SAP buying Ariba with plans for a cloud super-network

SAP is building out its cloud platform to tackle collaborative business commerce with the acquisition of Ariba.

SAP America is looking to develop "the business network of the future" with the acquisition of cloud-based business commerce network Ariba at the price of $45 per share. That rounds out to roughly approximately $4.3 billion.

Each party brings something significant to the table here. Ariba already has the buyer-seller collaboration network, which is intended to compliment SAP's existing customer base as well as its B2B solutions. Thus, this really gives SAP a big push in the cloud space.

SAP will also be bringing its own resources to boost Ariba. For example, SAP is integrating its flagship HANA in-memory platform to improve Ariba's network performance.

Based on the press release, the idea is really to build a comprehensive, one-stop business networking option that "enables companies to achieve a closed-loop from source-to-pay, regardless of whether they deploy in the cloud, on-premise or through a combination of both."

Expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2012, the merger will consolidate all of SAP's cloud-related assets under the Ariba umbrella.

Ariba is actually going to retain some level of independence as the company will retain its leadership team, and it will operate under the name "Ariba, an SAP company." Furthermore, current Ariba CEO Bob Calderoni will be nominated to the SAP Global Managing Board once the deal is done.

Update at 1:57 p.m.: During the conference call with analysts and investors this afternoon, SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott assured that this merger would "maintain the openness of the business network" while also offering business customers the option to connect to other companies on any other source systems provided by competitors such as Microsoft, NetSuite, and Oracle.

Calderoni concurred, emphasizing that the combination of SAP and Ariba "comes at time when a revolution is occurring in business" as enterprises are more dependent on working with external partners.

SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe referred to the merger with Ariba as a "game-changing opportunity" because a fully-networked business environment that could be provided by these two players could eliminate guesswork, allowing customers to optimize the delivery of products and services to the right customers at the right time at the right price.

As SAP pushes its way further into the global cloud space, it's also expecting some big rewards. SAP executives predicted that the merger will produce approximately 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion at current exchange rates) in cloud revenue alone by 2015.

Mahindra Satyam Q4 net profit rises to Rs 534.21 cr on higher revenues

Mahindra Satyam has reported a net profit of Rs 534.21 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31,driven largely by higher revenues and increased employee efficiency rates.

The Hyderabad-based company had suffered a net loss of Rs 327 crore in the January-March period of 2011.

The company's consolidated revenues during the quarter grew 21 per cent to Rs 1,666 crore, compared to Rs 1,375 crore for the same period last financial year.

"This quarter we had a benefit of 1.3 per cent on currency rate. The growth was largely volume driven. Efficiency levels are also pretty significant in this quarter," Mahindra Satyam CFO Vasant Krishnan said.

On the outlook for the current year, company's Chairman Vineet Nayyar said though the global economic situation appears to be bleak at this point of time, the company would try to maintain the current level of growth.

"Economic prognosis at this point time is uncertain. There are large number of contradictions in Europe. This is going to have an impact on business, especially on spend. And I also said normally whenever affluent countries come under pressure and need to economise, they do turn to suppliers like us," he said.

With larger peers like Infosys and Wipro giving muted guidance lower than Nasscom's guidance, while Cognizant slashed its annual revenue forecast, there are concerns about the health of the Indian IT outsourcing industry.

Industry body Nasscom has forecast the sector's growth at 11-14 per cent for this financial year.

Exuding confidence in the company's capabilities, Nayyar said: "There are forces at work and it is our hope, not promise, that we will be able to continue with the current level of growth."

For the full year ended March 31, Mahindra Satyam has registered a net profit of Rs 1,306 crore, against a loss of Rs 147 crore in 2010-11.

Revenues in the reported year stood at Rs 6,395.6 crore, up 24.3 per cent from Rs 5,145.1 crore in FY11.

Satyam Computer Services came at the centre of a massive accounting fraud perpetrated by its founder Chairman B Ramalinga Raju in 2009. The firm, which was later taken over by Tech Mahindra, has since been rebranded as Mahindra Satyam.

According to Nayyar, the company has fully recovered from all the issues and the results establish that.

"The not so good news is now we do not have alibi, the management is required to deliver quarter to quarter because we cannot take the excuse anymore," Nayyar added.

