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Guru Talk: Kunwer Sachdev, Su-Kam VC Talk: Ashu Garg, Foundation Capital Semiconductor Special

EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY LEADERS OF TOMORROW February 2011 thesmarttechie.com

Chandra Sekhar Abburi

VP-Systems and Software

Narasimhan Venkatesh
VP-Advanced Technologies
 EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY LEADERS OF TOMORROW

Vol 7 Issue 2  February 2011

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 Contents -February 2011

20 COVER STORY
REDPINE SIGNALS

THE BAR HIGH

SETTING
IN WIRELESS
INDUSTRY By Vimali Swamy

[Guru Talk] 8 [Company spotlight] 28 [Technology] 42

Mandate for Power with C-D-EC Model Consulting - Delivery
Collaboration and Co-creation - Extended Consulting/Collaboration
By ST Team By Jayakumar Rajaretnam &

[Feature] 30
KrishnaKumar Subramanian,
CognizantTechnology Solutions
Kunwer Sachdev
India The Promising Vista for

[Business] 45
Semiconductor
My Entrepreneurial Journey By Eureka Bharali
By Kunwer Sachdev, Su-Kam Delivering Return on Capital (ROC)

[Technology] 34
Through Banking Innovation
[In Focus] 10 The Indian Semiconductor Market
By Chandramouli Kundagrami,
Infosys Technologies
[Tech Buzz] 12
Trends to Watch in 2011

[Technology] 48
By Alok Mehrotra,

[VC Talk] 14
Magma Design Automation
Server & I/O Virtualization Vs
36
Cloud Computing
Entrepreneurs The fundemental Raw
By Kongkon Dutta,
Material for VCs Semiconductor Industry Outlook, New
Development and Opportunities Ness Technologies
Ashu Garg, Foundation Capital

[Leadership] 50
By Mitch Little,
[Venture Beat] 16 Microchip Technology

[Career] 38 [Event] 53
[Social Cause] 18 Tips on Smarter Selling
2 Indians’ Sacrifice Makes Slums IT-Skilled Career Opportunities in EDA
@ SiliconIndia Sales Symposium
By Eurekha Bharali By Anshuman Ray, Synopsys
By Shwetha Raghavan
[Technology] 26 [Event] 40
Cleantech Market The Next Favored SiliconIndia Heralds the Mobile Apps [TechProducts] 54

[People Manager] 56
Investment Destination boom @ Mobile Developer Conference
By Binu T Paul By Swikriti Singh

[Company spotlight] 27 [Event] 41

Practices of Exemplary Leaders!
By C Mahalingam,
RV-VLSI: Bridging the Knowledge Gap Intelligent Business Insights Symphony Services
in the Electronics Industry @ SiliconIndia Conference
[Buyers Perspective] 58
By ST Team By Shwetha Raghavan

