Today in Tech: Mahindra Satyam meger; HP's services business; Tips and more

Mahindra Satyam merger

Reviewing Zafar Anjum’s The Resurgence of Satyam: The Global IT Giant, MS Sriram visiting professor at IIM Bangalore asks: How does one evaluate a stake in a company that was opaque and fraught with fraud? One that was listed on Nasdaq and was facing class-action suits in the US? How could a clannish company be transformed into a professional one? Was the deal worth it? These questions continue to bog investors and analysts alike - and say something about the difficulty of trying to capture the company's value in a single number. (What's your anchor, for example.) Mahindra did it twice - once when they bought Satyam; and now, as they try to merge it with Tech Mahindra. So, the news that shareholders of Satyam (now Mahindra Satyam) have gone to court saying they are not happy with the swap ratio comes as no surprise. The timing, they say, is wrong (Satyam's results are getting better); and they hint at a conflict of interest: the swap ratio was decided by people who own shares in Tech Mahindra. (Tech Mahindra says it was decided by a third party). The case is coming up for hearing on December 3.

What if HP sells off its services business

Over at Horses for Sources, Phil Fersht takes on a question: What if HP decides its core is hardware and decides to sell off its services business. Being in hardware was once considered to be passe; but not after the phenomenal success of Apple in the last few years. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer says his company will be known as a devices company; everyone I know is looking forward to try Google Glass; the arguments over Amazon's Kindle Vs iPad Mini seems never ending. So, if HP decides to make the move, who will be in the race for its BPO business? Here are some of the names Phil talks about: IBM, TCS, Accenture, Cognizant, Infosys.

Tip for today

Gizmodo points to a very useful Gmail feature. When you select a part of the text, and hit reply, only the selected text gets appended to your reply.

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