Infosys plans to rebuild after losing out to TCS

Heralded as the poster child of Indian IT industry has been struggling in the last few years to maintain its coveted top spot in Indian IT industry. Though it still kept the  market out performer tag even during past year, indications were very clear that all was not well with the IT bellwether. When the likes of TCS were chipping away with good performances after the recession, Infosys never really got out of the mud.

Among the major companies Infosys was the one who undertook so many cutbacks to employees and also had tight purse even during recruitment, but with the  lower than expected Performance and TCS overtaking Infosys, it might give more room for Infosys to go back to Basics and improve itself.

When a change of this magnitude happens it usually involves leadership changes and quite unexpectedly  Mohandas Pai, who was rumored to be the next CEO   has put in his papers. Though he publicly cited other reasons, the real reason was the disappointment due to not being considered for top post.  The board was not interested in a HR Head to lead the organisation during the tough times.

Also Infosys is looking for a restructuring  in the model of TCS few years back.  The board wants individual vertical heads who can lead their own mini organisation with their own path but aligned to company’s goal. With this approach they will want loose control at the top and stronger  heads for these mini organisations.

But rest assured it looks like TCS will be the top Indian IT services provider atleast for next few years.

Larry Page’s not so impressive CEO debut

Google’s new CEO and his team would have definitely wanted to have a better debut than what was happened on the Quarterly  earnings call.  Like a student coming late to class and giving excuses Page’s excuses and statement looked silly and Childish, combine it with increasing expenditure, market got spooked.

After a brief period in 1998-2000 , Google was run by its founder Larry Page , but with insistence of well wishers and pressure from Investors the CEO role was given to a older Gentleman in Eric Schmidt. Who with support from Page and Brin helped grow the company from a small search engine to its current position.

Instead of taking the lead and taking questions, Page was introduced as a special guest, who doesn’t have much time for the call, who in turn gave a written statement and more than a couple of times reiterated that everything was going as per plan in Google. With the way he approached the call made one wonder if Page took the whole thing  very light,  may be similar to how the  his day at Office prior to CEO days.

Many have described how fun it is to work in Googleplex and how Page runs his business in a casual way, but Wall Street doesn’t run like that. Thats where it was expected someone  would step in and correct Page, it appears either no one did or Page didn’t listen. Even when Schmidt was being replaced there were questions about his CEO skills other than 2 years at Google’s helm for a 100 employees company.

If Larry Page has his way, Google will take more risk, invest more in high tech projects  and take more drastic steps. All these might sound exciting, but with a resurgent Microsoft and Facebook to contend, investors may not feel the same.

Apple iPad 2 available in Toys R Us and Best Buy

Limited number of  iPad 2’s were available for sale at Select Best Buy stores and Toys r us  Stores today and it is likely that 3G 64 GB versions are still available in many of the locations. When I checked the local Best Buy they still had few of the Verizon 64 GB versions available but none of the WiFi only versions.

Toys r us also started selling the second Gen iPad today , but not all the locations had it. Most likely that stores in Prominent locations and bigger size carry the device, but  they also seem to carry only 3G versions and not the WiFi Only versions.