On employee metrics, Krishnan said Mahindra Satyam has added 1,073 people in the quarter at the foot level, which has helped talent expansion significantly.

"In this quarter, we have added 1,073 employees at the base of the pyramid. And that again resulted in talent expansion of 32.7 per cent at the base," he said. 

Apple-Samsung patent row: Top executives meet for a possible settlement

Top executives at Apple and Samsung have met recently about a potential patent settlement, a media report said on Thursday.

"Apple CEO Tim Cook does not seem to share his predecessor's passion about laying all foes to waste. Cook appears to view litigation as a necessary evil, not a vehicle of cosmic revenge," Xinhua reported quoting the Bloomberg Businessweek.

Last April, Apple sued Samsung in a US court, alleging that the Korean maker's smartphones and Galaxy line of tablet computers violated Apple's patent and trademark. Samsung later countersued Apple, pitting against the rival in courts around the world.

Besides Samsung, Apple has also been filing suits against other manufacturers like HTC and Motorola Mobility, which are actually proxies for Apple products' major competitor Android, the operating system Google gives away to device makers.

In the official biography of Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder told author Walter Isaacson that "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," according to the biography.

As Bloomberg points out in the cover story titled "Steve Jobs' last war", the tech giant could save themselves considerable legal fees and distraction in the short run. The process may resolve similar litigation in the desktop computer field.

In 1997, Microsoft announced an investment of $150 million in Apple, saying the two companies had reached settlement to a long-standing dispute over whether Microsoft's Windows operating system infringes on Apple's patents.

In the long run, the competition between Apple and Google is nowhere near resolution, said the Bloomberg report. While fighting for dominance in mobile devices, the two tech giants, along with Microsoft are all gearing up for a future battle over the market for smart TV.

A website can give even higher returns than real estate

A number of people buy shares and real estate to make a quick buck. However, most fail to realise the huge opportunity in the virtual world where websites - priced at 8-10 times the monthly income they generate - are undervalued compared with other investments.

This investment option is now catching on with venture capitalists, who are injecting funds into websites with a promising future. Taking advantage of the opportunity, you, too, can buy virtual real estate and make a quick gain.

Online real estate includes domains (web addresses) and websites. Compared with plots and apartments, websites are cheap and can be developed by individuals. 

Websites offer regular income and value appreciation even if you just manage to keep them up and running. Regular income ensures you get back your investment in less than a year, an annual return of more than 100%. If you add value, you can also sell the website for a profit almost immediately or after holding it for a short period.

You can also look at the option of creating a new website but getting traffic to it requires a lot of effort and time. Future income is also uncertain. When you buy an established website, you skip the most difficult phase of website development.

Flipping websites involves four steps - spotting a website for purchase, negotiating and closing the sale, adding value and selling for a profit. Success in flipping websites will depend on your expertise and understanding of the online space.

FINDING A WEBSITE
Like in any other investment, you need to spot an asset that is undervalued and/or has the potential to generate more income. A website with a lot of visitors might have been neglected by its owner due to various reasons. Or, its income might be falling due to poor organisation or outdated content. Such websites are ideal for purchase.

Before starting the search, you must identify the niche and keywords for the website that you want to buy. Check how many times a particular keyword is searched in Google to gauge the demand. Google Keyword Tool provides the statistics on search keywords. It will also give you an idea about the money that advertisers are paying in that niche. You can also go through the Google Trends data to see which topics are popular.

Once you zero in on the topic, it is time to identify the potential targets. Search engines are a great tool to find underperforming websites. Identify a few websites and contact their owners. Scouting for websites directly is more likely to get you a bargain due to lack of competition from other prospective buyers.

You can also visit online marketplaces and auction sites such as Flippa.com, BuySellWebsite.com and WebsiteBroker.com.

REVIEW PROCESS
Conduct a thorough due diligence if you want to avoid ending up with a dud website. Identify a few websites and then narrow down the list by reviewing them based on factors that affect valuation and revenue.

Domain: Like wine, an old domain is considered better than a new one. The Web address should ideally be small and include your target keyword. It should be memorable and easy to type. One-word domains can be obscenely expensive and beyond the reach of small investors.

Traffic: Higher traffic means more page-views, ad impressions, sales and income. If you are just starting out, buy a website with free 'organic' traffic from search engines. Do not buy a website that gets traffic through paid sources. You can use tools such as Alexa.com and Compete.com to get an estimate of the traffic.

