Today in Tech: How top 5 fared in 2012; IIT-B and entrepreneurship; Kim Dotcom gets a CEO

NS Ramnath
Updated: Feb 8, 2013 02:04:55 PM UTC

How the top 5 IT services companies fared in 2012

Cognizant announced its results yesterday. No surprises there. It just about met its  guidance for 2012, helped in part by Europe (traditionally its weak spot) and Healthcare (its point of strength).

With these results we have a better view of how the top five companies fared in the calendar year 2012. Here are some charts. All figures in $ '000 (except growth rate). The period is calendar year.

Sales

Top5-Sales1

 

Net profit

Top5-Sales1

 

Growth rate

Top5-Sales1

 

Incremental revenues

Top5-Sales1

 

Cognizant guidance

Top5-Sales1

 

Two big takeaways from these charts: 2012 was bad for all the companies compared to last year, whichever way you look at it. And 2013 is likely to be as bad, unless Cognizant is being very conservative about its guidance.

 

IIT-B and entrepreneurship

Today's Business Line had a news that gave me a pleasant surprise. The headline read: This year, one in four IIT-B grads keeps off jobs race to set up own venture. But that feeling lasted just a few seconds, till I reached the second para to read this quote by IIT-B's placement officer: “Around 25 per cent of the students did not sit for placements this year. Some may be looking to become entrepreneurs and start their own ventures.” I guess most of them are on their way to do higher studies in US. But even if a dozen are thinking in lines of starting a business, that would still be great. The following graph from MIT will help see things in perspective.

Top5-Sales1

The MIT Inventor’s Guide to Startups (pdf)

 

Vikram Kumar to head Kim Dotcom's Mega As the head of InternetNZ, Vikram Kumar advocated open internet in New Zealand for nearly 3 years. He left the non-profit in January this year, and says he got a call from Kim Dotcom offering an opportunity to head Mega, a free online storage company that made a lot of news not least because of the colorful personality of Dotcom.
In a short blog post Kumar explains why he took up the offer - here

Also of interest

  • How Facebook Briefly Killed the Internet | Mashable
  • Apple: We're in “active discussions” on returning more cash to shareholders | Arstechnica
  • Microsoft's latest anti-Gmail campaign: have you been 'Scroogled'? | Guardian
  • The Dot-Com Boom Is Back In Silicon Valley | Business Insider
  • Q&A With Mailbox CEO Gentry Underwood on the Launch of His Much-Hyped App | AllThingsD
  • Wozniak on emerging technologies: Natural language recognition, self-driving cars, and conscious computers | The Next Web
  • Coursera's Virtual College Courses Now Get You Real Credit, For Under $200 | Fast Company
  • Big Data: Many CIOs Completely Clueless | Read Write
  • India App Developers All Over New BlackBerry | WSJ

 

 

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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