IT major Infosys will soon set up its second project in Orissa at an investment of Rs 300 crore, official sources said on Wednesday, Dec 30.

According to sources, Infosys human resource director T V Mohandas Pai conveyed the investment plans to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here at a meeting last evening.

Wipro Technologies has accepted the West Bengal's offer of 50 acres in Rajarhat on the outskirts of the city and is planning on starting work to set up its second campus in 18 months.

"We visited the site in the morning and have settled with the government for purchase of the land. We appreciate the support we have received from the state government," Wipro chairman Azim Premji told reporters after meeting with the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

India's IT major, Infosys Technolgies plans to hire 13,000 freshers in the coming fiscal (2010-11), a media report said.

"The company will close with 18,000 freshers and 3,500 laterals this fiscal year," Infosys' senior vice president and group head, Nandita Gurjar was quoted by WallStreet Journal as saying.

The discretion of an unknown teacher changed the life of Senapathy “Call me Kris” Gopalakrishnan. Just two more marks and he would have become a doctor. Instead, Gopalakrishnan ended up in a boardroom and is today the CEO and MD of Infosys.

His parents’ wish was that he study medicine as there were no doctors in their extended family. “In spite of being a fairly good student, I failed to get admission in the government medical college by two marks. The number of colleges and seats were very limited then and the family couldn’t afford a paid-for medical seat,” says Gopalakrishnan.

Software giant Infosys Technologies Ltd is partnering the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for its open source drug discovery project (OSDD). The project, launched last year, is a novel attempt at fashioning an efficient way to look for tuberculosis (TB) drugs.

A key part of OSDD is to develop a gene map for mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the bug responsible for the infectious disease. The gene map, which will be akin to “Google Earth”, as described by the scientists involved, will be Web-based. Infosys will help with the software aspects in making such a map.

India's second largest software exporter, Infosys is reportedly planning on doubling its headcount in US by hiring about 1,000 employees.

Apart from this, the company is also on a lookout for acquisition targets in Germany, France and Japan, reports Wall Street Journal.

The report published on Thursday, Dec 3 quotes the company's Chief Executive S Gopalakrishnan as saying that the company will be hiring 1,000 employees in the US

The IT sector would see a recovery from its current downturn in the next two quarters, a top industry official said.

"There is a sign of recovery in the IT sector and I believe in the next two quarters there would be a positive sign for the sector," Infosys' Chief Mentor, N R Narayana Murthy, told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference here today.

IT major Infosys plans to reduce the usage of sub-contractors and perform their work in-house particularly at cheaper offshore locations, a top company official said on Friday.

"We found during our reviews that a large number of client work had been outsourced to sub-contractors. In such cases, we decided to reduce the usage of sub-contractors and use our (own) facility," Infosys' chief mentor, NR Narayana Murthy, said on the sidelines of an industry conference in Mumbai.

Here's some good news for job hunters, Wipro Technologies is hiring local employees for its US expansion at Atlanta, according to report on Nov 23.

"We are expanding our US operations to scale up our headcount to about 1,000 from 350 presently at our Atlanta centre of which 80 pc will be locals, including graduates from leading academic institutions in Atlanta," the company said.

Among the large information technology (IT) firms, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. has clearly set itself apart, growing revenue by 10% sequentially in the September quarter. Its post-results commentary suggests that there has been a quick turnaround in sentiment. Application development services grew by 9%, indicating a revival in discretionary spends as well.

Wipro Chairman Azim Premji said, "We see more stability in volumes and pricing as well as an improving demand environment. Our broad portfolio of services and strong delivery excellence continues to position us as a partner of choice with customers, as they focus on capital conservation and cost transformation."

For Infosys, which derives around 33% of its revenues from banking and financial services (BFSI) customers, consolidation among the top US and European banks is bringing new business, with some of these individual contracts worth around $500 million each, potentially.

