TCS, Infosys & Domestic IT Market
The news that TCS is close to signing a Rs 1,100 crore systems integration contract from India Post, just a week after Infosys bagging deal to manage the postal network's rural operations underlines the increasing importance of domestic market for Indian IT companies. Domestic market was largely ignored by Indian IT players till IBM woke everyone up by signing a huge deal with Airtel. These days hardly any analyst meet or press conference winds up without a reference to performance in Indian market. The conversations, however, are mostly around IT Services and not around BPO. Are there indications that it will change?
I recently spoke to Pavan Vaish, who co-founded Daksh, a BPO, and continued to head it for about 10 years after selling it to IBM. (Another co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal went on to found Helion, a VC firm). Pavan is now the global COO of a legal process outsourcing company called UnitedLex. Mr Vaish said it will remain an IT Services story, rather than a BPO story, for a few more years. In fact some global players who tried tapping the domestic BPO market had to pull back their efforts, he said.
Dell deal: Three bids; three questions The Dell buy back deal is getting more and more interesting. Bloomberg reports, "Dell Inc. said it got proposals from Blackstone Group LP (BX) and Carl Icahn that may be superior to Michael Dell’s $24.4 billion buyout plan, putting pressure on the founder to sweeten his terms or switch allegiances."
Here's a quick summary
Growing up in the Knowledge Society
Leela Fernandes reviews Nicholas Nisbett's book in Economic and Political Weekly:
Growing up in the Knowledge Society presents an ethnographic study of the ways in which individual middle-class men interact with and are shaped by the IT industry in their daily lives. The book locates itself within scholarly debates on the knowledge society and approaches the IT industry through an anthropological lens that focuses on the cultural dimensions of technological change. In particular, the book identifies cybercafés and IT training institutes as sites that serve as social and cultural spaces for the negotiation of the identities, social relationships and aspirations of young middle-class men. The book provides a detailed analysis of the spatial organisation and varied sociocultural practices associated with Bangalore’s cybercafés.
I haven't read the book myself, but the reference to IT training institutes and cybercafes make the research seem somewhat dated. There was a time when these two defined the growth of IT. No longer.
Also of interest
Yahoo buys Summly
Google expands TV White Space trial in South Africa
Zynga ropes in Lazard analyst Atul Bagga
Blackberry CEO on smartphones
Why choices aren't always good
5 big opportunities in mobile
The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.
Check out our end of season subscription discounts with a Moneycontrol pro subscription absolutely free. Use code EOSO2021. Click here for details.