The Smart Techie

|6| February 2011
 GURU TALK By Kunwer Sachdev
The author is CMD, Su-Kam
MY ENTREPRENEURIAL
JOURNEY
y father was in the railways
M
and he always wanted to be an
entrepreneur. Just to realize
his dream we shifted to a res-
idential colony full of entre-
preneurs. My father had a lot of different
businesses but he never did well financially. He
was a very hardworking man and that trait is
seen in all the three sons of the family. I and my
whole family have been through hard times
where as a kid on my birthday getting a shoe or
a shirt as a gift was a big thing.
I knew from the start that there is no one be-
hind me, so I had to rely on myself. I took my
own decisions and was very independent. This
has helped me a lot in life and also cemented me
as a successful entrepreneur.
I had joined Hindu College after schooling
which I term as a big leap and a personality
changing experience for myself. Also, at the
same time I had started helping my brother in his
pens’ business. To improve on my English I
started reading English books. I did my BA in
Mathematical Statistics from Delhi University. I
learnt how to talk to people, to take people along,
how to make groups and learnt to organize
Kunwer Sachdev things. I kept on taking challenges in life and I
set one or two big goals for myself. The main
one being to ‘make it big in business’.
In 1984 I graduated from college and joined
my brothers. I coined the name ‘Su-Kam’ for
The Smart Techie
|8| February 2011
the pens and wanted to make it into a
‘brand’. After sometime I realized I
couldn’t work with my brother in his
pens business and decided to embark
on my own journey. I started pursuing
Law from the Delhi University and
used to attend classes in the evening.
Meanwhile I also got married. My wife
started working soon after marriage
since it was not easy supporting the
house with only me working. I had the
pressure that I have to become some-
thing in life. What to become used to
keep on changing. Sometimes, I used
to think of becoming a lawyer. Some-
times, an entrepreneur. Marriage
brought some stability in my life and
so I started my cable TV business with-
out having any technical understanding
or know-how on how to run the busi-
ness. I had realized that I have to learn
how to do this work, be it learning
things to actually fixing things. I
started reading my class ninth and
tenth Physics books to gain a greater
understanding. By 1996-97 my cable
TV business was flourishing as I had a
factory with 50 employees and was
making good money.
Whatever I was earning, I was put-
ting in my business because that was my
life and in 1998 I made my move into
the inverter business. I realized that
there was a huge demand for inverters
in north India, but everyone was mak-
ing the same kind of inverter. There was
an inverter at my home which would
constantly get spoilt. So one day when
the mechanic came to repair it, I just had
a peek inside the inverter. I realized they
were using a sub-standard PCB. I knew
about PCB’s because of my cable TV
experience. Later on I brought a high
quality branded inverter and asked my
factory workers to work on it. I had
started reading books and articles on
this. Knowledge for the sake of knowl-
edge is foolish but it is a way forward.
After much experimentation and
testing I launched an inverter but it did
not rock the market so we constantly
kept improvising hoping to deliver the
best product. I was very determined to
make my ideas work. Finally we were
able to make an efficient inverter and
the sales started picking up. I wanted to
make a great product and at the same
time assure the best service. A great
product is a good thing to have, but
even great products need marketing. A
fact that companies focused on tech-
nology often overlook. Su-Kam was no
exception. We soon launched an ad
campaign and our brand got noticed
with a fairly low spend. We switched to
advertising which was a first for the in-
verter category.
There were two or three employees
of mine who were not good at work, so
I put them on the job for putting up
boards reading SU-KAM on it all over
India. It made the Su-Kam brand very
popular. We persuaded dhaba owners to
put their name on Su-Kam boards and
advertise along with their product. We
persuaded them by giving them a T-
shirt, a strategy which brands like Voda-
fone & Airtel follow. By 2002, we were
in a good position. The following year
Su-Kam launched very innovative prod-
ucts including the Sinewave Inverter
and an inverter with a plastic body, both
for the first time in India. We also
brought out a UPS range. We opened
our first branch office in Hyderabad and
started exporting products as well as
participating in overseas exhibition.
Later on we had developed some in-
novative technologies which needed
protection. I realized that we have to
patent our products to survive in this in-
dustry. So in 2004 for the first time I ap-
plied for a patent. With superior
products, a well known brand name and
strong dealer network, Su-Kam has
achieved remarkable growth. In 2004,
our turnover stood at `100 crores.
Today, it is touching `500 crores, of
