From: raja@chroma.cps.msu.edu (Narayan S. Raja)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: SUMMARY: Software products/services from India
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:47:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: msuinfo.1992Apr8.194758.23136
Reply-To: raja@cps.msu.edu
Organization: Michigan State University, CPS Department


A big "Thank you" to everyone who was kind enough
to respond...

Some personal info has been deleted from the
summary posted below (for privacy reasons).
This summary is already the result of considerable
editing; I apologize for not being able to work 
on it further and produce a real, compact summary.

Hope it's useful...

Regards,


Narayan Sriranga Raja.


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> Someone who "prefers to be in the background" writes:

Off-hand I am not able to quote names of companies which 
have software collaboration with Indian companies (HP? Unisys?), but 
there are many Indian companies which have contracts here in USA.
WIPRO is one(LYNX in California has some contract with them), 
TCS has people working here, Kirloskar Electronics has people here 
too. Tata Unisys too. There is this Bangalore-based company which 
has a semi-permanent office in Atlanta (textile industry). Let me 
try to remember the name. Starts with an "I". Mmmmmmm.....Infosys! 
Yeah, that's the name. There was some talk about DCM's cobol compiler 
which was supposed to be faster than the fastest available here, viz,.,
Micro-focus. This was on another newsgroup, alt.cobol. 


>4. How do software services/development costs in India
>    compare with those in the U.S.?
>
 Very profitable, I'd guess. An average programmer/analyst in
 India gets about Rs.4000/= which converts to peanuts here.

>5. Which Indian software companies have branches/agents
>    in the U.S.?

See above. Many of my friends have come here thru COSIL (Citicorp 
Overseas software (India) ltd. Princeton, Minneapolis are a couple 
of places they are located. Texas has lots of Indian companies/
subsidiaries.

>
>6. Is there any organization (either in the U.S. or in
>    India) that can provide such info, or help with 
>    software products/services from India?

Maybe talk to some company like Infosys or Unisys.
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From: ajayshah%alhena.usc.edu@usc.edu (Ajay Shah)

>1. Can you name some "big" American companies
>    which have set up software operations in India?  
>    Where are they located in India and what do 
>    they do?
TI in Bangalore writes microcode
Citocorp Overseas Software in SEEPZ does software for central banks (mainly)
IBM/Tata is going to do OS/2 development.

>2. What "catchy" facts can you think of about
>    Indian software products or services (e.g. the
>    hand-written output generating program that was
>    described in ``Time'' last year, CMC's contract
>    to develop the London Underground's train scheduling
>    software...)

The best virus detection for PCs I've ever seen are done in India.

Several companies routinely do Unix ports and Unix device drivers.
E.g. Kirloskar consultants and HCL.

HCL was pretty much the first in the world with hardware and software
for MP Unix.

India escaped mainframes altogether, so the skills are exclusively
PC and Unix, which is Good in the modern world.

Unrelated tack, but the Bombay stock exchange is installing
$30 million worth of Sun workstations and servers; all the software
is being done locally.  This gives you an index of local knowhow.


>5. Which Indian software companies have branches/agents
>    in the U.S.?
HCL, DCM.  CMC _owns_ Unisoft, which used to be the #1 vendor
of Unix for 68k long ago.


Some time ago I had an email conversation about costs of
operating in the middle of Bombay vs. the US.  With names
changed to protect anonymity, here is the info.  You can
modify equipment assumptions a bit to suit you.


Subject: Cost calculation (of a person at MiracleSoft)
Status: ORr

Someone at MiracleSoft who has 2-3 years experience but has escaped
serious promotion gets around Rs. 80k.

The interest cost of the real estate is like 15% of 2 crores or 30e5.
There are roughly 40 people so the real estate per person is roughly
Rs. 75k.

The equipment cost is roughly 
	a PC AT at Rs. 35k
	annual maint. is 3.5k
	it's a writeoff in 4 years, 9k/year
	interest cost is 5250
So it's roughly 3500 + 9000 + 5250 = 17,750.  Account for other
auxiliary equipment, shared Unix, etc. and it's like Rs. 30k.

So totally one person is 80k + 75k + 30k or 185k/year, or
around $7500/year.  What are US billings for a similar person?
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From: SUDARSAN@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov


1. Can you name some "big" American companies
    which have set up software operations in India?  
    Where are they located in India and what do 
    they do?

Some big names are - Texas Instruments - Bangalore

		     Cadence Design System N. Delhi
		     PSI - Bull  Bangalore
		     IBM-Tata Information Systems B'lore
                     Tata- Unisys  Bombay
		     Hewlett Packard India B'lore

 the above companies are the ones that come to my mind, and all do 
mostly software development with some design work, for their parent 
companies.       		     
		     

2. What "catchy" facts can you think of about
    Indian software products or services (e.g. the
    hand-written output generating program that was
    described in ``Time'' last year, CMC's contract
    to develop the London Underground's train scheduling
    software...)

India ( I'm sure ) is the largest country that gets outsourced 
software projects. 
 


3. Can you mention some magazine/newspaper articles, TV
    programs, or any other references in the U.S. media
    to the software industry in India ?

Two months back there was a detailed article featuring software 
companies in India by the Software magazine.    

