Indian firm gives handset biggies run for their money

New Delhi: When four friends planned to diversify their IT hardware distribution business and start making mobile phones, which would specifically suit Indian consumers, did not know that after two years, they will be giving mobile handset majors; such as Nokia, Samsung and LG, a run for their money, reports Economic Times.

In the two years of span, Micromax grew to become the third-largest GSM mobile phone vendor in India, after Nokia and Samsung, with a market share of six percent. According to research firm IDC, this Rs.1,600 crore brand, which sells around one million mobiles every month, has a presence in more than 500 districts through 70,000 retail outlets. Speaking on this subject, Vikas Jain, one of the four founders of Micromax Informatics, the company that owns the Micromax Mobile brand, said, "We saw that the MNC brands were not selling phones that suited Indian consumers' requirements. This void had to be filled. So in April 2008, we forayed into the handset market."

Targeting specifically at the rural masses, the company has also started selling handsets that come with features appealing to urban consumers such as music phones, qwerty and internet-enabled handsets. "We wanted to approach the market in a different manner by first going to rural and semi-urban areas, establishing a good distribution base and then targeting the big cities," said Vikas Jain.

Recently, the company came up with a universal remote control phone, one that can be paired to household appliances like the TV, AC, to act as a remote control for them. "We have to be quick in launching new products as competitors can also copy a lot of this soon enough," reasons Jain.

Is it worthwhile to hire non-techies for techies' work?

Bangalore: With the new trend being set up by IT firms to hire non-techies to do techies' work, it seems that working hard at engineering colleges for 3-4 years to enter this field is worthless. In the last few months, it is noticed that many of the Indian IT companies such as TCS, Wipro and Infosys are turning towards non engineering graduates for the same work that engineering graduates have been doing for long.

For instance, Nandini Sahay is currently working in one of the Indian IT firms as a Software Engineer after completing her BA degree in History and one year certificate course in computer programming. It might be a dream comes true for this village girl Nandini, whose parents feed their stomachs by earning from agriculture field in the remote area of Andhra Pradesh, but at the same time, these IT firms need to think of those millions of engineering graduates, who have worked hard for 3-4 years to enter this field, are sitting idle to get better opportunities. One of the many students, who are feeling the heat of this new trend, is Gaurav Jain, B.Tech/B.E. student at Malviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur. He said, "If it is possible to train one person in just six months or one year then why engineers are taught for four years?"

So the big question - will these hiring of non-techies affect the quality of work? Mahalakshmi Subramanium, QA/QC Manager, Genpact said, "I think yes. It will affect the quality. Normally an IT graduate undergoes 3-4 years of training to become a professional. If that education is given to a non-IT graduate in just one year or six months, it's obvious that they won't be taught everything due to which their basics won't be strong and they won't be able to perform as nicely as a properly trained IT graduate can do. Even with techies, project success rate is less than 25 percent. With non techies, they are intending to smash it to zero."

But all these firms who are hiring these non-techies believe that quality of the work will not be affected by hiring non-engineering graduates, as these non-techies are being hired for testing software applications and managing computer infrastructure, in order to do more with fewer staff and at lower wages than computer engineers.

It is believed that from nearly 10 percent of their current workforce, non-engineering graduates could account for nearly 20-25 percent of the staff at companies such as TCS, Wipro and HCL, over the next one to two years. The IT company like Cognizant already has almost 20 percent of its global workforce who are non-engineering graduates. Speaking on this issue, Amitava Roy, Chief Operating Officer, Symphony Services said, "Hiring non-techies might work for some of the IT companies, but as far as Symphony Services is concerned; our work requires the expertise and knowledge of technical engineers. Candidates from non engineering background do not fit into our framework of expertise required and hence the hiring model." Even Srini Rajam, Chairman and CEO, Ittiam Systems agrees with Roy and said, "It's not right way to build any company. One company gains more value by differentiation of knowledge come from competition."

Some of the experts feel that basically this step is being taken by companies to cut the costs and increase the employment across the country. Normally, an Indian IT firm pays Rs. 2-4 lakh per annum to an engineering graduate, but when they hire any non-engineering graduate, they just pay Rs.80,000 - Rs.1,50,000. Nandini has got the package of Rs.90,000 per annum. One of the officials of an IT major said, "It's not everything about cutting cost. In the last few years, skill mix has changed because of a fundamental shift in sourcing behaviour - customers sourcing a broader range of services, including BPO/KPO. So, we hire according to that need."

Now, it is to be seen that these IT firms understand the real value of an engineering graduate or keep hiring non-techies in near future also, as it is possible for only these IT biggies to train non-techies to do techies' work, not the smaller firms.

Now entire library on chip developed by Indian-American

Washington: An Indian-American scientist has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data - enough to hold an entire library.

The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in computer-memory technology.

"We have created magnetic nanodots that store one bit of information on each nanodot, allowing us to store over one billion pages of information in a chip that is one square inch," says Jay Narayan, professor of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University (NCSU).

Narayan, a product of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, conducted the study. The breakthrough is that these nanodots are made of single, defect-free crystals, creating magnetic sensors that are integrated directly into a silicon electronic chip.

These nanodots, which can be made uniformly as small as six nanometres in diameter, are all precisely oriented in the same way - allowing programmers to reliably read and write data to the chips, an NCSU release said. A nanometre is the billionth of a metre.

The chips themselves can be manufactured cost-effectively but the next step is to develop magnetic packaging that will enable users to take advantage of the chips - using something, such as laser technology, that can effectively interact with the nanodots.

