It’s difficult to miss the article in the various newspapers that Infosys announced a special bonus of Rs. 126 crores for its employees to mark the occasion of its silver jubilee.

From the article:

The Silver jubilee celebrations won’t be the only reason for the Infoscians to cheer. In addition to the celebrations that mark 25 years of the IT giant’s existence, all the employees of the company are set to receive a substantial bonus. A princely sum of Rs 126 crore will be distributed among its 58,000 employees.

If you just think about the figure of 126 crores (US $30 million) outside the context, it sounds huge. But let’s do some calculations: (Assumption: US $1 == Rs. 42.00)

126 crores for 58000 employees == Rs. 21724 (US $517) per employee.

So basically Infosys is handing over, on an average, just above $500 to each of its employee. Of course, those who have been in the company for a longer duration will get more than the average while the others will get even less than that (Any company will do this - you will always get rewarded for being loyal). I am sure their average annual bonus will be more than this amount.

Let’s take a look at it from another perspective. Infosys also announced its quarterly results for April-June quarter and its revenue expanded 38.7% to $660 million from $476 million. Assuming $660 million as revenue and 30% profit, the net profit for the quarter is $198 million - which averages to ~ US $66 million per month.

When the monthly profit is US $66 million, a disbursement of just $30 million to mark 25 years of existence seems abysmally low to me. I definitely expected a lot more from Infosys. So, yes, they did a pretty good job at announcements with media showering praises on them - but I think that the Infoscians deserved a better deal.

Or did I miss anything in my calculations?

With Infosys still being the most fair company amongst the big names when it comes to treatment of their employees, it’s not surprising to see people at these companies getting frustrated. I can only say, with the risk of making a very general statement - “You either offer some good, challenging and satisfying work OR you offer good money OR you do both; what is the point in offering none?”

Technorati Tags: Infosys, Silver Jubilee, Silver Jubilee Bonus

Italy are the soccer world-cup champions after defeating France in the finals couple of hours back - Rome is exploding with joy after the finals.

France deserved to lose, after what Zidane did in the extra time by hitting his head on Materazzi’s chest. That will probably stand as one of the most bizarre incident in the history of world soccer. I have tremendous respect for Zinedine Zidane as he is truly one of the genius of the game but he disgraced himself in what was the last international match of his career.

I went to watch the match live at Fox on the big screen TV - a neat restaurant in the heart of Gurgaon. By the time I picked up Manish and checked-in at Fox at 11 PM, the place was already packed. If we hadn’t gotten our reservation done, I would have been found watching the match on my home TV.

After the opening dance, the match started at 11.30 PM IST and I could see that there were more France supporters than Italy.

Manish had gotten hold of a T-Shirt that had Italy written at the back and so was officially a Italian supporter. But I am sure if he had gotten a France T-Shirt, he would have been a France supporter. Anyways, the first real activity happened in 7th minute when France were awarded a penalty kick for what was seen as an unfair decision by he referee. On replays, it was pretty clear that the offence was not worth a penalty - and that appalled the audience in the restaurant. Soon after Zidane converted the penalty to a goal, there was a dramatic conversion of French supporters who began to cheer Italy. I, who was also supporting France so far, became an avid supporter of Italy - because I felt that Italy were handed off an unfair deal. And then France also won the semi-finals also because of a Zidane penalty which was another controversial decision. It proved too much to me and, I assume, to many other viewers in the restaurant.

After that, Italy were clearly the superior team in the first half. France didn’t look like one who had answers to Italy’s attacks - particularly their headers and, finally, Materazzi converted a corner shot into goal by a header beautifully. They made a few more attacks also but missed on the opportunities.

The second half belonged to France who, all of a sudden, were a much improved team and played like world-champions. Both the teams attacked but neither were able to score even though both the teams had their chances. The game went in the extra time and France again looked slightly better team. They were attacking more but Italy’s attack looked more solid even though France looked more dangerous. If not for the excellence of Buffon, the Italian goalkeeper, Zidane would have given France a lead in 105th minute - that was an excellent excellent save.

What happened few minutes later was probably the most bizarre incident in soccer that I have witnessed live. Zidane felt that Materazzi was un-necessarly blocking him and, out of anger or frustration or I don’t know what, he hit Materazzi on his chest from his head - and that was a strong hit. Zidane was shown a red-card and was sent off the field - which was a sad way for one of the game’s greatest to end his career. This is an incident that he will repent all his life - not because France lost the game but because it was one of the most un-sportsman like behavior on the field.

The game moved to penalty shoot-outs and Italy buried the ghosts of 1990, 1994, 1998 - when they lost on the penalty shoot-outs. Italy emerged the winner of FIFA World Cup 2006 and they deserved it. This was one of the most entertaining world cup finals ever played.

And the man on the field who was most active or will be in the news most is Materazzi. He was the one who apparently blocked France initially that got Zidane awarded the penalty and moved France ahead in the 7th minute 1-0. Then he was the one who scored for Italy to equal the score and, at the end, got hit by Zidane and became the reason for Zidane’s red-card.

The soccer world cup also sees a sharp increase in my interests towards soccer and it was well worth it in the end - the excitement is such that I am awake till 4 AM to write this post.