Do not trust the seller if he sends you traffic statistics as screenshots or typed documents as these can be easily forged. For authentic figures, ask for direct access to analytics data.

Financials: Income generated from a website is what makes it an attractive investment. A stable income over the long term (6-12 months) is better than a high income in just one month. Look at the cost of operating the website (hosting, search engine optimisation, etc), its income and sources of revenue. Google AdSense is one of the most popular advertising networks. You can replace existing advertisements with your own AdSense ads. If the site uses affiliate programmes, you will have to get yourself approved from those programmes as well.

Workload: The work required to maintain the website must also be factored in. If some work to maintain or upgrade the website is required to be outsourced, include this cost as well. Compare the price with the cost and time required to build a similar website from scratch.

NEGOTIATING A DEAL
Equipped with a review of the website, contact the owner and ask if he is willing to sell. You can find contact details on the website or through online Whois domain registration information.

Email the owner by introducing yourself as a serious buyer. Tell him what you like about his website and why you want to buy it. If a website is not being updated, raise the point and ask if he is willing to exit.

If your email elicits a positive response, question the owner about the asking price along with details of traffic, revenue and profit. Avoid quoting the price first as the owner may be expecting a lower figure. If a website is making money, start negotiations from five-six times the monthly income it generates.

Websites which do not make money or attract traffic can be bought cheaply. Your offer for unmonetised websites should be based on earnings of other websites in the same niche. You can find earnings data of similar sites in listings on website marketplaces.

Once the price is settled, you must check the credentials of the seller before making the payment. Using an escrow service for large payments will safeguard you from fraudsters.

Initiate transfer of the domain name to an account held by you and get a backup of the complete website, including its database and other settings. Get complete control of the website by moving it to your own server before releasing the payment.

ADDING VALUE
Once you have the website, you can let it earn passive income for a long period. Be sure to undertake regular maintenance and update content. If the previous owner was investing in search engine optimisation (SEO) of the website, you might want to continue it to avoid any decline in income.

Flipping will require you to undertake more extensive work to increase the site's value. Though exact strategies to increase traffic and income will differ, common steps include optimising content for SEO, improving the design and structure, adding content and including advertisements.

For instance, revenue can jump sharply by placing advertisements prominently, blending them with content or using different sizes. Forums can be revived by actively moderating the content for spam and alerting members about changes in the forum. With creative thinking, you can increase income manifold. Beginners should start by buying a website with small income. Investing in large websites without expertise can prove fatal as online assets can lose traffic and valuation quickly. Watching auctions on marketplaces can help you gain confidence.

EXIT TIME
Flipping requires you to have a target and strategy for improving the online property along with an exit plan. The best time to sell is when traffic and income are rising or have been stable for a few months. If the site is on a downward spiral, its valuation will be lowered to factor in the negative performance. Do not rush to sell even if you manage to increase the site's income in a short period. You must let the website grow for some time to instill more confidence in the potential buyers.

When you want to sell the website, you can get it listed on Flippa.com or any other marketplace. You must provide details about the website (age, target audience, revenue sources, etc). Make sure to back your income and traffic claims with verifiable data from tools such as Google Analytics. Explain the reason for selling.

Staying safe from online fraudsters is important. You should use escrow services when selling for a large amount. Through this you can initiate transfer of the website after the buyer has deposited the money in the account. You get the money after the buyer confirms the transfer. This makes the transaction safe for both the parties.

Do not defer your investment decisions. The next time you browse the Internet, keep an eye on potential investments for your online portfolio.

RESEARCH TOOLS Potential buyers can use both free and paid online tools to evaluate websites. These can help you find some valuable information about the site's potential value. Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) Google Keyword Tool tells you the volume of search on Google for your target keywords. It helps you estimate the potential income from Google advertisements by giving you the rates offered for each click on ads in that niche. Google Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) Google Toolbar tells you a webpage's Google PageRank, which measures a page's popularity on a scale of 0-9 based on factors such as hyperlinks to and from the page. A high PageRank alone does not make a website valuable but gives an idea about its popularity. Alexa Ranking (http://www.alexa.com) Alexa.com tracks traffic to various websites. It provides data on the site's traffic ranking, global reach, pageviews per user and country-wise breakdown of traffic. The data is an estimate based on Internet usage of individuals using Alexa Toolbar. Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/) Open Site Explorer shows the number of unique domains linking to a website and its webpage. It also allows you to see where the website stands in comparison with its successful peers. SEMRush (http://semrush.com) SEMRush gives a list of keywords that a website ranks for in Google. It also provides an estimate of the volume and value of traffic to the site. You can use it to collect data about your competitors. Archive.org Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org)The past of a domain/website influences its future. If a website was used for illegal activities or had affiliations with shady websites, it can impact the existing website. Wayback Machine on Archive.org allows you to see how a website looked in the past. A clean past is preferred.

