Infosys Names D. Swaminathan BPO Unit's Chief Executive

India's Infosys Technologies Ltd. has named D. Swaminathan as the new chief executive of its business process outsourcing unit, Infosys BPO Ltd., the software exporter's human resources director said Wednesday.

Also, the company named Ritesh Idnani as the unit's chief operating officer, T.V. Mohandas Pai told Dow Jones Newswires.

The appointments are effective Jan. 15, he said.

Mr. Swaminathan, who is currently a senior vice president at Infosys BPO, has been with the company for the past four years, Mr. Pai said.

Mr. Swaminathan succeeds Amitabh Chaudhry, who resigned in November to pursue other opportunities.

Mr. Idnani is currently a vice president and head of worldwide sales and marketing at Infosys BPO.

Infosys launches Flypp mobile application platform

Infosys Technologies Ltd today announced the launch of Flypp, an application platform, which it said, would empower mobile service providers to "delight" digital consumers through a host of ready-to-use experiential applications across the universe of devices.

According to Subhash Dhar, Member Executive Council and Group Head, Sales & Marketing at Infosys, "Smart applications are now making it possible to deliver a personalised and interactive user experience. Mobile service providers are seeing a steady shift in value from providing connectivity to monetising digital demand. Flypp enables this capability for mobile operators through a plug and play model".

Flypp is a "Ready to Launch" Application platform for mobile operators, the Bangalore-headquartered, NASDAQ-listed firm said in a statement. This "operator centric" platform enables mobile operators to offer a bouquet of applications, including third party ones to its subscribers.

Flypp also provides independent software vendors a "viable and attractive" channel to showcase and monetise their proprietary applications across multiple geographies and service providers, Infosys added.

Pai denies ‘turf war' at Infosys

The news of two Infosys top executives leaving the company due to various reasons, has given air to the rumor that a turf war is brewing in the top echelons of the IT behemoth, however, top brass of the company categorically denied any such thing.Recently, a citizen journalist website, citing sources claimed that there was a “bitter turf war” within the company which puts Infosys at a risk of “losing some of the most respected executives in India.” “There existed two extremely strong factions within Infosys - Nandan Nilekani and Mohandas Pai…A united face to the world, the continuous tension between the two head honchos was a well kept secret restricted to the inner circle.Those in Nandan’s faction (read Amitabh Chaudhary) are slowly being edged out of the inner circle after Nandan left the top post.Latest to hit the bandwagon are Rishi Jain (AVP and Head of Corporate Planning at Infosys BPO) and Purnima Menon (Head - Marketing for Infosys BPO),” the website said.Infosys HR Head, Mohandas Pai told Express, “There is no such turf war. Joydeep is leaving but he had put in his papers three months ago for personal reasons and we would be finalizing his successor shortly.” “Rishi and purnima have not resigned!” he added.The resignation of Joydeep, who heads the Knowledge Process Outsourcing business of the company, was reported by news papers on Thursday.Knowledge services contribute about 10 per cent of Infosys BPO’s annual revenue of over Rs 1,450 crore. Joydeep took over from Ramit Sethi, who quit last year to head the KPO practice at Wipro.Amitabh Chaudhry, who took over as the Chief Executive of Infosys BPO in March 2006, had reportedly submitted his resignation on Tuesday.The BPO arm of Infosys employs about 16,000 staff and offers finance and accounting, human resource and legal services outsourcing.Chaudhry who is tipped to join HDFC Standard Life Insurance to head its business in India as CEO could not be contacted and HDFC Standard Life Insurance spokesperson declined to comment.

Joydeep Mukherjee Quits Infosys KPO

After the recent resignation of Infosys BPO Chief Executive Amitabh Chaudhry, another senior executive at Infosys Technologies' business process outsourcing arm has resigned.
Joydeep Mukherjee, the head of the knowledge process outsourcing services at Infosys BPO, has quit the company, a spokesman said without giving details.
On November 24, Chaudhry had put in his papers to pursue other opportunities. According to sources, Chaudhry is expected to join HDFC Standard Life Insurance to head its business in India as CEO

Infosys to keep off auto engineering biz, focus on aerospace projects

India's second-biggest software exporter Infosys Technologies plans to stay away from top auto customers in its engineering services business and shift its focus from commoditised and price-sensitive projects.

Engineering requires a mix of programming and core engineering skills such as mechanical or civil, depending on the industry being serviced, and is billed at higher rates than traditional application development

and maintenance projects.

"We have chosen to walk away from this (auto) industry because the work has become increasingly commoditised because of high competition. We are a premium services player and our contribution is value-driven," said Valmeeka Nathan, vice-president and head of product lifecycle and engineering, Infosys.

He said the company had chosen to de-risk revenues from this segment and instead focus on segments such as aerospace, which provides stability and visibility of revenues.

Some of the other focus areas for the company in engineering services will be sectors such as heavy engineering, hi-tech, energy generation, medical and apparel. Mr Nathan said aerospace contributed about 40 percent to the company's engineering services revenues, with the remaining 60 percent coming from other sectors.

