She may have been a highly regarded tech executive when she joined Yahoo in January 2009, but the summary firing of Carol Bartz as chief executive of the struggling web property has been greeted positively by the company’s investors. When news broke overnight that Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock had given Bartz the flick over the phone the aging internet company’s shares shot up 6 per cent. At the time of writing they are still up almost 5 per cent. (more…)
The Infosys campus in Pune, India
Last week in India, I had the chance to visit the campus of Infosys in Pune, just outside Mumbai, which is home to 25,000 technology workers. It was an eye opening experience.
The reaction from most people I told about this visit was “Infosys? They are the massive outsourcing company?”. Yes, they are but that tells only a fraction of the story of the company which was founded in Pune in 1981 by 7 engineers and now employs over 130,000 staff in 32 countries around the world.
As Mritunjay Singh, the executive who gave us some insights proudly pointed out, the traditional call centere or voice-based business, accounts for just 15 per cent of revenues. He outlined how the firm is no longer just an outsourcer but has “pioneered the global delivery model”. Yes, some of your operations might be run from Pune or Bangalore if you are an Infosys customer, but it also has highly qualified consultants that can come and work in your office and advise you on your strategy. And 600 Infosys staff now devote themselves to applied research on its own suite of increasingly sophisticated products.
The company made the conscious decision to transform itself in 2007 and despite the global meltdown in 2008 is well down the path. Its client list includes 4 of the top 5 aerospace and defence firms globally and 4 of the top 5 US banks. Infosys has annual revenues of $6 billion and is targetting $15 billion within two years.
Infosys also has an interesting ownership, by Indian standards at least. The 7 founders hold 20 per cent of the stock, employees have 20 per cent with the remaining 60 per cent in the market.
My favourite line from Mritunjay Singh: “In God we trust, everyone else must bring data”.
The Pune campus really is in a different league and surpasses in many cases the environment at top employers in Silicon Valley. It was also without a doubt the cleanest place I saw during my week in India.
The 130 acre campus has 3.5 million sq feet of buildings with another 1.2 million under construction. The average age of employees is 26-28 and competition for jobs is fierce – less than 3 per cent of candidates are successful. There’s even a 1,000 room hotel on the campus for staff visiting from other sites.
It was a short visit but I left with the impression that anyone writing off Infosys as “just an outsourcing operation” is in for a nasty shock.
This week with ECB rates on the rise we look at what it might mean for already cash-strapped consumers; how to make your wardrobe make you money and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are still flashing the cash.
John Collins talks to Dan O’Brien about economic predictions for 2011, Suzanne Lynch about Greencore’s stalled merger, Dr Diarmuid O’Brien of Nanoweek and Oren Michels from US software firm Mashery.
If Facebook was a country it’s population of over 500 million users would make it larger than the US and third in size to only China and India. But the Silicon Valley social network is still a privately-held company and it’s 26-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg is still largely an unknown quantity.
All of that is likely to change in the next year. The secondary market values the US company, which has its European HQ in Dublin, at over $33 billion. Although the company doesn’t like to talk about a floatation it’s investors are likely to want to strike when the iron is still hot.
Next month will also see the release of The Social Network a film of the founding of the website that has become a part of the daily routine for such a large proportion of the world population.
Until then any article that gets access to the 26-year-old Zuckerberg is going to be eagerly read. Jose Antonio Vargas got unprecedented access for this lengthy piece in the New Yorker. The sub-head on the article reads “Mark Zuckerberg opens up” although in reality the reader is just left with the impression that it’s incredibly difficult to get him to open up and he decides to reveal what he pleases.
On the internet it’s invariably the kiss of death for your business if Google decides to enter your space. With the exception of social networking it’s become a major player in almost every new category it enters – just look at the popularity of Gmail where Hotmail once reigned supreme.
This interesting Businessweek article highlights the internet giants latest addition – a trading floor staffed by former Wall St types. They have been hired to manage Google’s $26.5 billion in cash and short-term investments. As you’d expect Google’s engineers have written them some very funky tools to help them with the job.
Can’t imagine there was too many problems luring staff from Wall St to California with the lure of Google stock, a laid back environment etc. But I think the big investment banks can rest easy for the time being that Google is going to start luring away their clients.
Now that the dust has settled a little on Steve Jobs’ launch of Apple’s “magical and revolutionary” new device, the iPad, it’s interesting to see how the market has treated the stocks of various companies who will be impacted by its introduction. I’ve looked at their prices on Wednesday morning versus what they are at the time of writing (lunch time Friday in New York trading).
This is of course is a totally unscientific exercise and is not intended as investment advice. It is interesting though.
As part of our new business podcasts we’ll be publishing occasional extended interviews with select business people. This week we feature Matt Murphy, vice president of worldwide sales, with Maxim Integrated Products, the Silicon Valley firm which plans to create 100 jobs at its new international business centre in Dublin.Murphy discusses Maxim’s business, its plans for Dublin and the state of the global technology market.
Apple hosts its press event in San Francisco on Wednesday at 6pm Irish time to show off its “latest creation“. Of course it’s being reported as fact now that this will be a new class of device – a touchscreen slate computer, a large iPhone if you will with a 10-11″ screen, which will primarily be a gaming and entertainment device. (more…)