4. How do software services/development costs in India
    compare with those in the U.S.?

Although I have no precise estimate, I estimate it at 50 % cheaper ( 
overall). But there are pitfalls/ issues that need to be addressed.
 
5. Which Indian software companies have branches/agents
    in the U.S.?

TCS, Wipro, HCL to name a few.
 
6. Is there any organization (either in the U.S. or in
    India) that can provide such info, or help with 
    software products/services from India?
 
Contact SIPA in California, and other such agencies.
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From: dharma@verdix.com (Manjeri Dharmarajan)

>1. Can you name some "big" American companies
>    which have set up software operations in India?  
>    Where are they located in India and what do 
>    they do?

TI (Bangalore). Motorola and IBM are thinking about it (also Bangalore).

>3. Can you mention some magazine/newspaper articles, TV
>    programs, or any other references in the U.S. media
>    to the software industry in India?
>
Last year (summer?), the EE Times had a big article on how Westinghouse saved
a ton of money by using doing software in India. I'm afraid I don't remember
the issue date.

>6. Is there any organization (either in the U.S. or in
>    India) that can provide such info, or help with 
>    software products/services from India?

Talk to pchandra@cadence.com. He is president of SIPA (sil. valley Indian
professionals association)
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From: varuns@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Varun)
	  
          A few of the American software companies in India are :
	    DEC --- In Bangalore
	    IBM --- With TATA ....(place ???)
	    Motorola -- Bangalore
	    HP ------?????
	    Apple(Macintosh)  ---- ?????

	Software Costs are really low in India.....


	Mainly all of them are into software design etc....
	DEC , I am sure has a direct satellite link from
	Bangalore to US and uses it for transferring data, 
        specs for software packages...etc.
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From: R. Thiyagarajan  07-Apr-1992 1028 <thiyagarajan@mims.enet.dec.com>

Many big companies have software operations in India. Digital,
HP, Motorola and now IBM. All are based in Bangalore

Some other s/w exporters

	TCS
	TUL 	(Tata Unisys) (Both in Bombay)
	Infotech Bangalore
	Future Software Madras
	PCS Bangalore (in collaboration with Bull France)
	Era software, Sathyam software Hyderabad
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: dhote@uvm-gen.uvm.edu

Though I don't have answers to your queries this may be of some help.

There is a conference (sponsered by Indian Consulate) that is geared to
attract US businesses to develop software in India.  It is on 14 th of 
April in SanFrancisco.  Call (415) 668-0727
			or   (415) 668-0967.

Check it out.... I think it will answer a lot of your questions.  I have their
brochure and it looks good.
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From: "Neeran Mohan Karnik" <karnik@cs.umn.edu>

>1. Can you name some "big" American companies
>    which have set up software operations in India?  
>    Where are they located in India and what do 
>    they do?

	Citicorp Overseas Software Limited (COSL) in Bombay is one name which 
	comes to mind, I'm not sure what kind of software they develop.

>2. What "catchy" facts can you think of about
>    Indian software products or services (e.g. the
>    hand-written output generating program that was
>    described in ``Time'' last year, CMC's contract
>    to develop the London Underground's train scheduling
>    software...)
	
	TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) is apparently doing some major software
	development for the Bombay Stock Exchange computerization plan.

[Note:  According to another well-informed source, it
is not TCS but CMC which is developing s/w for the BSE.   --  Raja.]


>5. Which Indian software companies have branches/agents
>    in the U.S.?

	HCL has a collaboration with Hewlett-Packard, so you could call that a 
	"branch" in the US. There also was a HCL-USA branch, which may not exist
	any more after the HCL-HP alliance of last year.

	I'm sure there are a lot of dealership agreements between Indian and
	American companies. Wipro's (?) Instaplan (proj mgmt. software) was a
	major success story in US, so I presume that they have an agent here.

>6. Is there any organization (either in the U.S. or in
>    India) that can provide such info, or help with 
>    software products/services from India?

	How about NASSCOM (something like the National Association of Software
	and Service Companies) ? This is in India, probably Bombay, but I'm not
	sure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: murgesh@entropy.esd.sgi.com (Murgesh Navar)

>1. Can you name some "big" American companies
>    which have set up software operations in India?  
>    Where are they located in India and what do 
>    they do?

	Digital Equipment India Ltd. (largest) - not much
software though. HP and Motorola have software ventures
based in Bangalore.

>4. How do software services/development costs in India
>    compare with those in the U.S.?

	This was precisely addressed in the EE times issue. 
See if you can dig it up. It was under the profession column.

>
>5. Which Indian software companies have branches/agents
>    in the U.S.?

	Verifone (?).
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From: Bharat Manglani <manglani@ctron.com>

I can answer a few of ur queries:

1.	TI, IBM, HP, DEC...
2.	None
3.	I don't know
4.	practically saving could be upto 60%
5.	CMC... and Our Company has a merketing office:
	Microline Data, Inc.
	PO Box: 284, Rochester, NH 03867-0284
6.	DOE in New Delhi can help you. If you need more details let me know
	Indian Consulate in NY is useless and misleading. I heard San Francisco
	had better touch with DOE from DOE.
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