which `80 crores comes from the export
market.
Around 2007, there were buyout of-
fers from companies but I didn’t really
pay heed to them. Reliance had ap-
proached us with a PE offer and I de-
cided to take that. Reliance India Power
Fund- a JV between Reliance (ADAG)
& Temasek Holdings Singapore in-
vested Rs. 45 crores in Su-Kam. The
stage was set for a scorching pace of
growth. In 2006, we set up our first off-
shore office in Dubai. Su-Kam became
the world’s second company to manu-
facture 100 KVA inverter and inaugu-
rated India’s first SMF battery plant. We
also armed ourselves with a trademark
registration in the US, where we are
now exporting. Su-Kam has 32 people
working on R&D- all engineers. Inno-
vation is a mild way to describe it. What
they do is keep inventing. As an entre-
preneur I need to be make sure that both
me and my company are up ahead es-
pecially with the competition around.
We have applied for 50 technology
patents and now every month we are ap-
plying for two technology patents.
For me innovation is the key to suc-
cess. I have this problem of dreaming. I
am very clear about what I want to do. I
had made a 100 KW inverter around
three years ago. No one even thought it
was possible at that time.
Some of my dreams are so big
that even if I work for another 50
years and the new generation also
works on it, it will not be completed.
I still don’t understand the real term
of an entrepreneur. I think decisions
are never ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It’s the
outcome which may be either posi-
tive or negative. But you can’t sit on
the fence, you have to weigh the pros
and cons and make decisions in life.
That is an essential quality for every
entrepreneur. Mistakes do happen in
life. I have also made mistakes and
learnt from it. Some people may be
with you and some may not. You
should be driven by your passion or
your interest. You should not be
driven only by the monetary value.
Money comes and then goes: if you
are successful it keeps increasing.
This was my passion and I worked
towards it. I have not been driven by
other forces.
The Smart Techie
|9| February 2011
in
Wipro Rejigs Leadership Team
he country’s third largest
T software services exporter
Wipro has sent ripples
across the industry with
the recent change in lead-
ership. What Azim Premji has said
about the sudden appointment of TK
Kurien as the new CEO of the Infor-
mation Technology business and Ex-
ecutive Director of Wipro is, with the
market exploding now, there is a need
for a simpler and leaner organization.
Seeing its disappointing performance
and competition from peers who have
shown faster growth in the IT sector,
it’s quite clear that the company has
made the major reshuffle in its leader-
ship hoping to regain its lost ground.
According to Wipro’s earlier
model, the company had several de-
partments targeting the same cus-
tomers for different kinds of business.
But from now on, there will be only
one axis. The new structure will have
“mini CEOs” with increased risk-tak-
ing and decision-making powers, head-
ing different vertical businesses. All
functions of sales, consulting, BPO and
technical services such as software
testing will have to align themselves
more closely with these mini CEOs.
Now the question is, how effective this
fresh structure would be and how it
will justify the decision of dumping its
joint CEOs, Girish Paranjpe and
Suresh Vaswani?
While all the top tier IT companies
in India have shown strong recovery
from the recession in recent quarters,
Wipro has been a relative underper-
former, both in revenue and in operat-
ing margins in past one year. Analysts
said that Wipro’s low exposure to the
The Smart Techie
|10|
February 2011
banking, financial services and insur-
ance (BFSI) segment has been the
major reason for its slower growth.
This is one thing that Chairman Azim
Premji himself admitted. Premji said
that companies like Cognizant which
have been growing fast have a 50-55
percent revenue contribution from
BFSI, while Wipro’s stands at around
27 percent.
Increased attrition
level is another issue that
the company faced dur-
ing the third quarter this
fiscal. The IT services
business lost 1,092 soft-
ware engineers and the
business process out-
sourcing services lost
226 people during the
quarter under review.
The impact of such a
high attrition quarter-on-quarter was,
however, neutralized by the IT prod-
ucts business, which added 731 people
in the third quarter. In the world of dif-
ferent challenges, how the new CEO
will address the problem the attrition is
another significant thing to be noticed.
According to some of the employees,
both Paranjpe and Vaswani have been
the face of Wipro and if the leadership
changes then other things will change
too. So, chances are there that if those
new changes are not favourable for the
employees, it will lead to more attrition
in the company.
Wipro’s net profit for the third
quarter of fiscal year 2011 grew 3.4
percent on quarter-on-quarter basis.
The number stood at 1,319 crore as
against 1,276 crore reported last quar-
ter. Its consolidated revenues too went