Narayana Murthy one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the country offloaded as many as 800,000 shares from his personal holding to raise about Rs 177 crore, Infosys said in a filing with the Bomby Stock Exchange on Thursday, Oct 22.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Oct 14, Wipro's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Azim Premji said, "We are seeing signs of stability, signs of decision making coming back," adding that even though it was a positive atmosphere there was still need for caution.

This comes after the US Congress tightened the visa regulations and the company intends to surpass the visa problems and strengthen their businesses.

The company has already recruited 72 Americans and 140 more offers are under way, say reports.

The issue had snowballed into a major controversy with the involvement of the local French government officials. Wipro had initiated talks to close down the centre that it acquired from Newlogic because of poor demand. The centre employs around 60 people.

"We are very honestly over-hired," he said.

"There is a very slight blip of activity, but there is nothing to tell me it (a recovery) is secular in nature."

The world class training facility has been established to strengthen learning activities across Infosys at its Mysore campus. The new facility has the capacity to accommodate a total of 14,000 (GEC I – 4,500 and GEC II – 9,500) Infoscions.

For the Bangalore-based company, China marks a new geography entry, besides the US and Europe. Confirming the development, Parthasarathy NS, chief executive officer, testing & IMTS, MindTree, said: “We will be doing independent testing in the telecom space, this project has different phases and potential to become large. This deal allows us to move up the value-chain after our major markets such as the US and Europe, as China has emerged a big growth market.”

Speaking at an interview in New York, Chief Financial Officer V Balakrishnan revealed that Infosys may also buy similar-sized businesses that process transactions, or information technology companies.

"We want companies like Wipro and Infosys to stay back and set their shops in the state. The government should provide them alternative land elsewhere," WBPCC working president Pradip Bhattacharje said.

The projects were planned in the proposed IT township at Rajarhat near Salt Lake. Issues regarding land acquisitions over the recent weeks are said to be responsible for the rejection of the projects.

The group—XITE, or Ex Infosys Technology Entrepreneurs—had lots to glean from him. It was their third quarterly meeting since the group was formed in January and Yellurkar was on a visit to Bangalore. When they aren’t meeting, members keep in touch through an online forum to exchange views and ideas, and lend each other a helping hand.

Despite smaller base, however,Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra  recorded higher growth rates than Karnataka, which provides 34 per cent to the national exports.

The country’s second largest software exporter had cash and cash equivalents of Rs12,030 crore, including investment in liquid mutual funds and certificate of deposits, as of June end this year.

However, the state’s IT minister Debesh Das claimed the government was ready to allot 90 acres each to Infosys and Wipro. “If they want, we can allot 180 acres of contiguous land immediately,” he said.

The global slowdown has made that necessary. End-to-end product engineering and research and development services have taken a hit in the past year as clients cut their spending on high-end technology, said an executive at MindTree.

Quoting an official, media reports reveal that the country's second-largest IT services exporter, has bid for more than 10 large government projects.

Infosys gets almost half of its revenue from the America as opposed to the current 'insignificant' level of projects from domestic markets.

Speaking at an industry meet, CEO, S Gopalakrishnan said, "Typically in a quarter we have 12-15 deals in the pipeline and it continues to remain the same in the current quarter."

A formal function to herald this service was held at the Infosys campus here on Friday, Jul 31.

The programme included the hoisting of the CISF flag by N R Narayana Murthy, founder and Chairman-Emeritus of Infosys followed by the ceremonial guard of honour presented by the CISF personnel.

In a CII meet, Chief Executive Officer and Managing director, Infosys technologies Limited, S Gopalakrishnan told reporters that expansion and recruitment will commence early next year based on the hopes that the economy will recover from the slump.

Premji said the visit of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to India had stated that Washington would not "switch over to protectionism".

“Infosys has been working on this account for more than a year, while it is a small deal now — it surely can evolve into a much bigger engagement,” said a New York-based person familiar with the contract. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media about this transaction.

The company will be hiring personnel for positions at senior and middle levels and may include some junior level employees.

Nilekani took the floor at 5 pm to a standing ovation, saying, “I am generally very articulate but this is not the day or place where I can be articulate. I’ve been wrapped up in Infosys for 28 years. My only identity is Infosys. I will be going to lead a programme to give identity to every Indian. But today I am losing my identity.’’