The research was presented at the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting in San Francisco.

Barclays lays off 450 employees in India

New Delhi: In its fourth and biggest retrenchment since December 2008, England's Barclays Bank has laid off around 450 employees in India, or close to a tenth of its workforce in the country, a source close to the development told Economic Times.

The latest job cut drive was kicked off three days ago and is much larger than the previous round where 150 employees were laid off in December 2009. Barclays had also pruned workforce in June 2009 and December 2008. "We may have had to take some tough decisions in the last few months to ensure that we have the right focus. But we are of the view that they were the right ones," Barclays India spokesman said. The number of job losses in this round is less than 450, but more than 150, the number of people laid off last December, he said.

After the current job cut, Barclays will have 5,000 employees across its five business units in India, retail and corporate banking; investment banking; wealth management, Barclays Shared Services, which handles the bank's back office operations and Barclays Technology Centre, which provides technological solutions.

India among top 10 pharma markets by 2020

New Delhi: India will join the league of top 10 global pharmaceuticals markets in terms of sales by 2020 with the total value reaching $50 billion by then, according to a report. The report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said that the country's population is growing rapidly, as is its economy-creating a large middle-class that can to afford western medicines. 

An ageing population together with increase in problems associated with cardio-vascular disorders and central nervous system will lead to higher demand for drugs, the report said. Around $70 billion worth of drugs are expected to go off patent in the U.S. over the next three years and India is capable of manufacturing a substantial share of the products. Several Indian firms have already entered into research partnerships with multinationals - Dr Reddy's Laboratories Torrent have joined hands with Novartis while Ranbaxy has formed alliances with GSK and Schwarz Pharmaceuticals, the report added.

India, which produces more than 20 percent of the world's generics, is likely to become a competitor of global pharma in some key areas, and a potential partner in others. It has a considerable contract manufacturing expertise, the report says. "Global players in the pharmaceutical industry are seeing immense prospects in the Indian market due to its sheer demographic profile. India could be the most populous country in the world by 2050 and is now making its mark as a growing market," Sujay Shetty of PWC said.

Infy to hire 30,000, promotions for 7500

Bangalore: Infosys Technologies, one of India's top software services exporter, is planning to provide promotion to almost 7500 employees in both middle and lower ranks. Talking to the media after the announcement of its quarterly results S.D. Shibulal, Chief Operating Officer and Member of the Board also said the promotions will be topped up by wage hikes. He said, "We have announced a wage hike of around 13-17 percent offshore and 2-3 percent onsite" 

The company also plans to recruit 30,000 people in the upcoming financial year including 19,000 campus hires, 5,500 laterals, 2,000 overseas hires (in China, Manila, the U.S. and Europe) and the rest for Infosys BPO. Last year, Infosys started with 18,000 and ended up with 27,000. The company has already visited 300 campuses while moving towards bringing people in.

Infosys have seen extremely high attrition over the last quarter and most employees attribute it to the new HR initiative. There were reports mentioning the lost of 4000 employees in the month of February alone accounting for three percent of its total strength. Commenting on the flutter caused by iRace, Mohandas Pai, Head - Human Resources, Infosys said that the company believes in the new HR policy. 'iRace' will set a baseline and it will 'fit' people in a particular structure besides all the controversies. "We have addressed all the issues of employees in an open and transparent manner and it should be seen as a forward looking transformation exercise," he added. Pai also claimed that the company also provide several platforms for them to express their opinion on upcoming policies through websites, blogs, and review sites.

The attrition level of the company has also gone up drastically. Currently according to company sources the rate of attrition is around 13.4 percent. Infosys BPO has a major attrition level of 35 percent. Hence the company has decided to spend $134 million in salary hikes this quarter. 

Indian techie builds low cost robot for household chores

Bangalore: A Bangalore based Microsoft techie, Ramaprasad has built robots that can cook, keep the house safe when he is away and help him spend his leisure the way he likes it best. Also, these robots tell him news that interests him, and show him ads of products he would like to buy.

Talking to Bangalore Mirror on the sideline of Microsoft Tech Ed being organized in Bangalore, Ramaprasad said that it is awesome letting smart robots do all the humdrum work at home. What thrills him even more is that he made all the robots, which he calls Buddyhomes. The software, hardware, design and implementation are all his. 

For the past 15 day, Buddyhomes do every work for Ramaprasad. They wake him up with an alarm. If he does not wake up, they pour some water over his head! He goes for his breakfast. He puts the noodles into a pan on the stove. Then he leaves because he wants to read the newspaper. Meanwhile, a buddyhome stirs the noodles. In two minutes, he gets the message that noodles is ready. He scans the newspapers. He is interested in Lalu Prasad Yadav. He smiles. Immediately, the screen on the wall before him shows the latest available news about Lalu.

Building these robots with software including cloud computing, Microsoft.Net, Visual Studio 2010 and Open Computer Vision, Ramaprasad said that the technology to build the robots is 'very simple'. It has three webcams and a screen, gesture-recognising software, and hardware from SP Road near Town Hall. "It costs me just Rs.16,000. It is so reasonable because most parts are from SP Road. The motors, chips, atmega, and H bridges are all from SP Road."

Now Ramaprasad is trying to finetune the robots to do wet mops of the floor, and do more sophisticated cooking. In particular, he wants to pursue gesture-reading robots because he sees great potential in it for the hearing- and speech-impaired. "I think it is possible to interpret gestures, and turn that into voice. Think how it can help those who cannot speak," said Ramaprasad, who studied in College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai, and has a BE in computer science and engineering from Anna University.