Indian IT firms to create 2,00,000 jobs in FY13 despite slowdown

Indian IT firms are planning to increase their headcounts despite the global gloom and fears of a looming recession notwithstanding. At a time when banking and financial services firms are laying off personnel or taking a cautious outlook on hiring, the National Association of Software and Services Companies has predicted that the IT sector will create 2,00,000 jobs in FY13, and also projected 11 to 14 per cent revenue growth for the current fiscal.

For IT companies, hiring will be in line with their growth expectations for the year. "For us, it's not speculative hiring. We are expecting a 20 per cent growth in revenues (in dollar terms) this year, which is better than industry expectations. And, we would need personnel to support this growth," R.V. Ramanan, executive director and president (global delivery), Hexaware Technologies, told Mail Today. It plans to add another 1,500 personnel in 2012, out of which 650-700 would be freshers, Ramanan said adding, the Mumbaibased IT firm had 8,624 employees as on March 31, 2012, and has 11 per cent attrition rate.

The country's $100 billion outsourcing sector, which gets majority of its revenues from overseas clients, is staring at a slowing demand from foreign clients and intense global competition. Highly volatile currency markets also have their impact on prospects of the sectors, analysts said.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to hire 50,000 employees in the financial year ending March 2013 in view of "excellent growth in North American and UK markets". "It will continue to hire in overseas markets," its chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director N. Chandrasekaran said. TCS had a total headcount of 2.38 lakh with an attrition rate of 12.2 per cent.

Ajoy Mukherjee, executive vicepresident, head, global human resources, TCS, said: "With business demand continuing to be robust, we have made 43,600 campus offers to trainees to join us from the second quarter of this fiscal year."

"The company's headcount guidance for FY13 is a sign of the good business environment for the firm," Ankita Somani, IT and telecom analyst with Angel Broking, said. Infosys Ltd will hire about 35,000 personnel this financial year out of which 13,000 will be for its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations, Infosys chief financial officer V. Balakrishnan said in an earnings call.

"For the next year, we have given a guidance of eight to 10 per cent in dollar terms for revenue growth and four to six per cent EPS growth in dollar terms," he added. While Wipro did not provide any manpower guidance for the year, Tech Mahindra Ltd and Satyam Computer Services Ltd, which are in the process of a merger, aim to hire up to 10,000 staff for the combined entity in 2012/13. The hiring by the merged firm is to meet to an expected rise in demand for technology services, Tech Mahindra CEO Vineet Nayyar said in a press conference.

Google Drive brings everything under one big 'cloud'

Ending months of speculation about Google launching an online drive, the Google Drive was unveiled last week.

"Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard rumours about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually exists," Sundar Pichai, senior vice-president, Chrome & Apps, posted on an official Google blog recently.

For starters, users will get 5GB of storage free to back up anything - photos, videos, music, documents, PDFs. Possibly, as Wired put it, Google plans to replace the pendrive with Drive.

Google supports the Drive on both PC and Mac as well as on Android devices, and an app for the iOS is promised. Those who use Google Docs will feel at home using the Drive, which has Docs built in.

The blog post goes on to say that Drive supports keyword searching and has OCR software built in. How does that help?

"Let's say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up," Pichai says.

Google says the Drive uses same infrastructure as other Google Apps services, promising "security and reliability".

It also has centralised management tools for administrators, encryption on emails exchanged between Drive and the desktop and replication of data "so that in the unlikely event that one data centre is unavailable, your files will still be safe and accessible" Google says, guaranteeing a 99.9 per cent uptime and 24/ 7 support.

Incidentally, the Drive has an Indian connect.