"The contribution of the auto (sector) to our (engineering) revenues is minor. We do take on projects from auto clients but selectively," he added.

"The nature of engineering services is different from software services, and requires a fairly different talent pool. Vendors have their own niche because it requires a fair amount of competency. It also doesn't offer the same kind of scalability as the rest of the software business," said Sandeep Muthangi, analyst with IIFL.

"Even outside of engineering services, Infosys does not have much exposure to the auto sector," said an analyst with a foreign brokerage.

With auto majors, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler, slipping into bankruptcy, the auto sector has been a trouble spot for IT vendors such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro that service them. Revenues from the auto industry have declined and analysts said they could not comment on the current contribution of GM or Chrysler to the revenues of the IT majors.

However, on the sidelines of the recent Nasscom Global Engineering Leadership Summit, Regu Ayyaswamy, VP (engineering and industrial services), TCS, said that the company was seeing 'some sporadic signs of growth' from the auto industry.

Infosys helps QSI to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

Quantum Solutions India, a contract research organization, has implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 with the help of Infosys Technologies. The implementation will enable data management, harmonized processes, data security

and reduce delays due to high manual dependence at QSI.

Infosys has also integrated Adrenalin (Adrenalin e-Systems) to address Quantum Solutions's India (QSI) human resource and payroll management requirements. Through this program, Infosys has enabled QSI to achieve process standardization, transaction processing, resource allocation, and reduced manual effort across financial management, sales and marketing, and resource planning.

Infosys claims that following this deployment, QSI was able to reduce the invoice preparation time and improve the data accuracy of invoices, leading to increased revenue and productivity for the company.

Apurva Goswamy, CEO of QSI, said: "For a complex domain like contract research organization (CRO), we collaborated with Infosys to leverage their proven capabilities in ERP and their cross-industry expertise across the Microsoft Dynamics product suite.

"The newly implemented ERP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, has streamlined and standardized our business processes, helping us improve our margins by demonstrating where the slack is, improving productivity, providing seamless information flow, and allowing faster and more accurate reporting."

Infosys Helps Volantis Achieve Significant Cost Savings with Windows Azure

Infosys Technologies Limited (Nasdaq: INFY) today announced that it has successfully integrated Volantis Systems(TM) award winning Ubik.com(TM) service with Windows Azure resulting in significant performance improvements and cost savings. The Windows Azure platform provides an operating system, data storage, and a set of developer services for creating a range of flexible, cost-effective solutions via the cloud.

Volantis, whose solutions help solve the complexity of delivering the true mobile Internet to thousands of unique devices, looked to Infosys to implement Windows Azure in order to increase scalability for its Ubik.com service. Ubik.com is free-to-use and allows small businesses and consumers to quickly create personalized mobile Internet sites, without having to write a line of code. The integration of Ubik.com with Windows Azure ensures a seamless user experience for those accessing Ubik®, supported by an integrated Volantis device database containing information on more than 6,700 mobile handsets. Within just four weeks, Volantis and Infosys were able to create a set of Web services running on Windows Azure that resulted in significant cost savings.

"Infosys worked closely with Volantis to integrate our system with Windows Azure," said Mark Watson, CEO, Volantis. "We want our customers to have the seamless scalability that is available only through the cloud. Infosys was able to quickly and effectively implement our solution on top of Windows Azure. Without Infosys, Volantis may well have had to purchase, deploy and manage new storage infrastructure so this initiative has delivered significant savings."

As a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, Infosys has worked closely with the Windows creator over the past eight years to accelerate customers' competitive business impact through legacy modernization, infrastructure optimization, enterprise collaboration and other services. By delivering Microsoft Corp.'s solutions with speed and predictability, Infosys was a natural choice for Volantis when considering its move to Windows Azure.

As part of Infosys' alliance with Microsoft, the two technology leaders have been offering cloud-based solutions and services for Windows Azure for the past two years. Infosys recently opened a Cloud Center of Excellence (COE) that enables enterprise and ISV customers around the world to adopt cloud-based IT capabilities through strategic consulting, application development and migration, as well as through systems management, integration and monitoring services on the Windows Azure platform.

"With Windows Azure, we're focused on delivering a services platform that provides partners like Infosys with the ability to build and manage highly scalable Web applications and services," said Amitabh Srivastava, Senior Vice President of Windows Azure at Microsoft Corp. "Infosys was able to help Volantis migrate to Windows Azure in just four weeks which is a prime example of how Windows Azure can provide cost savings."

"Over the past two years, Infosys has worked closely with Microsoft to help customers quickly and easily take advantage of the cost-savings, efficiencies and ease-of-management associated with this next-generation computing model," says Subu Goparaju, Vice President and Head Software Engineering and Technology Labs (SETLabs), Infosys. "A usage-based platform enables Infosys to deliver solutions on a transaction-based pricing model to our customers to increase efficiency on a global scale."

• Infosys and cloud computing: www.infosys.com/cloud-computing/
• Infosys' cloud computing blog: www.infosysblogs.com/cloudcomputing/
• Windows Azure: www.windowsazure.com/