Tags: World Cup 2006, Soccer World Cup, Fifa World Cup, Italy, France

Disclaimer: The photos are linked from a Yahoo site and not owned by the current blog author.

Don’t you just love controversies? I have realized that the world cannot live without controversies and the media cannot live without making it spicier. Well, I will be honest in saying that I do love these spicy stories but, at the same time, these things do annoy me too once in a while.

The recent allegations by the former Indian primer minister Deve Gowda on Infosys Chief Narayana Murthy is pretty amusing. First, Mr Gowda claims that Mr Murthy has not made any contribution in the last 5 years, as a chairman, to the Bangalore International airport Limited project. Result - a miffed Murthy’s resignation from the BIAL chairmanship. Deve Gowda didn’t stop here - he then claims that all the land acquired by the IT companies in Bangalore needs to be checked and that these companies need to shift their base to Hassan and Gulbarga from Bangalore.

I don’t really know much of a history behind this story - so I will stop short of saying who is right or who is wrong. But then - just based on the common sense - I have a few very basic questions. All these IT companies that Deve Gowda is talking about are not just any companies - they are the ones which are listed in the stock market and have a lot of credibility in the market. The allegations that they have been in the habit of land grabbing sounds laughable to me. On the other hand - I am not too sure about Deve Gowda’s credentials. When he became the prime minister of India (and the term lasted for close to a year), it’s a wide speculation that it didn’t happen because of his credentials but because of the fact that everybody wanted to keep both BJP and Congress out of the top seat then.

When Infosys came up with the statistics that they provided employment to so many people in the country and have been good to the state in so many other ways - Deve Gowda was prompt to say that the same has been done by the other companies like Wipro. He also pointed out that Premji never tries to interfere in the state politics and believes that Murthy should also do the same. I take exception to this remark. Why? Why should Murthy do things that Premji does or why shouldn’t he do things that Premji doesn’t?

I am a strong believer of the fact that good politicians and good entrepreneurs are the ones that are needed in India and, for that matter, any country - particularly the developing ones. And it’s just fine if one of them decides to switch roles at some point in their life. I am sure that a lot of successful entreprenurs will make good politicians - at least better than the present ones.

First it was Microsoft who was pushing to buy stakes in AOL and then it was immediately followed by Google / Comcast alliance. It was pretty evident that Google needed to cut into Microsoft and AOL talks because a successful deal between AOL and Microsoft will mean a significant cut in the ad revenues of Google.

From Bernard’s post:

Google Inc. and Comcast Corp. are in serious discussions with Time Warner Inc. about buying a minority stake in America Online for as much as $5 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.

Google and Comcast are hoping a stake in AOL will allow them to tap AOL’s large audience and its content offerings, such as concerts, drawing more consumers and advertising to their Internet services.

The question is: who will AOL go with? Or is it just that Google is trying to increase the bid price of Microsoft?

It is accepted unarguably that IIT JEE (Indian Institute of Technology - Joint Entrance Examination) is one of the toughest examinations in the entire world. The acceptance rate used to be 1 in 100 (2,000 seat for 2,00,000 participants) although, lately, they are working on doubling the seats. Last time I found out, the number of seats had grown to 3000 and they were still working on increasing it. And the quality of questions are so high that one just need to score around 35-40% (or even less) to make it to one of the IITs.

JEE started as just a single exam with subjective and objective questions intermingled in the question paper but they changed it some 6 years back with a screening exam followed by the main exam for those who cleared the former. It, definitely, gave some tough times to the aspirants and was cause of many a cases of depression / discouragement for those not being able to clear the screening test. The following news is a good one as IITs have decided to merge the two in one. An excerpt:

It’s celebration time for IIT aspirants. The hard-to-crack entrance examination, IIT-JEE , just got simpler. Beginning ’06, the two-step entrance — screening and main — examination will be replaced by a single exam. Just so that students take their board exams seriously, a first class in their class twelve board exams will be mandatory to appear for the IIT-JEE. Moreover candidates will be allowed only two attempts at the IIT-JEE.

I like this pattern because of following reasons:

1. Just having 1 exam instead of 2 (screening and main)
2. Minimum marks in the school-leaving exam (class 12th) is 60% now - this will force people to take up their school exams a bit more seriously.
3. Only 2 attempts for the JEE: Excellent step. There is no point in somebody wasting a lot of time for just 1 exam.
4. Somebody who is already in IIT can’t take up the exam again: Again a good step. If you don’t want to join a course / institute and are doing it just for another year of preparation, don’t waste the seat that another person will be more than glad to have.

Reasons that I don’t like this pattern for:

1. Simplifying the syllabus / paper and asking only objective questions: I have always been in favor of the IIT entrance question papers to be tough. Making the question papers / syllabus easy will only test the speed and accuracy (great!) of the person and not the real intellect / analytical skills. The idea of IIT, to begin with, was always to produce more scientists than engineers and steps like this will only weaken the implementation of that idea.

Lastly, they will re-evaluate the entire thing after JEE ‘06 - which can only be a good thing. I will be eager to know what others think about this.