Also feeling the strain was the company’s intranet. So many of them — Infosys employs about 100,000 worldwide — had logged on to witness the live webcast of the event that the intranet system had slowed to a crawl.

At least two people familiar with this transaction said Infy has moved into a final due diligence phase in a deal that may involve upfront cash payment of over $50 million for the assets in India and Poland, as well as assured multi-year business contract from UBS.

For the first quarter (Q1) that ended Jun 30 PAT (profit after tax) is at Rs 1,527 crores, a decline of 5 per cent from the net profit of 1,613 crores posted in the fourth quarter (Q4) of last fiscal.

It will be a quiet affair, "as per Nandan's wishes", a company spokesperson said about the plans for Thursday. An hour long event, to which all Infocians have been invited, has been planned to begin at 5pm at the amphitheatre in Infosys' Electronics City campus in Bangalore. All the founders and board of directors are expected to be present. And all of them are likely to speak a few words about Nilekani.

As the elder son of Mr Premji moves into a new role of general manager, treasury and investor relations (IR), at Wipro’s corporate headquarters on Sarjapur road starting Wednesday, he will only need to drive around 5 km every day. For somebody who is being looked upon as an obvious heir to inherit around 80% of Wipro stake along with his brother, moving up the corporate ladder continues to be a normal process — something Mr Premji himself has ensured ever since he proposed that his elder son join Wipro.

Infosys Technologies, International Business Machines Corp (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HP), Electronic Data Systems (EDS) won orders worth A$450 million ($355 million) over five years from Telstra Corporation.

Wipro on Wednesday, Jun 3 said that the accounts receivable from GM was less than $8 million and that it will be unaffected by the U.S. automaker's bankruptcy filing.

In an interview with BusinessWeek Premji said, "In my opinion it's a very drastic initiative." He was referring to a bill in the US Senate basically preventing firms from hiring H1Bs in the US or bringing in holders of L1 visas for semi-skilled workers.

Europe’s third-biggest oil company-BP, which started outsourcing its back office functions many years ago, is currently fleshing out new contracts for outsourcing business application maintenance, development and support, as the oil major plans to bring down its operational costs and ensure better focus on its core business.

Azim Premji, Wirpo Chairman said, "We are growing more than 50 per cent a year in the Middle East. We see higher potential in markets that have not been penetrated such as the Middle East, Portugal and Brazil."

"Our net income would decrease if the government of India imposes additional taxes or withdraws or reduces tax benefits or other incentives ,~T India~Rs third biggest software company Wipro said in a recent regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Soon after the World Bank disclosure, Wipro has said in a regulatory filing on Jan 13, 2009, that its revenue from World Bank was insignificant and its "inability to get future business from World Bank will not adversely affect our business and results of operations".

Serial entrepreneur and investor Jaithirth (Jerry) Rao says: “We did go through a bad time but none of it will last. The industry has done well and will continue to do so. We are on track and get back soon; we will get further clarity in the coming months.’’

IT bellwether Infosys Technologies, too, had raised concerns that curbs on movement of working visa holders could affect its business activities.

"Restrictions on immigration in the US may affect our ability to compete for and provide services to clients in the US, which could hamper our growth and cause our revenue to decline," Wipro said in its annual filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Wipro, which counts Bharti Airtel, Unitech Wireless and Dena Bank among its top customers, said with 10-15 % lower costs than India, and availability of required technical skills across different programming languages including Windows and Unix, Egypt is emerging as an attractive location for offshoring.

Krish Gopalakrishnan, the Infy Chief Executive said that company plans to add more than 1000 new employees as part of a big US expansion in anticipation of growth resuming in 2010.

Wipro has also selected The Hackett Group, a global strategic advisory firm, to provide empirical data, best practices and world-class performance insights on the development of its innovative bundled solution platform, it said in a release here.

