India has umpteen commerce sites that we take for granted. I shop for books at one and look for bargains on clothes at another website.  And when come birthdays, even if you forget the occasion, you just need to go online and order a bouquet of flowers, no stammered apologies or hiding behind the newspaper anymore. Then there is eBay, where one can sell or buy ‘anything’ including your ex-boyfriend’s shoddy clothes. More...

There seems to be another ‘mother of all battles’ brewing between the Open Source Community and the software biggies like Microsoft over the question of software patents. Interestingly this time around we have Indian companies like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) supporting Microsoft’s demand to allow for software patents. The spark for this latest round was the Draft Manual released by the Indian Patent Office which provides for a certain class of software patents. More...

TeamLease Services is one of India’s leading staffing companies which sources temporary and permanent employees for its 500 clients which include some in the IT, BPO and KPO sectors. Teamlease, which started in 2002, states in its website that it has a core team of 700 employees who have placed 50,000 employees in over 450 locations. Apart from good HR skills, it knows how to get media attention. More...

When the clock struck 12pm on the night on July 31, 2008, the end was official. 24/7 Customer closed shop at Gurgaon and its offices at. 231, Udyog Vihar Phase -1 looked deserted.  The security guard was the only one busy on his shift. The shop-floor (as the operations floor is called) fell silent. Voices in this Call Center went silent, sadly forever. More...

Vertex India, based out of Gurgaon, is being accused by its own employees of having a bad record when it comes to doing business. An employee, on condition of anonymity says: “the company is working without a vision”.  It is noteworthy that Vertex has been losing clients consistently - they lost United Utilities 2 years ago, lost Orange last year. Now it is Trainline on 17th August. More...

Outsourcing is all about western companies using the quality and cost effectiveness of giants like India, China, Philippines and Russia.  English speaking countries like India and Philippines have a head start.  One certainty is that India will continue to get business for another decade.  What is sometimes surprising, even shocking, is how wide off the mark some research on this subject is. More...

European telecom services provider Orange is reducing its BPO involvement in India.  As part of this downgrade, Orange has ended its call centre services contract with BPO Company 24/7.   400 Agents and management at the Gurgaon Call Center of 24/7 supported Orange customers in Europe.   Orange continues to use other Indian BPO companies like EXL but all the signs are that it is trying to consolidate services in UK. More...

A couple of months ago distinguished cricketer Kapil Dev, at the function to inaugurate the .Asia domain names was quoted as saying:  “Yes, I lost out on securing KapilDev.com and KapilDev.in for myself”.  I was intrigued and outraged at the possibility of such an eminent cricketer not having access to his domain names, and decided to explore the legal options available to this ace cricketer. More...

In October last year,   Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was rejoicing in the fact that it had just signed a 1.2 billion dollar 10-year outsourcing deal with Nielsen, an information and media company.  This was the biggest ever contract for TCS.  Like many outsourcing deals the techies in USA were dismayed, while techies in India were happy at more jobs and money.  It was certainly a big win for the tech industry in India.  More...