November 1, 2009 by ssemergic
Indian Institute of Science had organized a Felicitation Ceremony on October 31, 2009 to honor Professor V Rajaraman who served IISc as Professor (and Chair of SERC) from 1982 onwards. Professor Rajaraman turned 75 some time back.
It was nice to see Prof Rajaraman and Mrs Dharma Rajaraman seated in the dais along with IISc Director V Balaram and Associate Director N Balakrishnan
There were a number of his former students (Prof Somnath Biswas and Rajat Moona of IIT Kanpur, Prof Govindarajulu of IIIT Hyderabad, Dr Om Vikas of DoE, for example), colleagues (Prof H Krishnamoorthy, Prof Govindarajan of IISc (SERC) and Prof HN Mahabala of IIIT-B, for example)
I had interacted with Prof Rajaraman briefly during the 3 years we were together at IIT Kanpur. He was of immense help in the early days of IIIT-Bangalore; he was also the first External Member of IIIT-B Senate.
I wish Prof Rajaraman & Dharma many long happy days ahead
Tags: Indian Institute of Science, Professor Rajaraman
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November 1, 2009 by ssemergic
Education Times Division of Times of India is starting a new feature “Interaction”
As part of the new initiative they had organized a Panel Discussion on IIT-The Road Ahead on October 31, 2009 (3 to 5 PM)
I was asked to modetate a panel consisting of distinguidhed individuals -
- Prof R Natarajan, Former Chairman, AICTE (Former Director, IIT Madras)
- Mr Ananth Koppar, Founder Kshema Tech & KTwo Tech (IIT Kharagpur Alum)
- Mr Ashok Kamath Chair Akshara Foundation & Former CEO Analog Devices India (IIT Bombay Alum)
I was invited thanks to my 16 years at IIT Kanpur (and a year at IIT Madras too)
We deliberated on five issues
- The recent controversy on cut-offs for JEE aspirants moving from 60% to 80%
- The percieved brand dilution due to hurriedly starting seven IITs in just a year
- The recent stand-off between IIT faculty and the Government and the resultant strike by IIT faculty
- Are IIT’s contributing enough on research front?
- Do students join IITs only for lucrative managerial careers by joining IIMs?
It was interesting to listen to the esteemed Panelists and the interaction between them and the 50+ audience consisting mostly of IIT aspirants in Schools and their parents
Tags: IIT
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October 21, 2009 by ssemergic
Apple announced the results for its third quarter (July September 2009), with sales of $ 9.87 billion and profit of $ 1.67 billion, the largest ever profit.
It is amazing that Apple managed to sell 3.1 million iMac computers, 7.2 million iPhones and 10.4 million iPods; with holiday season around the corner Apple can only do better in the next quarter; in the process Apple revenue might touch $ 40 billion for the year 2009. Achieving such growth in one of the worst recession it indeed remarkable
Tags: Apple, Apple posts higher quarterly profit for July September 2009
Posted in My views on IT companies, My views on IT products | 1 Comment »
October 9, 2009 by ssemergic
Infosys announced the quarterly results today
With revenue of Rs 5,585 crores and profit of Rs 1,560 crores it shows 7.5% QoQ increase
Infosys also gave a guidance of nearly Rs 22,000 crores for the year (Apr 2009 to March 2010)
Considering the global business sentiment it is good; hopefully other results to follow (Wipro, CTS, TCS, HCL) too will be good
Tags: Infosys posts good results for July to September 2009 quarter
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October 7, 2009 by ssemergic
Prof Venky Ramakrishnan of Cambridge University gets the Chemistry Nobel for 2009 for the structure and function of Ribosome
He is the fifth India-born scientist to win Nobel Prize. Other than Sir CV Raman who won the Nobel Prize in 1930 for molecular splitting of light and Raman Effect, the other winners are naturalized citizens of USA
- Prof Hargobind Khorana won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in the year 1968; he was a molecular biologist at the University of Wisconsin – Madison then
- Prof Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for the theoretical structure and evolution of stars; he was at the University of Chicago then
- Prof Amartya Sen won Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his contribution to welfare economics; he was at Harvard University then
Interestingly, just in the afternoon Prof PK Ghosh (Retd) of IITK gave a talk in IIIT-B about biological molecules and mass spectrometry where he talked about Ribosome (I heard it for the first time!)