The solution simPlify, allows employers to reduce and control cost as it provides an opportunity to centralise and standardise processes while eliminating duplicative management structures.

Infosys, which values each employee at nearly Rs 1 crore, has been providing interest free home loans to needy employees for several years. So far over 2,000 employees (with experience of five years and above) have availed the loan facility accounting for a cumulative disbursements of Rs 80 crore, company officials said.

The IT major's total value of human resources, which includes both software professionals and support staff, is pegged at Rs 1,02,133 crore for the fiscal ended March 2009.

According to the company's annual report, the human resources' value of Rs 1,02,133 crore during fiscal 2009 was for 1,04,850 employees during the same period.

On average, the same translates into a value of about Rs 97 lakh for each employee.

The Obama administration has restricted the hiring of H-1B visa-holders by companies bailed out by the Federal government and recently announced a plan to end tax incentives for American entities generating jobs overseas.

Speaking on the recent reforms in the corporate tax in US, Premji said on Thursday, May 7, “We are reading too much into it...one needs to wait and see.”

India’s third biggest information technology (IT) company, Wipro, saw its revenues in the three months to end-March decline 3% from the preceding quarter but managed a slight improvement in profits with help from a depreciating rupee.

The Bangalore-based firm had a net profit of Rs 880 crore in the same quarter of FY'08, Wipro said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange
.
The total income surged 13.55% at Rs 6,583.20 crore in the March quarter from Rs 5,797.40 crore in the same period last fiscal.

Going through the site, it does appear as if Nokia Mobile Broadcast Solutions has been in a bit of a limbo for two years - the latest brochure for their services is dated Feb 2007, and the last announcement for the segment was a DVB-H partnership in Malaysia in June 2007.

Rajiv Shah, who was heading Wipro’s technology business unit, will now head the newly-created healthcare business unit, and will report to the joint chief executive Suresh Vaswani. Mr Shah will be replaced by GK Prasanna. Mr Prasanna was the head of the technology infrastructure services
at the company.

The latest Greenpeace ranking saw Wipro’s rank move up largely due to its efforts in energy efficiency and structured programme for effective e-waste management.

Nilekani also said that the company with go on with the recruitment process amidst recession, but, 'very selectively'.

According to The Australian, the decision to shift from IBM to Infosys could result in hundreds of job losses locally and in Bangalore, where IBM operates outsourcing centres.

The five units are IT services, product engineering services which include research and development (R&D) and outsource product development (OPD), testing, infrastructure management and technical support (IMTS), and a new area called knowledge services. Currently, MindTree has two business units — IT services contributing 79% in revenues and R&D 21%.

In the IT revolution, we are at the centre. We are underinvested, but that is an opportunity. A lot of investment is being done in R&D here because of the availability of talent. Our education system provides for that,” infosys CEO and managing director Mr Gopalakrishnan said.

"All the call letters that have been sent out will be honoured... we are sticking to our numbers... we will honour the commitments we have made," Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekani told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event.

People close to the situation said the 5- year-old tech start-up Sloka Telecom has put a price tag of Rs 30-35 crore but there is no agreement on a final transaction.

The induction process was delayed by several months because of the global economic crisis that deepened last year, forcing overseas clients to pare technology budgets and delay projects in an attempt to cut spending.

Infosys board member and director for human resources Mohandas Pai confirmed that there were some separations from Infosys Australia. Responding to a mail from ET, he said: “We have had an organisational restructuring in our Australia subsidiary and as a result, some positions have become redundant. It is the first time after the acquisition that this is being done.”

The company has, however, countered this view, saying that it’s not averse to risk and has taken the plunge after understanding what it means to them.

At least two people familiar with the discussions told ET on condition of anonymity that while Infosys was evaluating the potential acquisition targets, a final transaction could be still far away. “Especially, since there is no agreement yet on the valuation of BCC and the SAP services unit of Ciber,” one of the sources told ET last week.

