Judge throws out Palmer H-1B suit against Infosys
A U.S. District Court judge today threw out a lawsuit filed against Infosys brought by former employee Jay Palmer.
In his ruling, Alabama federal Judge Myron Thompson almost seemed apologetic, but cited technicalities in Alabama state law that hurt Palmer's case against the Bangalore, India-based outsourcing firm,.
Palmer, a federal whistleblower, alleged that Infosys illegally used foreign workers on client projects.
In his lawsuit, Palmer claimed he was harassed at work, sidelined and even received death threats for refusing to participate in an alleged Infosys scheme to use workers on business visitor, or B-1 visas, for tasks that required an H-1B work visa. Read more...
Indian outsourcers Infosys outsource to WISCONSIN
Indian outsourcing company Infosys has set up a new software centre in Wisconsin, and a much bigger one in Bangalore. The new American office will service a Harley Davidson contract and will house 125 staffers in the MidWest. The new Bangalore office will be the base of 1,400 software engineers and developers purported to be working solely on iOS kit, although neither Infosys nor Apple would confirm this.
A Times of India report says the new centre is essentially an "Apple centre", where workers will be building iOS infrastructure, servicing the iCloud and working on application development and maintenance. Read more...
Half the team at the heart of the RBS disaster WERE in India
Cost-cutting RBS management had halved the team within which the banking group's recent data disaster happened, sources have told The Register. The sacked British employees were replaced by staff in India, and there had been concerns about the quality of the work done in India for a lengthy period prior to last week's catastrophe.
Mishandling of batch schedule data while backing out of an update to CA-7 batch processing software last week caused the disruption that led to 16.9 million customers at RBS, Natwest and Ulsterbank being frozen out of their accounts for days, and ongoing issues in some cases.
The actual CA-7 software support team is wholly based in the UK and according to our sources, RBS has not cut that team. Read more...
Mobile Internet to exceed PC access in India by the end of this year
Use of the mobile Web is set to overtake fixed-line Internet in India by the end of the year, as the country’s mobile revolution continues at full speed.
Statistics from statcounter – via Trak.in – show that a steady depreciation in the use of Internet from PCs is coinciding with continued grow of Web surfing from mobile devices. The data suggests that, with PC usage just a few percent points ahead, the lines will cross and access from mobile will overtake the PC before the end of the year.
As the graphic shows, India’s mobile Web usage has grown strongly to account for just under 50 percent, as March-April, that’s up from just 2 percent in January 2009 and 18 percent in January 2011. Read more...
Nokia 808 PureView to launch in India and Russia from this month
Nokia has said that it will begin rolling out its Symbian-powered Nokia 808 PureView to “select markets” in May, initially launching the 41-megapixel handset in Russian and Indian markets.
Having been unveiled in this year’s Mobile World Congress, the 808 Pureview won awards for its impressive optics and ability to capture incredible amounts of detail in its photos.
The company noted at the time that it would look to launch the device as soon as possible but it has today confirmed that it will be available in two of its most popular markets from this month. Read more...
China and India to power global enterprise software market
China and India are set to lead worldwide enterprise software growth over the next four years as Asia Pacific cements itself as the powerhouse of the global IT industry, according to Gartner.
The analyst’s Q1 2012 update to its Enterprise Software Markets, Worldwide, 2009-2016 report revealed that China will have the fastest growing software market to 2016 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.91 per cent while India is ranked third at 13.6 per cent. Read more...
Apple’s secret outsource: ‘Even more software to be made in India’
A visit by Apple's CIO to India in January has resulted in some hefty software deals for two Bangalore-based firms, according to The Times of India.
Apple's top internal software guy, Niall O'Connor, met with executives from India-based Infosys and Wipro on a visit to Bangalore from 29 to 31 January – and apparently some juicy contracts have resulted, the English-language daily reports.
The Times reckons Apple currently outsources $100m worth of back-end software to India, but over the next few years will increase the investment to $400m. Read more...
Indian court issues summons to Google, Facebook, Microsoft for ‘objectionable content’
A Delhi court sent a summons to the headquarters of foreign Internet companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo on Friday, in a private case against objectionable content online.
The Indian operations of some of these companies had earlier said that they were not responsible for the content, as their parent companies run the websites.
Local newspaper editor Vinay Rai found religious content on the sites that he considered offensive, and filed a complaint with a Delhi court, prompting Additional Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar to issue notices to 21 Internet sites in December.
In an appeal against the order earlier in the week Google India told the Delhi High Court that it was not responsible for the company's websites, which are run by the parent company in the U.S., adopting a pass-the-buck stand that many Internet companies have taken when sued in India. Facebook also petitioned the High Court. Read more...
India may overstep its own laws in demanding content filtering
India's reported plans to ask Internet companies to filter objectionable content may overstep the country's own laws, according to legal experts.
The government has asked Internet companies like Yahoo, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content on their sites even before it goes online, according to newspaper reports on Monday. By Tuesday, the Indian government publicly accused the Internet companies of lack of seriousness in dealing with issues that hurt local sensitivities.
Executives of two of these companies confirmed on condition of anonymity that the country's ministry of communications and IT has indeed asked for such filtering of content. A spokesman at the country's ministry of communications did not return calls. Read more...