Chennai Information Technology Sector

[TShyam]

CHENNAI: At a time when students in Tamil Nadu are getting familiar with their new laptops distributed by the state government, a group is working double time to promote free software. The Free Software Foundation of Tamil Nadu (FSFTN), a part of the Free Software Movement of India ( FSMI), has been campaigning for computers that do not use paid software.

FSFTN, which is already active in IIT-Madras, Anna University, Madras Institute of Technologies (MIT) and several other leading universities and colleges, are conducting aggressive campaigns to form more groups on state campuses to provide service and training for students community to use free software applications in their computers. They will also provide awareness to students about the monopoly of proprietary programmes (Microsoft, iOS, etc).

Alagunambi Welkin, a senior member of FSFTN, said their fight is all against the knowledge industry and the monopoly of software giants. "The free software movement in Tamil Nadu is mostly led by IITians, software professionals and tech-savvy students from Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore. They have formed groups in seven campuses in the states, including IIT-Madras and MIT. These free software groups are mostly headed by students and officially approved by the institutions," he said. Welkin said they are taking their campaign to more number of institutions.

The campaign, which is on the heels of the 68 lakh free laptops distributed by the state government, slams the state government for distributing laptops loaded with paid-operating systems and software. In one of its conference, American software freedom activist Richard Stallman, known as the prophet of free software movement, had criticised the state government for forcing students to be dependent on paid products. "By distributing laptops with non-free software it creates a system of digital colonisation," Stallman told those gathered at IIT-Madras in February.

"Our group will provide free software services and training for campuses and individual users. We will reach out to at least 40 campuses across the state in two months time. The campaign is all about the freedom to access knowledge and safe computing free from the hidden strings of developers," Welkin said. On September 22, 2012, FSFTN will hold a meeting of college students at the College of Engineering Guindy (CEG) campus to coordinate the campaign across the state.

Deepak Johnson, IIT-Madras student and an active member of free software movement said he stands for free knowledge. "Many students are unaware of the merits of free software. This is the time for student to raise their voice for online freedom and protest the governments' move to restrict several file sharing sites and online libraries. The Tamil Nadu government should understand the concept of knowledge freedom when they distribute several lakh free laptops to students," he said.

Tamil Nadu was one of the first states in India that began free software in its governance years ago. The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu ( ELCOT) had opened special cells at all district headquarters to train government employees to use popular open source operating systems like Ubuntu. Now, FSFTN demands the state government to stop wasting several crores of rupees on paid software and go back to its free software platform.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/16329108.cms

[Leo467]

Anyone has any decent pics or recent info on the Mahindra city.. the first ever planned city including a massive IT Park ?

[udhaya]

GROUPON, DAILY DEALS OUTSOURCE TO:-
CHENNAI

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/16427498.cms

[murlee]

Longmont-based Parascript opens office in India

Handwriting recognition company Parascript has opened a new office in Chennai, India, to provide the company access to key markets in India, the Middle East and other South, Southeast and East Asia countries.

The company's business has been growing in that part of the world, particularly in light of the Cheque Truncation System, which has been mandated by the Reserve Bank of India. That system enables the electronic transmission of images, rather than physical documents, to allow for faster clearing of checks.

Parascript has developed intelligent recognition software that identifies information on billions of checks, envelopes, parcels and other various forms. Its headquarters have a Longmont address and are physically located in the Boulder Tech Center near Niwot. It also has a development office in Moscow.

http://www.timescall.com/business/bu...s-office-india

[karkal]

Software testing company enters telecom sector

Chennai, Oct 19 — Software testing company Maveric Systems will be hiring 200 more people this fiscal to foray into telecom and expanding to Dubai, a top company official said here Friday.

The Chennai-based Rs.88 crore company is an independent software testing company mainly focussed on banking, financial services and the insurance (BFSI) domains with 780 employees.

"Based on our customer demand we have decided to go up in the software testing value chain by partnering with our clients across the entire IT (information technology) adoption life cycle," Ranga Reddy, co-founder and CEO of Maveric Systems said here Friday.