I received an email from one of my school friend which goes like this:

Hi ashish…..as I have told you that I really love to read your blogs,
and its quite a soothing experience for me that there is one among us
who really has the courage and ability to say whatever he thinks,
probably I can see a leader and mentor in making…..kudos!!!

Also, would love to know about your future goals……and what are your
future aspirations.

Now, I can see that my friend has clearly been disturbed by this article and I don’t think he is completely unjustified in his concern. Having said that, I can only say that this is one of the most immature article I have read - the thoughts, and the use of words, didn’t impress me a bit. All that he emphasized in his article was the fact that Indian companies are predominantly services company. Right, very right! I totally agree with his assessment here - but how does that make Bangalore a ‘Coolie valley’ is something that is beyond my understanding.

Here is my answer to him:

Mr. Dasarathi,

Let me start by putting a disclaimer here that my response is based just on this article that you published - and without knowing your other credentials.

You have made a very correct observation that Indian (Bangalore, as you say specifically) IT industry is predominantly services oriented, with a very few companies that are doing purely products work. This is something that has been brought to notice by a lot of folks earlier also - and is a very well known fact. So, I was least surprised when you brought up this point. But what surprised me was your treatment of the subject. The very fact that you described a services company as the one lacking in innovation amuses me.

Innovation is a very broad term - and it’s not people like you or me who would (and should) tell people what is the ‘right’ innovation. In my perspective, both the sectors do innovate. Products companies target more on the technical aspect of it whereas a services company focus on the process innovation. And, I do think that the services company were the need of the hour in India when it started and that is what has put the Indian IT industry on the world-map.

Having said that, I am myself a huge fan of tech and product start-ups. But, at the same time, I believe in doing business for the sake of making things better for myself, for people who care about me and for the rest of the world - in that order. So, in my perspective, it just made sense for the Indian companies to do services business when they started - knowing exactly the market (which is still driven predominantly by the US) and its demands. But, yes, things are changing and we have come up to a stage where we have started to witness the Indian companies creating products. The percentage is still abysmally low but we have taken a step, a big one, in that direction. And I do see a lot of products coming out of India in the near future. TeNeT group is an excellent example of that - and I have personally seen the awesome work being done in those companies under the superior guidance of Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala.

The whole thing makes a lot of sense to me. Securing yourself before trying to change the world is the philosophy of a lot of people - and I don’t see anything wrong in that. If I had a time-machine, I would have liked to take you 10 year ahead in the future and shown you all kind of stuff Indian software companies (with a lot of tech start-ups) would be doing.

-Ashish

In today’s world, for the software industry - ‘Offshoring’ and ‘Outsourcing to India’ - are synonyms. So if somebody is talking about offshoring, they are basically talking about outsourcing to India unless specified otherwise. Not to say that things are not changing - there are other countries like China and Vietnam who are picking up more and more work from the US. But they still have a long way to go because of the unique advantages that India has.

But, to SeaCode Inc, offshoring means three miles off the coast of the US. What San Diego-based start-up SeaCode Inc. plans to do is nothing if not novel: anchor a cruise ship three miles off the coast of Los Angeles, fill it with up to 600 programmers from around the world, eliminate visa restrictions and make it easy for customers to visit the site via water taxi.

I won’t make a comment on whether they will be successful or not - since I am not yet clear if this is their entire business model or have they refined it further. But this idea is definitely interesting. Read the story here.

Rumors are that Microsoft has decided the official name of Longhorn as ‘Windows Vista’. Now, having worked at Microsoft, I know that there is no point in believing unless I see an official word from Microsoft.

But what kind of name is this - Windows Vista. Not a name that really excites me!

Let me start by saying - I love Microsoft. I really do! Not only because I have worked at Microsoft but also because I think that they have given a lot to the software industry, in general. The software industry owes a lot to Microsoft for its current standing. But, in this post, I am going to talk about something that has annoyed me a lot in the past few days.

My annoyance is about the behavior of Hotmail for the past few days. A couple of weeks back - the first thing I noticed was that they stopped showing number of un-read emails in a folder. Temporary glitch? - that is what I thought initially! But, no, that was not it - apparently Microsoft decided that the users don’t need this functionality. Does that go well with anybody? I don’t know - I haven’t met anybody who was happy at that. Then the latest stuff - a week back - they pulled out the sorting by field (name, subject, date, etc) functionalities. Why? I have no clue! No, I refuse to believe that it is a performance issue.

What kind of business model is this? You provide a feature to users that they rely so much on and then you pull it out, all of a sudden. I have so much of dependency on Hotmail that I will have to go to the extent of even paying for the service if they stop the free service. But no, this is not something that affects only the non-paying users like me - this affects even those who have the premium membership.

Does this suck? Oh yes, big time! I don’t think that even a single day passes when I am not annoyed because of this. I am relying more and more on the desktop email clients but would still love to have these features in the web version. After all, that is what was unique about Hotmail, when it started.

Can’t resist from blogging this. Ourmedia is making great news! JD Lasica reports that Ourmedia is a finalist in the UN awards. Gaurav also reported this in his blog.

It feels so nice to be a part of the project.