help us build a compelling proposition. Nothing has been finalised in terms of partners or the contract amount. An announcement on our IT contract will be made as and when it gets firmed up.”
Loop Telecom is believed to be exploring an operating expenditure (opex) model, under which the shortlisted players can take Loop Telecom’s IT assets on its books. “They could either rent or lease the assets back to the client,” said a person familiar with the deal. This model of outsourcing is considered more cost-effective for companies. The telecom company has already outsourced its network infrastructure to China’s ZTE and Huawei Technologies.
Loop Mobile, earlier known as BPL Mobile, has a subscriber base of 2.4 million in the Mumbai circle, for which it already has an in-house team of IT professionals.
“The request for proposal (RFP) did not mention providing IT services to Loop Mobile, but to other 22 circles. While the company has had a soft launch in four circles, it will scale it up after finalising on the IT vendor,” said
another official familiar with the contract.
The domestic market has been the focus of many IT service providers after a decline in exports from the US and Europe, apart from a host of new companies launching mobile services in India. These new entrants have kept the order book running for IT companies. Earlier, Wipro had bagged a full IT outsourcing project from Unitech Wireless worth approximately Rs 2,500 crore over a nine-year period.
The outsourcing contract is for the telco’s system integration and maintenance of IT systems across 22 cellular circles. This deal does not include BPO services since most of the back-end operations are done by Essar Group’s Aegis BPO. Loop Telecom has recently launched its services, selectively in Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka.
A Wipro spokesperson said the company was in talks with a few telcos and would not comment on specific engagements, while Tech Mahindra and IBM declined comment on the deal.
A Loop Telecom spokesperson said, “We are constantly exploring ways to enhance our business model, launch plans and operational decisions and regularly engage in dialogue with vendors to help us build a compelling proposition. Nothing has been finalised in terms of partners or the contract amount. An announcement on our IT contract will be made as and when it gets firmed up.”
Loop Telecom is believed to be exploring an operating expenditure (opex) model, under which the shortlisted players can take Loop Telecom’s IT assets on its books. “They could either rent or lease the assets back to the client,” said a person familiar with the deal. This model of outsourcing is considered more cost-effective for companies. The telecom company has already outsourced its network infrastructure to China’s ZTE and Huawei Technologies.
Loop Mobile, earlier known as BPL Mobile, has a subscriber base of 2.4 million in the Mumbai circle, for which it already has an in-house team of IT professionals.
“The request for proposal (RFP) did not mention providing IT services to Loop Mobile, but to other 22 circles. While the company has had a soft launch in four circles, it will scale it up after finalising on the IT vendor,” said
another official familiar with the contract.
The domestic market has been the focus of many IT service providers after a decline in exports from the US and Europe, apart from a host of new companies launching mobile services in India. These new entrants have kept the order book running for IT companies. Earlier, Wipro had bagged a full IT outsourcing project from Unitech Wireless worth approximately Rs 2,500 crore over a nine-year period.
IT market, Outsourcing
Big multinationals dumping excess vendor baggage
A slew of big multinationals, including the world’s largest telecom operator, Verizon, and capital equipment maker Applied Materials, are going the British Petroleum (BP) way of pruning the number of technology vendors to cut costs as they look for ways to come out of the worst recession in years.
Verizon, Chevron, Applied Materials, Best Buy, Cardinal Health, Home Depot and many other companies that do business with at least 40 IT vendors are set to prune their vendor list drastically, say consultants and analysts.
Early this week, BP cut the number of its vendors from 40 to five, in a move that will help it save $500 million. As many as 60 Fortune 100 companies are expected to follow suit, an analyst said. “The next 12 months will see a fair number of deals triggered by vendor consolidation,” said Partha Iyengar, research director at research and advisory firm Gartner India.
Applied Materials, one of the largest suppliers of semiconductor and display manufacturing equipment, has identified opportunities for vendor consolidation in data centre co-location and telecom services, the $9-billion firm’s group vice-president and CIO Ron Kifer said. The US firm’s large vendors include IBM, TCS and Wipro.