up to 7,829 crore from 7,731 crore and
dollar denominated global IT revenues
rose 5.6 percent to $1.34 billion (QoQ).
Despite this growth, the company still
lagged behind. The numbers were
below street expectations with Wipro
posting a mere 1.26 percent sequential
growth in revenues, while net profit
grew marginally by 2.6 percent.
All said and discussed, we should
not forget the fact that
Wipro has had a good his-
tory of leadership changes
at senior level. From Vivek
Paul to Ashok Soota, Sudip
Nandi, Sudip Banerjee and
even Subrato Bagchi left
Wipro for their good rea-
sons. But the company
tided over the changes
Rishad Premji smoothly, thanks to the
charisma of Premji. But
there is a bit more curiosity in the lead-
ership change this time. If you look at
Infosys, there is a clear cut Leadership
model practiced. The stake holders see
a lack of clarity on this front today. As
per the Wipro policy, a Chairman has
to step down at 67. That leaves perhaps
only a couple of years for Premji, aged
65. Is Premji laying the foundation for
his son to take over? The mini CEO
structure and other structural changes
point to definitely a simpler path for
Rishad Premji to lead when he takes
over. Rishad’s role also has widened
with much less public attention. Last
September, he was made Chief Strate-
gic Officer. Now he will additionally
look at Wipro’s M&A’s. Will TK
Kurien also follow the same fate of the
CEO duos? This is something to wait
and watch.
Indian Americans Attaining New Heights in the U.S.
ndian Americans are accomplish-
I
ing great heights these days, more
than ever before. Recently U.S.
President Barack Obama has named
an Indian-American doctor, Vivek
Murthy, to an Advisory Group on Pre-
vention, Health Promotion and Inte-
grative and Public Health, and
re-nominated an Indian American
agricultural scientist, Islam A. Sid-
diqui, as Chief Agricultural Nego-
tiator in trade talks. Murthy, an
attending physician at Brigham
and Women’s Hospital and an
instructor at Harvard Medical
School, is also the Co-Founder
and Chairman of Epernicus, LLC,
a privately-held company
that builds social net-
working platforms for
scientific institutions
and clinical trials. Sid-
Taj Employee Behavior During 26/11 is a Harvard Case Study Now
he 26/11 terror at-
T tack, which took
the life of 164, in
Mumbai was among the
worst terror attacks India
has faced. The Taj Hotel
in Mumbai was hit very
badly during the incident
and several guests and
more than a dozen em-
ployees lost their life. The
heroic response by em-
ployees of Taj during the
attacks is now a case study at Harvard
Business School that focuses on the
staff’s selfless service for its cus-
tomers and how they went beyond
their call of duty to save lives.
in
diqui will serve as Chief never participated in Ka-
Agricultural Negotiator in
the Office of the United
States Trade Representative
(USTR) once more, with the
rank of ambassador.
Similarly, in Ohio Jai
Chabria became the Senior Islam A. Siddiqui
sich’s election campaign,
they both worked in
Lehman Brothers for
seven years.
In yet another instance
Vijay Sazawal, the Direc-
tor of government pro-
Adviser the Governor John grams for the U.S.
Kasich. His duties include overseeing Enrichment Corporation, got ap-
gubernatorial appointments and pointed to the Civil Nuclear Trade Ad-
managing personnel for state visory Committee by the U.S.
agencies. He will also work di- Department of Commerce Secretary
rectly with the Ohio Depart- Gary Locke. The 35-year veteran of
ment of Development as it both the civilian and defense nuclear
transitions into JobsOhio. industry was among the people who
“Whatever duty is assigned to helped in bringing 2008 U.S.-India
me, I’ll try to fulfill it civilian nuclear power initiative to re-
according to the best ality. These three are among many
of my ability,” said great feats that the Indian Americans
Vivek Murthy Chabria. Even are achieving in the U.S. now, and this
though Chabria seems to be only the beginning.
The multimedia ees “knew all the back exits” of the
case study ‘Terror at the
Taj Bombay: Cus-
tomer-Centric Leader-
hotel and could have easily escaped,
many of them stayed back and helped
the guests. “The natural human in-
ship’ by HBS professor stinct would be to flee. These are peo-
Rohit Deshpande docu- ple who instinctively did the right
ments “the bravery and thing. And in the process, some of
resourcefulness shown them, unfortunately, gave their lives to
by rank-and-file em- save guests.”
ployees” during the at- The case studies include video in-
tack. “Not even the terviews with hotel staff and footage
senior managers could of the attack; it is like a documentary
explain the behaviour style account of events. It also focuses
of these employees,” Deshpande is on the hotels history, its recruitment
quoted as saying in HBS Working and training methodology. “Nothing in
Knowledge, a forum on the faculty’s the employees’ training could have
research and ideas. According to prepared them for such an unprece-
Deshpande even though the employ- dented situation,” Deshpande said.
The Smart Techie
|11|
February 2011