He said the company would focus on defect prevention and defect detection (software testing) while partnering with clients in other areas of IT adoption lifecycle, excluding consulting and selection of software solution.

According to Reddy, the company has necessary business knowledge, domain competence and programme insight while testing software for BFSI segment.

N.N. Subramanian, director-programme and process assurance services, said a lot of poor quality IT solutions would have got injected into a software implementation programme by the time a testing company is engaged towards the latter part of IT adoption lifecycle.

"Our approach is holistic, we will provide a comprehensive solution spanning the entire project lifecycle of our clients. The global assurance market is estimated to be about $39 billion," he said.

Reddy said Maveric would get into telecom vertical as it sees similarities in the operations of BFSI and telecom companies when it comes to customer service.

He said the company would be entering the Middle East market on its own steam by opening an office in Dubai as all these years it was working through partners there.

"For this fiscal we are targeting a revenue of around Rs.120 crore of with around Rs.100 crore will be from the BFSI sector and the balance from other verticals like telecom, auto and others," Reddy said.

He said the company will be opening a new 20,000 sq. ft. development centre in Chennai soon.

Read more: http://india.nydailynews.com/busines...#ixzz29lstMRL8

[satishanu]

Teens Sanjay and Shravan Kumaran have co-founded Go Dimensions

They are school kids. But they display the knowledge, maturity and aplomb of a grey-haired expert.

Sanjay Kumaran (11) is probably the youngest CEO in the world and his 13-year-old sibling, Shravan, is the President of “Go Dimensions”, a Chennai-based company that is in the process getting registered. The two siblings are co-founders of the firm, which offers “application for new world to make life easier”, primarily in the areas of education, lifestyle and convenience.

Shravan is in the eighth grade and Sanjay in the sixth at Vael’s Billabong International School, Chennai.

“We have developed apps for iPhone and android devices” says Sanjay. Shravan explains that their first app ‘Catch me cop’, had more than 10,000 downloads in 45 countries since it was made available on Apple’s App Store from January 21 this year. Subsequently, they developed three more apps, all of which are now available on App Store and on Google’s Play Store.

The second app, ‘Alphabet Board,’ got a very good review from App Store, says Sanjay. “This got around 4,000 downloads. Games get more downloads than educational apps,” he observes. “You can learn without parents’ help,” Shravan chips in.

Experiencing turbulence while flying from Chennai to New York led the tech-savvy siblings to develop their third app, “Prayer Planet.” “We wanted to pray but the idols were in the bag which was checked in. We thought it will be much easier if there is an app.” Prayer Planet became popular in the Middle East and had more than 5,000 downloads. ‘Colour Palette’, their fourth app, got a 5/5 rating in 42 comments on App Store.

Customisable tablet

“By 2015-16, we are going to develop a tablet. We are going to price it very low so that everyone in villages [can] buy it and become more techie,” says Sanjay. It would be the lightest tablet and as light and thin as a sheet of paper.

“We actually made a model. It will be a customisable tablet and pop up questions the moment you open it. [It will be customised according to] the age of the user. A six-year-old won’t be interested in having ppt [Powerpoint]. He will be interested in learning letters,” Shravan says.

Asked how they became interested in app development, Sanjay says they were inspired when their father asked them to make games instead of playing them.

They presented a paper at a two-day International Knowledge Millennium Conference, IKMC-2012: Global Innovation Exchange, which began here on Friday. It was organised by IKP Knowledge Park.

Their father, Kumaran Surendran, Director, Engineering, Symantec Software & Services India Pvt. Limited, says: “I am very proud and happy. I feel this is a new India where people are not afraid to try something on their own. I am happy that my kids are venturing into entrepreneurship at a very early age.”

The siblings have earned $200 from ads on their apps page on App Store.

src: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/tec...?homepage=true

[murlee]

Aricent’s Wi-Fi testing facility in Chennai expects $50 million revenue in 2-3 years

The Aricent Group, a technology services company, has invested heavily into the Chennai lab and it expects around $50 million revenue from Wi-Fi testing services in the next 2-3 years.

Recently, Aricent has added WiFi testing and pre-certification services to telecom testing portfolio at its Chennai facility in India.