TCS says it’s in discussion with at least three customers looking to consolidate vendors. “These are Fortune 500 companies in the retail and banking & financial services space,” said S Ramadorai, the CEO of the country’s largest software services company.
A Fortune 500 bank is evaluating options to reduce its infrastructure management and data centre partners from 10 to two, while one of the world’s top five retailers is looking at reducing its technology vendors from around 80 to 25-30, a person aware of the development told ET, but declined to give details.
A Fortune 50 drugmaker, which presently has about 100 vendors doing tasks like data mining, drug distribution and supply chain management, wants to reduce its vendor list by at least 60%, another person said, requesting anonymity.
The move will help these firms get into more strategic relationships with vendors, get better pricing by increasing volume of work to technology suppliers, reduce governance overheads and cut costs by 12-15%.
According to Chandramouli CS, director, advisory services, of technology consultancy Zinnov Management Consulting, a $10-billion plus company will have multiple vendors at offshore, onshore and near-shore locations. As the number of vendors increase, compliance and management is a huge task and costs escalate. “Restructuring initiatives like vendor consolidation makes them more agile,” he said.
Also, too many relationships reduce buying power and increases risks. For instance, banks, which have to ensure there is no data theft, will reduce risks when they cut the number of vendors managing customer information. Similarly, for companies engaged in healthcare, having only a handful of vendors makes it easier to manage relationships and tackle leaks, if any, in the system promptly.
Companies doing R&D remotely also try to limit the number of third-party vendors to protect intellectual property and any infringements of patents. For instance, Microsoft, which files for a few hundred patents every year, just has one global vendor, CPA Global, to do the patent filing.
“Clients who think they have too many vendors are consolidating. It helps to reduce risks and manage costs better,’’ said V Balakrishnan, CFO of India’s second-largest IT exporter Infosys Technologies.
The development spells big gains for large IT services players. R Chandrasekaran, president and MD for global delivery at software firm Cognizant, said deep domain expertise, broader range of services and expanded geographic footprint help large companies to score in vendor consolidation moves.
But life will become much more difficult for smaller companies. “The smaller players aren’t able to match the pricing offered by the big vendors. It’s tough for the small services companies,” said Avinash Vashishta, CEO of Bangalore-based advisory firm Tholons.
Already hit by the global recession, small vendors may now become easy acquisition targets for the bigger ones. To survive, the obvious lesson for them is to develop expertise in niche fields. As being lean in tough times becomes the norm, it will be the fat boys of offshoring who will gain.
Verizon, Chevron, Applied Materials, Best Buy, Cardinal Health, Home Depot and many other companies that do business with at least 40 IT vendors are set to prune their vendor list drastically, say consultants and analysts.
Early this week, BP cut the number of its vendors from 40 to five, in a move that will help it save $500 million. As many as 60 Fortune 100 companies are expected to follow suit, an analyst said. “The next 12 months will see a fair number of deals triggered by vendor consolidation,” said Partha Iyengar, research director at research and advisory firm Gartner India.
Applied Materials, one of the largest suppliers of semiconductor and display manufacturing equipment, has identified opportunities for vendor consolidation in data centre co-location and telecom services, the $9-billion firm’s group vice-president and CIO Ron Kifer said. The US firm’s large vendors include IBM, TCS and Wipro.
TCS says it’s in discussion with at least three customers looking to consolidate vendors. “These are Fortune 500 companies in the retail and banking & financial services space,” said S Ramadorai, the CEO of the country’s largest software services company.
A Fortune 500 bank is evaluating options to reduce its infrastructure management and data centre partners from 10 to two, while one of the world’s top five retailers is looking at reducing its technology vendors from around 80 to 25-30, a person aware of the development told ET, but declined to give details.
A Fortune 50 drugmaker, which presently has about 100 vendors doing tasks like data mining, drug distribution and supply chain management, wants to reduce its vendor list by at least 60%, another person said, requesting anonymity.
The move will help these firms get into more strategic relationships with vendors, get better pricing by increasing volume of work to technology suppliers, reduce governance overheads and cut costs by 12-15%.