Turns out that all the centralised tools we talked about in the last paragraph were "conceptualised and built" by Google's engineering teams in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Maybe one more reason for the patriotic ones to use Drive. A Wired article online raised a couple of interesting points. One, if one already used cloud services, did one need yet another service? The answer, as Wired put it, is that Drive is for all those who already love using Google services.

Another interesting point Wired raised was if Drive was a harbinger of things to come - meaning an online OS. "Will Google Drive integrated with Chrome OS usher in the next generation of cloud-based personal computing?" Wired asked.

"With Chromebooks, [Google Drive] is even more powerful," says Pichai, "because it just starts working naturally. Your local drive is also Google Drive".

Basically, Drive can then work as the local file system and say a document one saves on a Chromebook is saved directly on the cloud. Gartner has already said the personal cloud will replace the personal computer by 2014. Is this a step in that direction?

Hewlett-Packard to merge its printer and PC divisions to save money

Hewlett-Packard Co will combine its printer and PC divisions to save money, part of the technology company's effort to turn around its business.

The move announced on Wednesday comes at a time when sales of printers and ink, once HP's lifeblood, are falling as people increasingly share documents and photos online. HP, the world's No. 1 maker of personal computers, is also facing declining PC sales as people turn their attention to tablet computers and smartphones.

The combined unit will be led by Todd Bradley, the executive vice president of the PC group since 2005. Vyomesh Joshi, the head of the printing group, is retiring after 31 years with HP.

HP has said it needs to identify ways to save money to invest in growing businesses. The company said combining the units will increase productivity and efficiency, while streamlining customer support and the company's supply chain.

Shaw Wu, senior technology analyst at Sterne Agee, believes there's room to cut expenses, especially when it comes to administrative and marketing costs.

But he said that there's a limit. Customers don't necessarily want to buy computers and printers at the same time. People replace PCs much quicker than printers, which can last five years or longer.

HP didn't say how much it will save or what effect the restructuring would have on jobs, but the move is likely to result in layoffs. In a 2009 shake-up of the printing, PC and other divisions, HP cut 4,400 jobs. The company had 349,600 workers as of October, the end of its most recent fiscal year.

HP said combining the two divisions will improve its branding, supply chain management and customer support. Branding has been a challenge for Hewlett-Packard, a massive and storied technology company with a role in everything from computers to consulting.

Ultimately, HP will have to define the "big picture" of what the company stands for, Wu said. "What is HP?"

Unlike, say, Apple Inc. or IBM Corp., HP lacks an identity that people can associate with it, Wu said.

The restructuring is one of the first major steps taken by former eBay chief Meg Whitman since she became HP's CEO in September. Her predecessor, Leo Apotheker, had wanted to sell or spin off the PC business, a plan that contributed to his ouster after 11 months on the job. Later, under Whitman, HP said it plans to keep the unit.

Whitman inherited a faltering company that's facing growing competition and its own operational issues. She said last month that HP plans to spend several years turning its business around. This means addressing the internal problems as well as broader threats to its PC business from tablets and smartphones.

Revenue from the printing division has fallen 13 percent from a peak of $29.6 billion in fiscal 2008 to $25.8 billion for the most recent fiscal year, which ended in October. Meanwhile, operating profit of the printing division has dropped from $4.6 billion to $4 billion.

Former CEO Mark Hurd had been trying to make the company less dependent on printer ink for most of its profits when he was ousted in 2010 in the wake of a sexual harassment investigation.

HP had combined its PC and printers business before, under the leadership of Carly Fiorina. Hurd reversed that when he took over as CEO in 2005. Unlike today, the printer division was thriving then.

The PC division, while less profitable, has held up better. Sales are down 6.4 percent from 2008, to $39.6 billion, while operating income has been flat, at $2.4 billion.

The printing and PC units together made up about half of HP's $30 billion revenue in the first quarter, which ended in January.

Essar unleashes cloud power with Windows Azure

Aiming to cut costs by nearly 65 per cent while improving scalability, multinational conglomerate Essar Group has rolled out Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud services platform , offering web-based applications with high performance and scalability.

"With its enterprise customers in mind, the company sought to enhance its offerings with a cloud version of some of its applications. Microsoft Services approached Essar with a cost-effective solution in Windows Azure that allowed the company to obtain the benefits of both public and private cloud computing while also reducing the level of IT maintenance required to manage the applications on-premises," an Essar statement said.