The Chennai testing facility offers services spanning protocol conformance, interoperability, performance, stress, security, scripting, automation and pre-certification. The Wi-Fi Test Lab also offers remote access for optimal accessibility from anywhere in the world.

Aricent Group said testing for Wi-Fi helps Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers, service providers and device makers save significant resources by providing a world-class test facility along with domain expert support.

The Chennai unit offers extensive test equipment, test suites, test tools, and covering all aspects of Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi lab offers testing services spanning across protocol conformance, interoperability, performance, stress, security, scripting, automation and pre-certification.

The lab undergoes constant innovation based on feedback from organizations such as the Wi-Fi Alliance, in which Aricent is a member, to continue to be the most advanced WiFi testing facility.

Aricent powers Wi-Fi networks and devices with its software frameworks for WiFi offload, Hotspot 2.0, WLAN controllers and Access Points, optimized for multi-core processors and WLAN silicon. Aricent now brings this expertise into the Wi-Fi testing domain through its outstanding test lab.

Besides the hardware, Aricent has invested in industry test suites and tools covering anything and everything to do with Wi-Fi infrastructure and network testing.

According to Kelton Research, there are over 450 million Wi-Fi users worldwide. This number is increasing daily as mobile networks are beginning to struggle with managing bandwidth demands and as consumers and mobile connectivity are starting to become heavily reliant on short- and long-range Wi-Fi technologies.

“We are seeing a significant uptick in the deployment of Wi-Fi networks and devices globally. Ensuring products are well tested and interoperable with the existing communications ecosystem is a top priority for all players in this growing market,” said Sridhar Raju, assistant vice president and head of the Wireline Communications Practice at Aricent.

“With ‘Testing for Wi-Fi’, we provide significant innovation in the critical area of testing and look forward to helping Wi-Fi device makers and equipment manufacturers deliver high quality and differentiated products in a cost-effective manner,” Raju added.

http://telecomlead.com/news/aricents...-in-2-3-years/

[jayak914]

India Inc witnesses three months of consecutive dip in recruitment numbers: Report

NEW DELHI: September witnessed a mixed hiring sentiment across India Inc. Some sectors like construction, insurance and auto witnessed stable hiring levels, while sectors like it, BPO and banking have seen a drop in hiring levels in September when compared to August this year. Overall, the job speak index has been dipping consecutively for the last three months.Hiring levels for September are 6% lower than what it was three months ago.

"The job market has considerably slowed down over the last six months and key sectors are adopting a cautious hiring approach. The job market will hopefully start looking up once the GDP growth picks up momentum," said Hitesh Oberoi, MD and CEO, Info Edge India.

Last month, the hiring activity did not see much action for key sectors like auto, pharma, oil & gas telecom, and hospitality, indicating that recruiters are adopting a wait and watch mode. Although construction sector is one of worst affected sectors and has been consecutively witnessing low hiring numbers for the past one year, the recruitment trends for last month show hiring activity picked up by 11% when compared to August. IT and BPO companies have also seen lower hiring numbers with the index going down by 3% and 4% respectively in Sep-12 over Aug-12.

Mirroring hiring trends of IT and BPO sector, the demand for professionals working in these sectors saw hiring levels dip by 4% in the last three months. Production and accounts sector professionals saw a marginal 2% increase in their hiring numbers, while HR and banking professionals saw no movement in the recruitment front over the last one year.

A city wise analysis shows that all the top cities have seen lower hiring numbers over the last one month, barring Hyderabad and Pune which saw stable hiring levels. Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai saw hiring activity dip by 5% in the last three months. Delhi saw a marginal 1% dip in hiring in September when compared to August, while Kolkata saw a 17% dip, after three months of consecutive upward movement in the index.

Source

[jayak914]

BPOs work harder

Around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, R. Ganesan, was waiting desperately for an auto to slow down near Kasturibai Nagar MRTS station.

“Unlike a lot of people who are going back home, I am going to office. There will be lot of work,” said the employee of a voice-based BPO in Velachery.