According to Chandramouli CS, director, advisory services, of technology consultancy Zinnov Management Consulting, a $10-billion plus company will have multiple vendors at offshore, onshore and near-shore locations. As the number of vendors increase, compliance and management is a huge task and costs escalate. “Restructuring initiatives like vendor consolidation makes them more agile,” he said.
Also, too many relationships reduce buying power and increases risks. For instance, banks, which have to ensure there is no data theft, will reduce risks when they cut the number of vendors managing customer information. Similarly, for companies engaged in healthcare, having only a handful of vendors makes it easier to manage relationships and tackle leaks, if any, in the system promptly.
Companies doing R&D remotely also try to limit the number of third-party vendors to protect intellectual property and any infringements of patents. For instance, Microsoft, which files for a few hundred patents every year, just has one global vendor, CPA Global, to do the patent filing.
“Clients who think they have too many vendors are consolidating. It helps to reduce risks and manage costs better,’’ said V Balakrishnan, CFO of India’s second-largest IT exporter Infosys Technologies.
The development spells big gains for large IT services players. R Chandrasekaran, president and MD for global delivery at software firm Cognizant, said deep domain expertise, broader range of services and expanded geographic footprint help large companies to score in vendor consolidation moves.
But life will become much more difficult for smaller companies. “The smaller players aren’t able to match the pricing offered by the big vendors. It’s tough for the small services companies,” said Avinash Vashishta, CEO of Bangalore-based advisory firm Tholons.
Already hit by the global recession, small vendors may now become easy acquisition targets for the bigger ones. To survive, the obvious lesson for them is to develop expertise in niche fields. As being lean in tough times becomes the norm, it will be the fat boys of offshoring who will gain.
Wipro
Premji re-appointed Wipro Chairman
Software major Wipro said its current Chairman and Managing Director Azim Premji has been re-appointed for the post for a further two-year period till July 2011.
The shareholders of the company have given their approval for the re-appointment of Azim Premji as Chairman and Managing Director until July 30, 2011, Wipro said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
His re-appointment would be effective from July 31, 2009, it further said.
The shareholders of the company have given their approval for the re-appointment of Azim Premji as Chairman and Managing Director until July 30, 2011, Wipro said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
His re-appointment would be effective from July 31, 2009, it further said.
IT market
Nokia may enter Indian PC market
Seeking to diversify its businesses, Nokia's planned foray into the highly competitive personal computer segment, promises to provide the Finnish mobile phone maker with good growth opportunities in emerging markets including India.
The company is all set to test the waters with the mini-laptop 'Nokia Booklet 3G'. "Nokia's strategy is to enter the PC market at the entry level, with seriousness and aggressiveness...It has good growth avenues for the company especially in markets like India where the desirability of computers is expected to increase in the days to come," Gartner Principal Analyst (Client Computing) Diptarup Chakraborti told PTI.
According to Chakraborti, there is much relevance for consumer PC in the Indian market and there would be lot many new buyers in the future.
He added that the entity has strong partners and brand equity in the mobile phone business.
The Windows-based mini-laptop would weigh 1.25 kilogram and has a battery life of up to 12 hours. "A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility," Nokia Executive Vice President Devices Kai Oistamo said last week while announcing the plan for the mini-laptop.
The company is all set to test the waters with the mini-laptop 'Nokia Booklet 3G'. "Nokia's strategy is to enter the PC market at the entry level, with seriousness and aggressiveness...It has good growth avenues for the company especially in markets like India where the desirability of computers is expected to increase in the days to come," Gartner Principal Analyst (Client Computing) Diptarup Chakraborti told PTI.
According to Chakraborti, there is much relevance for consumer PC in the Indian market and there would be lot many new buyers in the future.
He added that the entity has strong partners and brand equity in the mobile phone business.
The Windows-based mini-laptop would weigh 1.25 kilogram and has a battery life of up to 12 hours. "A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility," Nokia Executive Vice President Devices Kai Oistamo said last week while announcing the plan for the mini-laptop.
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