CISCO doubles salary
By Techgirl

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT - ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym.  A Tipster wrote in

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Read your report dated Sept 23, 2011 in which you detailed some of the penny pinching that CISCO India is doing after its parent company in USA posted disappointing financial results.  Even CISCO is openly saying that it had ‘lost its way’ and become ‘fat’.  (Techgoss article of Sept 23 republished below).

But my company is loosening the purse strings for our national holiday of Diwali next week.  This has not been formally announced all over North India yet, but each Cisco Techie employee will double their salary on that day. I.e. if you are paid Rs. 1500 a day, only for Diwali it will be doubled to Rs. 3000. 

Wait there’s more!  Each of us will also get Dry Fruits and there will be a party of sorts in the Office
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Techgoss has couriered Rs. 1000 to this Tipster.  You too can get Rs. 1000 for just telling me about the Diwali gifts you will receive at your IT / BPO / KPO company. Anonymity guaranteed.

(Tipsters, Big thank you for all your news Tips.  Do you have a story to tell? If you need to speak to us in confidence or write for us, email us at techgoss[at]hotmail. Or use the Anonymous Tip form at the top of our website. Anonymity guaranteed. We pay Rs. 1000 for 100 – 200 word snippets. Unfortunately, we cannot use any tips which are not backed up by enough facts)

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 techgirltalk.blogspot.com.  Techgirl has been ejected from Twitter for satirizing an Indian Minister.  Her satire blog has links to her Times of India interview detailing her being kicked out of Twitter, and then being invited back.

(Techgoss had published the following on Sept 23, 2011)

CISCO India penny pinching
By Sandhya

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT - ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym. A Tipster, who was a guest at a CISCO meet in Bangalore, wrote to us.  CISCO is undergoing change after disappointing financial results

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After its disappointing financial results, American networking giant Cisco has been undergoing rationalization for the last 5 months. It shuttered its Flip camcorder business.  Thirteen thousand jobs have been made redundant and more than Twenty Two thousand employees moved.  Cisco openly said it had ‘lost its way’ and become ‘fat’.

Cisco has a huge set up in India which plays a key role in its international operations. And the world's leading networking equipment maker Cisco is taking drastic measures to contain costs both globally and in India as well. Recently, some partners and distributors who came from other Indian States were hosted at the M.G Road office in Bangalore.

So, you may ask - what's the buzz about this? In the good old days, all partners, distributors, value added resellers were hosted (albeit for a day) at Taj Vivanta or Oberoi, which is a stone's throw away from the Cisco M.G Road office. But considering the belt tightening measures undertaken by the company, it decided to host them in their Offices. But the cost cutting gets better! (Or worse if you were a Cisco ‘guest’ at Bangalore). When they were served water, they were given a Pearlpet bottle filled with water (with a white top). No more Aquafina, Kinley or even the local Kingfisher! No more five star food (booze) and relaxation (Spa or Aroma therapy) for them- the more they sell, the better treatment they would get.

The Indian partners were smirking and the chatter was around the fact whether the glory days of Cisco are gone!
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