With major banks in New York opening yesterday after two days of holidays owing to Hurricane Sandy, and many businesses opening today, BPO employees in Chennai who offer tele-calling services to them faced an avalanche of work on Wednesday, and hence remained open throughout, despite howling winds and rains due to the cyclone here.

“Most of us who cater to banks and retail stores abroad had to work two shifts today,” said Arun Gopinath, a tele-caller with a BPO in Perungudi.

There are nearly 400 BPOs in Chennai that provide services for clients in the United States, including major firms such as Sutherland, Genpact and Allsec among others. “My work normally ends at 7 p.m., but I will have to put in one more shift from 10 p.m. to 8.30 a.m.,” said Arun.

While the bigger BPOs offered pick-up facilities, the smaller ones did not do so. Thus, employees were seen stranded at many railway and bus stations. IT employees, however, could leave by 3 p.m. on Wednesday.

While bigger companies such as Cognizant, TCS, Verizon, HCL ensured that most of the buses in their fleet were plying, the smaller companies failed to do so. The suspension of MRTS services from 3.30 p.m. greatly added to the crowd waiting for buses and autos. “We got mails from our employer stating that all buses will leave between 3.p.m. and 3. 30 p.m.. To make sure everyone leaves, the office server in local offices was kept shut down,” said P.R. Sukanya, who works in Siruseri. In many firms, evening and night shifts were also cancelled.

While offices in Olympia Tech Park, on Rajiv Gandhi Salai and GST road were shut down by 3 p.m., most employees of firms in Tidal Park left by 5 p.m. Additional facilities for recreation in many tech parks were also kept closed.

“Though I left at 3 p.m., I could reach home only by 6 p.m., considering many roads in Alwarpet, Anna Salai and Velacerry were blocked due to falling of trees,” said Deepika Madhusudhan, an employee in Mahindra World City. Bus drivers, attendants and helping staff in IT companies too had a tough time getting food, with most roadside eateries and smaller restaurants having downed shutters.

“Many travel agencies have not sent their vehicles and drivers today, so some of us who drive company vehicles have to make extra trips,” said Mohammed Karim, a driver attached to a company on ECR.

Source

[sivagopi]

US-based Ajuba inaugurated the 400-seater facility located at AKDR Towers, Old Mahabalipuram Road, Chennai.

[krishnaswamy]

Had a detailed conversation back home at chennai with my IT friends...
situation is very grim with IT job market was tough for the last few months in chennai.
recently Paypal layoff 300 odd people.
a kind of notice to the people who are in bench to get into some projects within 90 days or they can move on.
it looks it job market is virtually stagnant there.
senior positions are getting tougher.
They hope situations will improve early next year, once u.s companies look for more off shore works.

[proprashanth]

Originally Posted by krishnaswamy

Had a detailed conversation back home at chennai with my IT friends...
situation is very grim with IT job market was tough for the last few months in chennai.
recently Paypal layoff 300 odd people.
a kind of notice to the people who are in bench to get into some projects within 90 days or they can move on.
it looks it job market is virtually stagnant there.
senior positions are getting tougher.
They hope situations will improve early next year, once u.s companies look for more off shore works.

True. Trend has changed since recession. Most of my batch mates of my college including me opted for IT companies 4 years back(at least 65% of them) though we studied mechanical engineering. But it's the core guys who earn handsomely now. We are getting little hike once in a while. So I advice students whom i meet to opt for their respective dept. oriented profession rather than IT profession unless they are very interested in it.

[chennaidesi]

Originally Posted by proprashanth

True. Trend has changed since recession. Most of my batch mates of my college including me opted for IT companies 4 years back(at least 65% of them) though we studied mechanical engineering. But it's the core guys who earn handsomely now. We are getting little hike once in a while. So I advice students whom i meet to opt for their respective dept. oriented profession rather than IT profession unless they are very interested in it.

What is the salary difference between IT and non core sectors for say 5 year experienced professionals.

[proprashanth]

Originally Posted by chennaidesi

What is the salary difference between IT and non core sectors for say 5 year experienced professionals.