Compiled By Hari Anil
The Millennium School, for the 21st Century Students
Educomp Solutions, the largest edu-
cational company in India, is ex-
panding its The Millennium School
(TMS) initiative to Bangalore. TMS
will follow India’s first fully inte-
grated learning delivery system for
schools, the Millennium Learning
System (MLS). Adding to the advan-
tage of MLS will be global best prac-
tices and the inherent strength of
Indian education system. “Rapid
globalization coupled with techno-
logical developments and informa-
tion explosion over the last few
years, call for compelling changes in
the purpose and nature of education.
Our children must be self-directed,
tech-smart and lifelong learners. In
order to create future citizens who
are confident, optimistic with a com-
mitment to personal excellence, we
have envisioned a chain of schools
Just-Eat and Hungry Zone on A Joint Venture
Just-Eat, UK’s largest online take-
away ordering service, have acquired
a majority shareholding in Hungry
Zone, India’s online food ordering
and restaurant table reservation plat-
form. Founded in July 2006 and
headquartered in Bangalore, Hungry
Zone enables its customers to place
online home delivery orders from
over 650 restaurants serving over 40
different cuisines. This deal marks the
first major investment of its kind
where a European e-commerce has
invested in India.
“Just-Eat is the leading global
player in online food ordering, so the
The Smart Techie
|12|
February 2011
spread across the country –The Mil-
lennium Schools,” said Ravi Pillai,
President-Schools, Educomp.
The school presents a combina-
tion of academic excellence, well
teachers trained, unique talent devel-
opment program and technology in
every classroom. It is designed to
meet the need of 21st century students
with infrastructure facilities that en-
able holistic learning. Classrooms
will be equipped with large digital in-
combination of Just-Eat’s best prac-
tices, with our strong local knowl-
edge and technical prowess derived
from 4yrs of operations in India, will
drive growth for many years to come.
Our proven business model and
200,000 loyal customers will only
grow with our new partners thereby
helping us expand our footprint in
other major cities,” said Ritesh
Dwivedy, Founder and CEO, Hungry
Zone. Just-Eat will invest $ 5-10 mil-
lion over the next three years into this
Joint Venture and the plan is to ex-
pand into major Indian metropolitan
and metropolis cities starting with
teractive boards and high quality
media content, using Educomp’s pio-
neering Smart Class system for learn-
ing through technology. The school
will have all-embracing sports
amenities, fully equipped arts stu-
dios, and state-of-the-
art labs. Currently
TMSs are present in
cities like Noida, Mo-
hali, Panipat, Amritsar,
Lucknow, Meerut, Ku-
rukshetra, Jaland-
har, Bhatinda, Indore,
Agra, and Karnal.
Educomp is also
providing much emphasis on envi-
ronmental friendliness by using en-
vironment friendly practices such as
rainwater harvesting, open green
spaces, and the use of natural materi-
als in the making of the building.
Mumbai and Delhi.
“The acquisition of a controlling
interest in Hungry Zone marks the
first step of Just-Eat’s expansion into
Asia. The synergy between the two
companies is compelling and we’re
very excited to be working with such
a strong local team. India has an ex-
otic and rich culinary heritage;
thereby catering to the variant food-
ies requires an innovative company
like Hungry Zone to understand their
preferences and I’m very impressed
with their results to date,” expressed
Klaus Randel Nyengaard, Group
CEO, Just-Eat.
HP with Hybrid Delivery Cloud Solutions
Cloud computing is on the rise and
most of the big companies are bring-
ing out new products and services to
strengthen their position in this mar-
ket. To address the same market HP
has launched a suite of new products
and services that enable businesses
and governments to leverage the
power of the cloud while ensuring
they meet required levels of security,
performance and availability. “HP has
the enterprise experience, breadth of
portfolio and global service delivery
organization to lead our clients
through this transformation,” Dur-
gadutt Nedungadi, Director-Sales, HP
Enterprise Business, HP India.
Benefits of cloud computing in-
clude faster deployment of new serv-
ices, reduction in IT headcount and a
SaaS model, on a negative note it has
traditionally lacked in areas that en-
terprises need, such as security, avail-
ability, and ease of integration.
Through this new suite of products
HP is planning deliver to its cus-
Dell YouthConnect completes two years
Dell’s signature corporate responsi-
bility and Global Giving program
Dell YouthConnect, which is de-
signed to support education and dig-
ital inclusion initiatives for
under-served children by helping
them to develop 21st century skills
like digital communications, envi-
ronmental awareness, critical and
collaborative learning tools, has
completed its second year. Started in
2008, DYC India has received about
$ 4.7 million in funding in the last
two years from Dell Giving Founda-
tion, and so far over 300,000 children
and youth across cities including
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Chen-
nai, Mohali and Pune has benefited
from this program. Apart from chil-
tomers all the perks of cloud deploy-
ment without its traditional weak-
nesses.
HP’s new portfolio of Hybrid De-
livery cloud solutions includes, HP
Enterprise Cloud Services-Compute,
HP CloudSystem, HP Cloud Discov-
ery Workshop, and HP Financial
Services. Hp Enterprise Cloud Serv-
ice-compute delivers a private cloud
as a service. With datacenters devel-
dren DYC also trained over 2000
