Infosys tries to patent outsourcing
By Techgirl

I have been reporting on the outsourcing industry for a few years, and so like most of my colleagues in the Indian tech media I have seen it all. In my simple mind, outsourcing was all about brilliant men like Mr. Murthy using our cost and quality to win business from America and Europe and later rest of the world.

In the early days, for many Indian tech companies outsourcing meant sending a couple of experienced managers supporting by many young workers learning the job.  Like efficient worker ants, they went on H1B Visas to USA.  A lot of time was spent reassuring American techies that we Indians were not there to take their job.  While we were actually there to take their jobs and bring them home to India.  In the early days, some Indian IT and BPO companies gave workers sent to USA basic boarding, food and a daily allowance of $50. 

Life was simple.  The Fortune 500 companies needed quality and cost.  And we Indians were happy to work 12 hour days for a chance to visit USA, get work experience and try to become an American citizen. 

Now it seems there was more to this outsourcing process.  While reading Techdirt this morning, I learnt that Infosys had filed a patent with the US Government for a ‘Framework for supporting transition of one or more application of an organization’.  The Infosys patent filed with the US Government reads

“
FRAMEWORK FOR SUPPORTING TRANSITION OF ONE OR MORE APPLICATIONS OF AN ORGANIZATION

Abstract

A framework for supporting transition of one or more applications of an organization is provided. The one or more applications are transitioned from a first set of users to a second set of users. The framework includes a transition module, a knowledge capture module, a knowledge validation module, and a collaboration module. The transition module generates one or more transition plans based on information corresponding to the one or more applications. The knowledge capture module captures a plurality of knowledge elements corresponding to the one or more applications. The knowledge capture module further establishes association between the plurality of knowledge elements. The knowledge validation module validates the plurality of knowledge elements and their association. The collaboration module provides collaboration between the first set of users and the second set of users during the transition of the one or more applications.
“

Either Infosys is crazy or just too smart. Perhaps being over smart.  Strictly speaking, there is prior art as TCS was the first IT company to use outsourcing to get a computer system to India. Among BPO’s, Genpact was doing it well before Infosys.

What next Infosys?  In an earlier article, I had reported on how Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani had a habit of delegating all this work to junior staff.   Perhaps Infosys should try to patent this well.

Perhaps we will also see Satyam’s disgraced founder Mr. Raju trying to patent few of the dirty tricks he used to deceive the market for many years.

Techgoss note: Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com