Because it is hosted in Microsoft data centres, Windows Azure is able to provide developers with on-demand computing and storage, as well as the ability to scale and manage Web applications, the statement said.

The delivery of its applications through Windows Azure will enable the company to increase profitability and reduce costs by as much as 65 per cent, the statement said, adding that because IT staff members are also no longer allocating time to infrastructure management , they can devote more time to mission-critical operations.

"With Windows Azure, we don't have to spend money on hardware and software, and we don't have to spend time on administrative tasks related to infrastructure," Essar Group Chief Technology Officer Jayantha Prabhu said.

"A scalable, well-defined platform gives us much fewer problems to solve and more time to focus on the overall experience of the application," he added.

"In addition to cutting costs, Windows Azure has given Essar the flexibility to scale compute and storage resources up and down as needed," Prabhu said, adding: "In fact, we can maintain the high level of scalability needed at a lower total cost of ownership compared with an on-premises solution."

Essar is a leader in various business sectors, including steel, energy, power, communications, shipping ports, logistics and construction, and with operations in more than 25 countries across five continents and revenues at $17 billion.

Cloud computing will create two million new jobs in India by 2015

It is a chilling message for the 2.8 million strong workforce that makes up India's information technology (IT) industry. As an increasing number of enterprises adopt cloud computing, there will be a sharp slump in the demand for installation and maintenance engineers. For many in the industry, the option will be stark: reskill or perish.


Cloud computing, which has existed in some form or the other since 2005 but only picked up over the last three years, is a new paradigm whereby computing is delivered as a service over the Internet rather than as a product installed inside a company's premises. Many believe that firms will shortly no longer have to maintain IT assets such as servers, storage and software in-house. They will be able to rent these as and when required, sharply reducing expensive upfront investments in IT infrastructure.

Cloud enthusiasts, in fact, maintain that renting computing power will become as easy as consuming an application from the iPad - simply go to an online store, look for the applications you need, pay and use them. Great news except for those whose jobs are threatened. "The provisioning of applications was earlier being done by IT teams. There will be fewer such people required since the tenet of the cloud is automation and self service," says T. Srinivasan, Managing Director of virtualisation and cloud infrastructure firm VMware (India).

However, not all IT engineers need start worrying. "Certain categories of engineers will continue to be in demand and many more jobs could be created to offset the loss in maintenance," adds Srinivasan. The number of jobs in application development for the cloud, for instance, will increase. Engineering colleges and technical institutes such as NIIT are already training graduates and engineers who want to reskill in writing 'cloud-ready' applications. While coders use frameworks such as .net and programming languages such as Java to create applications for traditional IT, writing cloud applications will require newer frameworks such as SpringSource and Ruby on Rails.

There will be more new job avenues, which will get better defined in the coming years, as the market for the cloud matures. However, it is essential for IT engineers to be ready to adapt. "Engineering for the cloud requires a mindset change," says Rajesh Janey, President, India EMC Corp, a global IT storage firm. "It is also important to develop talent from the grassroots level rather than just reskilling existing talent."

A study by EMC and Zinnov Management Consulting estimates the total cloud market in India at $400 million: this is expected to touch $4.5 billion by 2015. It expects the private cloud market, where the infrastructure is operated for specific companies, to create 100,000 IT jobs by 2015 from 10,000 today. It also warns that companies are currently underskilled in addressing cloud computing implementations.

A new role in the cloud space is that of an 'enterprise cloud architect', an expert who understands both IT infrastructure and applications, and can design and manage application frameworks and operations. "This is different from traditional IT services where the developer only bothered about developing the application and the infrastructure engineer only worried about maintaining the IT assets," says Kalyan Kumar, a senior executive from HCL Technologies' Infrastructure Services division. "In the new role, these two domains are coming together."

Besides technical jobs, marketing and selling of cloud-based solutions will also be required, which in turn will create a host of new positions. Cloud computing is also giving rise to a new generation of software product companies, which can now sell their products on an on-demand basis over the Internet. Sports analytics firm Sportingmindz, for instance, started in Bangalore in 2006 offers its products on a cloud platform. Idhasoft, an Indian company started in 2006 with operations in the US, has a cloud application that provides a management system for mediumsized hospitals globally.

"Previously, software product firms in India needed enormous amounts of money to sell abroad," says Ramkumar Pichai, General Manager, Customer and Partner Experience, Microsoft India. "They would need to send people abroad and set up offices. With cloud, you will see many more product companies coming up in India."