Another coincidence; Dr Venky Ramakrishnan happens to be the cousin of Professor SV Sankaran’s wife; Prof Sankaran currently with SAP is an active IEEE Office-bearer in Bangalore; he spent 3 years at IIIT-B!
Tags: Cambridge University, India-born scientist wins Nobel, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009, Venky Ramakrishnan
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September 26, 2009 by ssemergic
In today’s announcement of 11 Bhatnagar awardees, there is one Computer Science person, Prof Jayant Haritsa of IISc well-known for his key contributions to database research. He does proud to the IT community in India
Tags: Bhatnagar Award, Indian Institute of Science, Jayant Haritsa
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September 25, 2009 by ssemergic
Without hurting teaching and other academic activity the faculty members of the prestigious IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) went on a hunger strike protesting against the spirit of Government control and the pay structures announced recently.
It is a sad day; sad that IIT faculty have to resort to such a measure; added to this sadness is the fact that a well-meaning Government, Minister and the establishment have to let such a thing happen.
One hopes an early end to this deadlock; there must be a better way to resolve such deadlocks!
Tags: IIT faculty hunger strike
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September 23, 2009 by ssemergic
HP decided to retire the EDS brand today. With this comes an end to a long standing IT services brand that started way back in 1962 (much before the IT services was viewed as an industry segment, let alone a huge industry)
With Dell acquiring Perot Systems on September 21, 2009 the IT services saw further consolidation, with Accenture, CSC and Cap Gemini remaining as the IT Services majors (along with IBM and HP) and the Indian IT Services biggies TCS, Infosys & Wipro.
Many younger IT professionals may not know that EDS started off as a wing of General Motors!
EDS has a large presence thru Jerry Rao founded MPhasis; it became an EDS Company after being acquired by EDS a couple of years back; now it becomes an HP Company!
Interesting times indeed!!
Tags: EDS, EDS brand is no more, HP
Posted in My views on IT companies | 1 Comment »
September 21, 2009 by ssemergic
Dell the PC (desktop, laptop and server) giant that pioneered the “mass distributed production” of PCs and their “mass customization” announced its decision to acquire Perot Systems an IT services major.
Interestingly Dell used to be Dell Computers earlier and decided to be just Dell Inc just a few years back; one thought that such a move signals its diversification into printers, PDA’s and other peripherals; with Perot Systems acquisition Dell gets into IT services dominated by IBM and HP.
It is interesting to see the consolidation across the entire IT industry – servers, storage, networks, application software and services with Oracle getting into every segment including hardware and HP acquiring EDS last year.
The Indian IT industry used to be dubbed as “low value” services industry; with every high tech major including IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft and now Dell getting into the IT services segment, it appears in hindsight that Indian IT majors TCS, Infosys and Wipro had bet on the right horse! Also all major IT vendors with services focus, IBM, Accenture for example, have large presence in India; one hopes that consolidation only helps to grow further India’s major presence globally in the IT services space.
Tags: consolidation in IT industry, Dell, IT services, Perot Systems
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September 15, 2009 by ssemergic
Intuit with its Turbotax and Quicken has a niche position in personal finance products. It has remained a “great place to work” and an admired software product company, though really small in size.
With its acquisition of Mint, Intuit will enter financial planning and information management delivered as SaaS.
I think it is good for the customers (majority of Intuit customers are individuals, who cannot afford the services of financial advisory services firm!)
Tags: Financial Information services, Intuit, Intuit buys Mint, Mint
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