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For India's Tech Titans, Growth Is Waning
WSJ ^ | 08/20/08 | NIRAJ SHETH

Posted on 08/20/2008 9:46:49 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

For India's Tech Titans, Growth Is Waning

By NIRAJ SHETH

August 20, 2008; Page A1

NEW DELHI -- India's information-technology industry, the engine of the nation's economic resurgence, is losing steam.

A decade ago, a host of Indian companies -- led by Infosys Technologies Ltd., Wipro Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. -- shot to global prominence by helping fix the "millennium bug" that threatened to crash many of the world's computers at the end of 1999. Often growing at 40% a year or more since, they quickly helped build a global tech-outsourcing industry that has changed how the world does business and how it views India.

Now that growth is slowing sharply. The credit crunch and spending slowdown in the U.S. are hurting the companies' biggest market, while a cheaper dollar shrinks their profits. Longer-term problems are surfacing. Competition is rising from other low-cost nations, ranging from Eastern Europe to the Philippines and Vietnam. And India's own success has raised labor expenses, cutting into the companies' low-cost advantage just as their revenue growth is slowing.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: economy; globalism; india; inflation; it; slump; trade

1 posted on 08/20/2008 9:46:50 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
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To: TigerLikesRooster; Uncle Ike; RSmithOpt; jiggyboy; 2banana; Travis McGee; OwenKellogg; 31R1O; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 08/20/2008 9:47:21 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster (kim jong-il, chia head, ppogri, In Grim Reaper we trust)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

My Indian friends tell me that wages for comparable experience in IT has pretty much equalized between India and the U.S.


3 posted on 08/20/2008 10:26:16 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: Vince Ferrer

Yeah, ok, only 70% of the comparably paid IT personnel have been receiving pink slips recently. I love it, “I make exactly what Americans in IT make...when I’m working”.


4 posted on 08/20/2008 10:30:23 PM PDT by johnnycap (I would really like the model of Civil Forum that Warren has created to be repeated across the count)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Does this mean that the next time I call Dell tech support I will finally be calling someone in this country.
The last time I called Dell I wound up with some Indian guy (and I love Indians)who had not a clue as to what my problem was. I was then shunted of to a Dell techie in Tenn and after listening to his 15 minute diatribe about how clueless Indian tech support was finally fixed my problem


5 posted on 08/20/2008 10:40:33 PM PDT by Larry381 (By reading this message you have agreed to a $9.99 service charge on your phone bill-thanks)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
Several of the new lines of business mentioned deal with passenger airline companies: new check-in systems, innovative customer service systems, etc.

The airline industry is not exactly a "high-growth" opportunity right now.

6 posted on 08/20/2008 10:57:43 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: TigerLikesRooster

The team you absolutely do NOT want to be a part of in my company is the one responsible for QA and bug fixes for the software coming out of our Bangalore office. Overtime, overtime, overtime. And no extra pay, of course.


7 posted on 08/21/2008 4:03:36 AM PDT by Wolfie
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