It is early days yet, but IT engineers who can write cloud-ready applications, provision and maintain the infrastructure at the back-end, appear to have an edge over their peers. VMware-certified engineers - the company conducts a course to enhance technical skills for cloud technologies - enjoy a premium of seven to 10 per cent in the market. "This is true of any innovation cycle," says EMC's Janey. "The early adopters they throw up tend to be valued."

The cloud's impact on other parts of the economy will also be significant. According to a paper by research firm IDC, jobs will be created across functional areas such as marketing, sales, finance and administration, production and service. More than 50 per cent will be in small and medium businesses, two million plus each in communications and media, and manufacturing, and over 1.4 million in banking. Of the 13.8 million jobs created globally by 2015 because of cloud computing, two million will be in India.

Since companies save capex by using the cloud, the money can be ploughed back into their core business. "The rationale for job growth is that IT innovation allows for business innovation which leads to business revenues. This leads to job creation," says the IDC study. Great news at a time of economic uncertainty.

eBay To Hire 1,000 Staff For India Facility

Online retailer eBay on Tuesday said it plans to set up a new development centre in Bangalore and will hire up to 1,000 employees for the facility over the next three years.

The new facility will feature several centres of excellence and house technologists from both eBay Marketplaces and PayPal, eBay said in a statement.

The centre will build on eBay Inc's existing presence in India, which includes a global development centre with over 2,200 employees in Chennai and the eBay India business unit in Mumbai, it added.

PayPal, a global e-commerce business acquired by eBay in 2002, is planning to tap into the Bangalore's software talent pool.

"PayPal is growing at a phenomenal rate globally, as we continue to execute on our bold vision of re-imagining money. To support this growth, we are looking to tap into the large pool of software engineering talent in Bangalore to come innovate with us and create the future of commerce," PayPal General Manager Anupam Pahuja said.

The company is committed to India as a technology hub and sees India's software engineering talent as a critical driver for the long-term success of PayPal's global payment platform, he added.

The company is aggressively hiring senior technologists with product development experience across functions like research, platform and application development, architecture, quality engineering, product management, marketing and product analytics, user experience and design, and information security.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp Beats Profit Estimates

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp beat estimates for the January-March quarter on Monday showing revenue growth of 2.9 per cent in the December 2011 quarter, the highest among the leading Indian IT firms. Revenues stood at $1.71 billion. Analysts on average were expecting full-year earnings of $3.45 per share on revenue of $7.54 billion.

For the March quarter, Cognizant reported a net income of $243.7 million or $0.79 a share compared to $208.3 million, or $0.67 a share, in the year-ago period, a rise of 17 per cent. On a yearly basis, revenues rose 24.8 per cent.

However, the firm moderated its full-year growth guidance citing "slower-than-anticipated acceleration in demand". In an indication that IT buying may be cooling, it revised its 2012 revenue growth downwards from 23 per cent to 20 per cent. Even so, Cognizant's 20 per cent growth guidance for 2012 is double of what Infosys hopes it will generate in 2012-13.

In April, Infosys had cited slowdown in deal closures and in deal ramp-downs in banking and financial services sectors. IT's bread-and-butter segment that contributes 40 per cent of revenues for many top firms, as the reason for poor revenue growth.

Cognizant's second quarter guidance suggests that the firm will match Infosys in quarterly revenues in June. While Infosys expects June quarter revenues between $1.77 and $1.78 billion, on Monday it guided to $1.79 billion. Before Monday's announcement, analysts were expecting Cognizant to pull in revenues of $1.84 billion in the June quarter beating Infosys hands down.

"Due to a slower-than-anticipated acceleration in demand as we entered the second quarter, we are adopting a more conservative stance for the remainder of the year and revising our guidance to at least 20 per cent revenue growth for 2012," Francisco D'Souza, chief executive officer, Cognizant, said. "We continue to believe that we have the right portfolio of services to sustain our industry leading growth and also meet the changing demands in the market as clients continue to grapple with their dual mandates of cost containment and innovation/business transformation."

Cognizant, the third largest firm after TCS and Infosys, follows a January-December fiscal. Though Cognizant is not listed in India, 75 per cent of its over 1.4 lakh employees are based in India.