Friday, August 18, 2006

Rediff scratching Infosys back ??

Frequent readers of rediff.com are getting tired of the websites coverage of Infosys, the Indian outsourcing company. Some even calling it a landscaping company (grass cutting) for the lack of development of any intellectual property or products. Ray Lane , the ex-Oracle CEO said :In the US we innovate, in India we renovate. I think Infy has done a great job in becoming a low-cast renovation contractor. Full kudos to Narayan Murthy and Nandan Nilekani for that. Inspite of their 90's label as a Bodyshopper, vehemently denied by NRN, Infy has done a great job in building infrastructure, skills of its employees and ofcourse great shareholder value.
I site-googled rediff.com to find out how many pages come up with the term Infosys. The revelation is startling. Many articles seem to be written by the same writer. Also we hardly find any articles on TCS which is the largest outsourcing company in India, Wipro and others. The reader is astute enough to decide if Rediff is pimping Infosys or its just a casual coincidence or there is more than what meets the eye ($$$ perhaps ??)

A partial list of the articles is listed below.

Nandan Nilekani reveals Infosys's winning formula.
How much land is Infosys acquiring ?
How Infosys is grooming its leaders ?
IBM is the legacy, Infosys is the future. (no question mark here!!!)
Infosys worlds most valuable firm. (no doubts here too.)
Can Infosys do a Toyota ? (question mark here ??)
The women behind Infosys's success (?)
This is what Infosys has invested in Karnataka.
Infosys 25 years of success (no doubts about that)
Infosys world's 32nd most innovative firm. (statistics must mean something)
There is still so much Infosys in me - NRN
Infosys opens captive center for martians.
The full results are here :

Rediff licks Infosys ass (3 months search results)


(disclaimer: I have some friends who work at Infosys and have great regard for them)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is what Mr. Nilekani had to say about innovation in India.

"The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and mainstream it -- that can only be done in the US. It can't be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation is to help these innovative US companies bring their products to the market quicker, cheaper and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a complementarity we need to enhance."

So much for feeling proud about our great innovative Indian minds. I think Mr. Nilekani and NRN are injecting this thought in impressionable minds that we Indians are just good enough to work for companies like theirs.

Those who are interested in reading about NRN's so-called charity work and his "donations", would like this evaluation by a guy who was Mr. Nilekani's classmate at IITB.

http://www.kamalsinha.com/iit/people/narayana-murthy/charity.html

Anonymous said...

Infosys Technologies Ltd. Unpaid Overtime in California
A leading law firm is investigating claims against Infosys offices in California for allegedly not paying overtime wages to immigrant computer programmers.

Infosys has been a leader in off-shore outsourcing and has been taking outsourcing a step further by sponsoring foreign citizens for H-1B temporary visas, in which there is a nationwide limit of only 65,000 issued per year.

It is alleged that computer workers from India and other countries are brought here on H-1B and paid considerably more than in their native country but considerably less than other workers and less than the exempt-status requirement.

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/infosys_overtim

Anonymous said...

Infosys is just another sweatshop with good PR. I have stopped reading Rediff because of their atrocious coverage (are Rediff owners owning Infosys shares - needs to be investigated). However newspapers and magazines also fall prey to Infosys worship. The problem is that none of their correspondents are techies who can evaluate the innovative contributions of a company. A whole generation of children will grow up thinking Murthy/Nilekani were David Sarnoff/Edison instead of the sweatshop directors they are.

Companies like TCS are yards ahead in terms of their technical capabilities (see http://atc.tcs.co.in and the work they are doing in bioinformatics).

Chus said...

This is what I think: Infosys and Satyam Hiring and Firing