Singapore-based Nalanda Capital has picked up a 2.36% stake in outsourcing product  development firm Aztecsoft Ltd on Thursday. Nalanda India Fund picked up the stake for Rs 3.8 crore from ICICI Prudential Life Insurance on the Bombay Stock Exchange through bulk deal route. The deal is interesting as Nalanda picked up a stake in MindTree Ltd earlier this month.

MindTree acquired Aztecsoft last year for around Rs 400 crore in one of the biggest deals in domestic IT space. MindTree holds an 80% stake Aztecsoft, while rest is held by trusts and public shareholders. Nalanda bought nearly a 2% stake in MindTree for Rs 15.6 crore from venture capital firm Walden International on February 3. Going by Nalanda's previous  investments, the firm is likely to pick up more stake in these two firms.

"We believe the amendments are restricted to the US companies which receive funding under TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Programme) and is not applicable to companies like us. Having said that we have to wait for the law to be passed.

Indian software giant Infosys Technologies bagged 14th place in the list of top 20 global companies focused on grooming not just professionals but leaders. Infy achieved this honour in 'The 2008 Best Companies for Leaders' survey conducted by management consultancy Hay Group and Chief Executive Magazine.

The survey reveals that these companies which are focused on developing leaders will not only survive and thrive in the current financial crisis, but also would be well positioned for growth, once the economy gets revived. 3M Company tops the list, followed by Procter & Gamble and General Electric on the second and third position respectively.

Last year, about 1.5% of IT services staff or about 1,000 employees figured among the bottom performers. This year, the percentage has shot up to about 3.5%. About 600 of such non-performers have left the company already this year.

As per the media reports, the IT major has asked its senior managers to give lowest performance rating to the 'underperforming' 5 per cent as part of the company's consolidated relative ranking (CRR). Infosys has around one lakh employees globally.

“We have issued showcause notice as the company has not paid service tax on the underwriting commission paid by Infosys towards American Depository Receipt (ADR) for the years 2003, 2005 and 2006,” said a senior tax official.

A senior official at one of the companies bid-ding for Fidelity’s back-office business said, “IBM has offered to pay around $150 mn for the unit while Infosys has indicated that it could pay up to $180 million,” he said, requesting anonymity. Though Wipro is still left in the fray, the tussle is between IBM and Infy as of now, a person involved in the negotiations said.

It reported a negative headcount addition of 1,092 for its global IT services segment and 226 for its BPO division. The first time that Wipro reported a negative headcount addition was for the first quarter of the current fiscal. The only positive increase in headcount was in its India and Middle-East IT services business segments. Wipro has effected a 7-8% hike in wages for its offshore employees, much lower than the 12-14% of last year.

“Very clearly, the banks and other financial institutions are on the path of transforming their business through technology by bringing in standard platforms,” Haragopal M, head of Finacle business told ET.

Some eight years ago, in 2000, Wipro carried out an initial public offering (IPO) of American Depository Shares in an effort to raise capital from the US market. As a part of that effort, it offered a small number of shares to its employees and clients at the IPO price through the Directed Share Program (DSP).

Infosys has now hired global HR consultant Mercer to work on the overhaul and the process will be completed before June. “Our current performance management system does not meet the requirements of a 100,000-plus organisation. The new system is undergoing evaluation by Mercer,’’ TV Mohandas Pai, Infosys’ director for HR, education, research and administration

On Wednesday, when Ramalinga Raju confessed to cooking Satyam’s books, Infosys was among the few IT stocks that ended higher. The stock was up 1.7% to Rs 1,187, as compared to Wipro and TCS that ended almost flat at Rs 243.30 and Rs 503.70, respectively. HCL Technologies, the other top player, was down 15%.

"We have already made the announcement that we will not poach any Satyam employee. We will not proactively approach their clients and customers either... but clients have to decide for themselves and they have the right to choose their partner at work," Infosys HR Director Mohan Das Pai said.

The knowledge services business unit of Infosys BPO is headed by a former Infosys Technologies executive. So is the vice-president and head of sales of Infosys BPO. Communication, the second-largest revenue earning customer segment for the BPO, is also headed by an executive formerly with Infosys Technologies.