TCS in deal with Citigroup

The news is just around the corner that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the Indan IT giant is close to finalizing a deal with Citigroup Inc. The deal is pegged to be around $500-900 million.

Reports are pooling in that the deal will be signed very soon. It is said that TCS would employ around 2,200 people for the contract in the first year and would take future decisions depending on the contract. The contract is based on a take-or-pay-order system. According to the deal, the IT giant would be paid a fixed sum if the work is completed in the stipulated time.

It is said that TCS would provide manpower, quality and processes to Citigroup, which is against the present method of time and material contract, where Indian vendors charge fees by the hour.

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Iron Mountain outsources product development

MARCH 17, 2006 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Information protection and storage services provider Iron Mountain Inc. has outsourced some of its product development to Symphony Services Corp., a product development company with facilities in India, according to executives of both companies.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Symphony will have over 80 engineers in Bangalore and Pune working on the development of products for Boston-based Iron Mountain, Ajay Kela, president for India of Symphony, said Friday.

Symphony will also offer product management and user-interface design services to Iron Mountain, Kela said

The agreement between the two companies follows an earlier contract between them, whereby Symphony had about 25 staffers offering quality assurance and support for Iron Mountain products.

The Symphony centers in India will be an extension of Iron Mountain's own development centers, said Greg Nicastro, senior vice president for product development at Iron Mountain. Having a development center in India will help Iron Mountain work around the clock on product development, helping to cut time to market, he added.

Symphony will work on a variety of products, including Iron Mountain's digital archive service and on data protection products from Marlboro, Mass.-based LiveVault Corp., which Iron Mountain acquired earlier this year.

A number of multinational technology companies have set up wholly owned product development centers in India. But a large number of foreign companies now prefer to outsource product development to third-party operations in India that handle the hiring and management of the development teams.

Setting up a wholly owned center in India is not a core expertise of Iron Mountain, and the company preferred to partner with Symphony, which has experience in the area, Nicastro said.

Iron Mountain already has development centers in the U.S. and the U.K. where it employs about 200 developers.

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Bush: Outsourcing painful, but remedy is worse

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Praising India's expanding economy, President Bush warned Friday that fears about job outsourcing to other nations should not prompt the United States to limit global trade.

"It's ... important to remember that when someone loses a job it's an incredibly difficult period for the worker and their families," Bush said in a speech in New Delhi.

"It's true that some Americans have lost jobs when their companies move their operations overseas," he said.

"Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world through protectionist policies. I strongly disagree." (Watch Bush explain why the U.S. and India are natural partners -- 2:36)

"The United States will not give into the protectionists and lose these opportunities," Bush said.

"For the sake of workers in both our countries, America will trade with confidence."

But he added that "India has responsibilities as well."

"India needs to continue to lift its caps on foreign investment ... and to continue to lower its tariffs and open its markets to American agricultural products, industrial goods and services."

Bush delivered the address just prior to traveling to neighboring Pakistan for talks on terrorism Saturday in Islamabad with President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan is an important ally in the U.S.-led fight against al Qaeda.

Bush's arrival was preceded by widespread protests and a deadly attack Thursday outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. (Full story)

"On my trip to Islamabad, I will meet with President Musharraf to discuss Pakistan's vital cooperation in the war on terror, and our efforts to foster economic and political development so we can reduce the appeal of radical Islam," Bush said.

"I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America a peaceful neighbor for India and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world."

Outsourcing Health IT: Should Doctors Cut the Cord?

In an era of rising costs and dwindling access to experts, IT is untethering doctors from patients' physical presence. Already, health care organizations are turning to distant practitioners to interpret radiographs and even to monitor intensive care units.

Such practices are not unique opportunities in niche markets, said Robert Wachter, a medical-safety expert at UCSF Medical Center, but the "first salvos" in an escalating trend.

Many tasks no longer need to be performed by a highly trained expert in the same room, or even in the same country, as a patient.

"IT was built to facilitate the ability of existing providers to do their work better and faster," Wachter said. But once the technology to record, store, and send digital images became commonplace, it revealed unanticipated applications.

U.S. IT Hiring Increases Despite Outsourcing

"A CNN article reports that a new study has shown that U.S. tech hiring has increased, despite oversees outsourcing. It mentions that the job market is higher today than it was at the height of the dot-com boom." From the article: "The study suggests that there are several factors in the continued growth in demand for IT workers here. The report said part of it is due to the use of offshoring by U.S. companies, including start-up firms, to limit their costs and thus grow their businesses. That, in turn, creates more opportunities here even as an increasing amount of work is done overseas. The study also said that companies from a variety of sectors in the economy continue to discover greater efficiency and more competitive operations through investment in IT."

Computer Science Students Outsource Homework

"'If U.S. companies can go online to outsource their programming, why can't U.S. computer students outsource their homework--which, after all, often involves writing sample programs?' Wall Street Journal colummnist Lee Gomes asks. 'Scruples aside, no reason at all. Search for "homework" in the data base of Rent A Coder projects, and you get 1,000 hits. (An impressive number, but still a tiny fraction of all computer students, the vast majority of whom are no doubt an honest and hardworking lot.)' Some of the Rent a Coder users appear to be outsourcing their way through school, at low costs--probably less than $100 per assignment. The posting are, of course, anonymous, but Gomes traces one to a student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where an instructor tells him that Rent a Coder contributed to a problem of plagiarism last semester."

Songbird the Open Source iTunes?

"Cnet has an interesting story about a company about to release an open source alternative to iTunes. Apparently, the software can be used with a multitude of music services." From the article: "Apple's iTunes is 'like Internet Explorer, if Internet Explorer could only browse Microsoft.com,' Lord said. 'We love Apple, and appreciate and thank them for setting the bar in terms of user experience. But it's inevitable that the market architecture changes as it matures.'"

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