Managing Offshore IT

While the jury is debating on whether offshoring can help in innovation [Execs frustrated by lack of innovation : Can offshoring help?]… offshoring companies, including Infosys are certainly trying to help seed innovation.

Interesting announcement: ACM and Infosys Technologies Announce New Award to Recognize Contemporary Computing Research and Innovaton

Jim Horning comments: "The Grace Murray Hopper Award is for a contribution made before age 35. The new ACM / Infosys Foundation Award does not have such a strict definition of "young." Fortunately, there is not a shortage of stellar young contributors, by either definition. ACM thinks there is room for both awards."

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A recent Economist Intelligence Unit survey talks about how Outsourcing and offshoring of innovation are set to increase despite concerns about loss of control. A recent article quotes the report stating “Increased competition, the cost and complexity of innovation and a surplus of ideas are encouraging many companies to restructure their approach to research and development,” says Rob Mitchell, editor of the report. “Our survey shows a considerable shift towards greater outsourcing and offshoring of R&D in what we term a global innovation network model, despite concerns about loss of control over a function that is often considered core to a company’s identity.”

Continue reading "More Companies Outsourcing Innovation: But what does it mean to you?" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

A recent Hindustan Times headline proclaimed how "India centre engineers played key role, filed 40 patents for Vista" The article said:
While Bill Gates and his global team celebrated the launch of Microsoft Corp's much awaited Vista operating system in the Times Square and elsewhere in the world, the city of Charminar had its own reasons to exult.
Some 330 engineers in Microsoft's India Development Centre at Hyderabad engineered some of the most important features of the software — and filed 40 patents to prove that. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer had during his visit to India in November taken time off to party with the engineers based in the Hi-Tec City complex. Five years ago,when Windows had launched Windows XP with 40 people involved from Hyderabad, it was a case of developing individual technologies in parts (for e.g. Internet Explorer) in India and integrating them with the global team from Redmond.

Well, articles like this just reinforce the point I was trying to make in my earlier blog  on how large organizations are globalizing research and development, leveraging skills and talent cutting across ‘time and space’ boundaries.

Continue reading "Globalization and Offshoring of R & D .. further notes" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Though ‘Moving up the value chain’ is the Holy Grail of offshoring, it is a phrase most gurus and IT leaders are hard pressed to elaborate. This said, offshoring of Research & Development, and some of the high-end work is already happening.

It a topic of personal and professional interest to me as I was managing aspects of Infosys’ research collaboration with Microsoft [at SETLabs] in my avatar prior to the current North American Technology Consulting gig.

Continue reading "Globalization and Offshoring of R & D" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)