I guess you meant IT and core jobs. From my side, Average IT employee and average Core company employee salary difference is at least 20K which was least expected 5 years back. It was not the trend then. Plus work load is more in IT compared to core. But again it depends upon the company you work for.
My friend who works for DLF as civil engr says he hardly gets a day off his duty and his pay is better compared to mine. A friend at Ford says he hardly works and pay is great.

[karkal]

Cognizant beats TCS, Infy in quarterly revenue growth



Watch out TCS, cognizant is coming...

[krishnaswamy]

Originally Posted by karkal

[B]
Watch out TCS, cognizant is coming...

I attended 1 session in CTS(though i am not working for them..). In that meeting, 1 of the top executive was proudly claiming that their bench was accenture, IBM.
His speech(1 hr ) was good and was not boring for the 100+ audience.
In my limited experience, i did not see an top executive (he is not from marketing dept) presenting so beautifully.

[karkal]

Should TCS now be afraid of Cognizant?

In the Sep quarter, Cognizant earned North America revenue of $1.504 bn, only $1.6 mn shy of the $1.506 bn TCS earned from the region in the same period

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. is within striking distance of overtaking Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India’s largest software services company, in terms of revenue earned from North America—the world’s biggest market for information technology (IT).
In the three months ended September, Cognizant earned North America revenue of $1.504 billion (around Rs.8,167 crore today), only $1.6 million shy of the $1.506 billion TCS earned from the region in the same period.
On Wednesday, Cognizant reported a 21.9% year-on-year increase in net profit to $276.9 million for the three months, the third quarter of fiscal 2012 for the US-based company that has most of its employees in India. Cognizant follows a January-December accounting period. Overall revenue grew 18.2% to $1.89 billion.
Revenue rose 5.4% from the preceding three months. And the company’s forecast for the December quarter implies an increase of 2.5%.
To be sure, Cognizant is overdependent on US customers, who make up 79.5% of its business. TCS, which counts Citigroup Inc. and General Electric Co. among its top US clients, earns around 53% of its revenue from the region.


Over the past 13 quarters, Cognizant has expanded revenue faster than Indian rivals TCS, Infosys Ltd and Wipro Ltd by an average margin of 3.4%, according to brokerage Jefferies and Co. Inc., disrupting the pecking order of India-based software services providers.
Already, Cognizant has overtaken Wipro and Infosys in quarterly revenue, causing anxiety among top executives at the Bangalore-based companies. For the first time, Cognizant overtook Infosys in total quarterly revenue in the three months ended June and earned more business from the US than the company in January-March last year.
“They (Cognizant) are growing fast and furious, we should give it to them to be growing like this so consistently,” said a senior executive at one of these firms, requesting anonymity because he did not want to acknowledge this publicly.
Slowly but steadily, Cognizant is now closing the gap with TCS in some market segments. TCS’s revenue is currently 52% higher than Cognizant’s in the first nine months of this calendar year. During the January-December period of 2008, Infosys’s revenue was 66% higher than Cognizant’s, and it took a little over three years to bridge the gap.
“Cognizant’s robust growth in a challenging environment highlights that differentiation amongst vendors and market-share gains are becoming increasingly common,” said analyst Sandeep Muthangi at India Infoline Ltd. “Going forward, we believe that the gap in growth rates amongst larger Indian vendors will narrow.”
Cognizant, which counts drug maker Merck and Co. and JPMorgan Chase and Co. among its top customers in the US, increased its revenue from the region by 20.3% during the September quarter.
The firm said revenue for the year ending 2012 will grow at least 20% to $7.34 billion. Revenue for the fourth quarter ending December is expected to be at least $1.94 billion, it said.
“Our consulting-led approach, intimate client relationships, deep domain knowledge and robust execution give us the confidence to deliver revenue growth of at least 20% in 2012,” said chief executive officer Francisco D’Souza.
Cognizant does this, analysts say, by spending more on sales and marketing. While top Indian technology firms spend up to 14% of their revenue on sales and marketing, Cognizant spends 21%. This is helping Cognizant win fresh business from some existing Infosys customers, including Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV.
“We believe the gap in top-line growth between CTSH (Cognizant) and other Indian IT services vendors will likely continue to widen in the future,” Jefferies analysts said in a 2 November report. “Over the last few years, CTSH has delivered industry-leading top-line growth and market share gains, and we believe the company now holds the undisputed leadership position in the Indian IT services space, due to a decade-long strategy of re-investing excess margins into the business.”
While rivals such as Infosys focus on projects that fetch them at least 29% profit margin, Cognizant has been following a different strategy, experts say.
“The high-margin business equals to profitability for vendors like Infosys. Cognizant focuses on high value for customers,” said Ray Wang, founder of enterprise research firm Constellation Research Inc.
Clearly, Infosys’s focus on high profitability is not helping it compete effectively with Cognizant. In four of the past six quarters, Infosys has missed the lower end of its own forecast. In a year when industry lobby Nasscom has projected 11-14% annual growth in software exports from India, Infosys has forecast revenue growth of 5%.
Analysts such as James E. Friedman at Susquehanna Financial Group Llp had expected Cognizant to report around 4% growth in revenue for the September quarter on a sequential basis. Brokerage Jefferies had predicted that the company would report third quarter revenue growth of 5.5%.
Earnings at India’s top IT firms have been mixed. In October, TCS reported a profit jump of 49.2% and revenue increase of more than 34% in the quarter to 30 September from a year earlier. Infosys continued to disappoint investors by not raising its revenue forecast for the year despite making an acquisition and reaping the benefits of a depreciating rupee. Last week, Wipro said it hoped to catch up with rivals after several quarters of underperformance.

[karkal]

How five VPs are driving growth at Cognizant to catch up with Infosys

CHENNAI: While InfosysBSE 2.08 % CEO SD Shibulal is fond of saying that his company is running a marathon, it is rival Cognizant which seems to be running long-distance at a sprinting pace. The New Jersey-headquartered company has more than doubled its revenue in three years, outgrown WiproBSE -0.51 % in size and is on track to catch up with Infosys.

Four men - chief executive Francisco D'Souza, president Gordon Coburn, vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan and global delivery head R Chandrasekaran - are the public faces of Cognizant and its remarkable success so far. But away from the public eye are senior executives who have made it possible for Cognizant to grow consistently faster than competition in a tough economic environment.

Here are short profiles of five senior vice presidents driving growth at Cognizant, which employs 1.5 lakh staff, most of them in India. All five of them report to Rajeev Mehta, a Cognizant veteran who is the global head for all verticals and geographies. Mehta and his team, along with their delivery counterparts in India, are critical in ensuring that Cognizant's clients remain happy and continue to give them work.



For example, in the last four quarters, Prasad Chintamaneni and Ben Bengston - responsible for banking, financial services and insurance - brought in $2.9 billion in revenue while Krish Venkat, in charge of healthcare & life sciences billed $1.9 billion in revenue.

Srini Veeraraghavachary's manufacturing & retail unit collected $1.4 billion in revenue, and Sanjiv Gossain's communications information, media and entertainment made $860 million. All of these leaders are industry veterans with at least a quarter of a century of experience in consulting or end user industries. And all of them have had global exposure working across multiple continents.

...............(contd...)

[karkal]

Chennai to Host India's Premier Product Design Summit

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...9&postcount=54

The event will be held at the Chennai Convention Centre, Chennai, on 22nd & 23rd November 2012; Apart from the conference and exhibition, Product Design Days 2012 is the only event that provides end to end design solutions for SMBs covering the entire spectrum of the product design portfolio.


Highlights:

1st & only Product and industrial design event in India

Over 600 Pre-registered delegates from the Indian manufacturing industry

15 National and International speakers,

25 Design firms and allied industries exhibiting

16 International award-winning products on display,

Design gallery with over 200 international award winning designs

Daily conferences featuring eminent national and international speakers

An exhibition showcasing Indian and International design firms and allied industries;

[madrasi7777]

Mark my words. In 10 years Cognizant will be the company to beat.

Originally Posted by karkal

Should TCS now be afraid of Cognizant?

In the Sep quarter, Cognizant earned North America revenue of $1.504 bn, only $1.6 mn shy of the $1.506 bn TCS earned from the region in the same period