teachers as part of its capacity build-
ing program.
The program is delivered in asso-
ciation with 12 NGOs in the country
through 390 schools and resource
centres. Learning Links Foundation,
American India Foundation, Christel
House, Humana India, The Energy
and Resources Institute, Akshara
Foundation, Asset India Foundation,
PlanetRead, Sikshana Foundation,
Amar Jyoti, SETU, and Dream-A-
Dream are the NGOs partnered with
Dell for the DYC program. “Our ap-
proach towards the Giving Program
is strategic, focused on connecting
the youth to a more promising to-
morrow by closing the technology
oped for better service,
performance, security
and privacy, it provides
clients with rapidly de-
ployed, secure comput-
ing. HP Cloud System
is a growing platform
for Instant-On-
Enterprise. This system
enables new cloud serv-
ices to be up and run-
ning in minutes. HP
Cloud System also sup-
ports HP Cloud Maps.
HP Cloud Discovery
Workshop helps business and gov-
ernments to develop smart strategies
and optimal path for leveraging the
cloud. The workshops have multiple
modules that cover a wide range of
topics, ranging from business model
implications to security to identifying
the right services for the cloud. HP
Financial services help clients to
build private cloud deployment and
maximize their financial gains.
gap and unleashing student potential
through breakthrough educational
initiatives. Dell believes we have a
responsibility towards the communi-
ties we work in and that it is impera-
tive to empower these communities
for a more participative growth,”
says Ganesh Lakshminarayanan,
President, Dell India.
Apart from DYC Dell also has
another Giving program in India
through which its employees volun-
teer, engage and involve with its
NGO partners through their contri-
bution in terms of financial contribu-
tion and dedicated time. The
financial contribution from Dell’s
employees last year was about $
13,500.
The Smart Techie
|13|
February 2011
 VC TALK
Entrepreneurs
The fundemental Raw
Material for VCs
New Trends Driving the Industry
We have a very vibrant eco system of
entrepreneurs in the valley. The fun-
damental raw material for our busi-
ness is the supply of great
entrepreneurs who want to do inter-
esting things, and I think this mo-
mentum will continue uninterrupted.
The reasons for this being, the pres-
ence of great role models, availabil-
ity of capital from high quality firms,
and the cost of building a start up that
continues to come down. These make
it easier to experiment with new
ideas. The new trends in the themes
we are investing can be considered in
three folds - from Client Server Sys-
tem, Client Server Infrastructure to-
wards Cloud Based Infrastructure.
And this trend continues both to the
infrastructure layout and the applica-
tion layout.
The second trend is the fact that
the traditional IT budget is been sup-
plemented by the marketing budget.
10 -15 years ago startups were more
focused on budgets for CIOs and
consumers. Now a third allocation of
the funds for marketing via Google
Adwords, and online marketing has
The Smart Techie
|14|
February 2011
people who watch online
video as a medium of en-
tertainment, whether it is
premium or non premium,
is now comparable to the
number of people who
watch TV. The quantum of
time for which they watch
it is lower, but that is
changing every year. So if
you think about the world
a few years from now
where all video content
will be watched online,
then across that eco system
there are opportunities for
innovation. Not just for
content providers but also
for infrastructure
providers, for platforms,
and for advertisers.
Ashu Garg, Venture Partner, One technology trend
Foundation Capital that I would say is driving
a lot of change today is the
come into purview. low cost storage solutions. Cloud
The third trend is video. The computing is one of the hosts of un-
growth in online video is reasonably derlying technology trends which is
well understood, people still under- enabling that.
estimate how huge it is. Today Ne-
flix, an online video streaming Challenges in the startup market
portal, has as many subscribers as It is hard to generalize, as the chal-
Comcast. When you sit back and lenges depend on what market you
think about the implications of that, it are going after. The challenges in a
is very fundamental, the number of consumer segment are very different
from the challenges in an enterprise
segment and both these are very dif-
ferent from an advertisement related
start up.
At the broadest level I would say
the number one challenge is that it is
still very hard to track the right tal-
ent whether it is in engineering or
business. This is true for both U.S.
and India, as great talent is in short
supply. This shortage in talent is way
more than the shortage in capital.
Then the major challenge would
be finding the right product. This is
especially true for technology ori-
ented startups. You have this great
initiation, this great idea, but most of
the time no one is buying it. Many
entrepreneurs struggle with this in
the life of their companies. It is fig-
uring out who would pay for what
you have and how to get it to them in
a repeatable manner are always a
challenge, irrespective of the market
you are in.
The final challenge is that how do
you go to a market in a way it is re-
peatable and cost effective. The cost
of customer acquisition most of the
time exceeds the near term revenue.
Over time you will be fine but this
increases the burden of a startup.
Advice to startups
Primarily you should go after a very
large addressable market, since, if
you are in a large market then you
can zig and zag and find a market po-
sition that is defensible. But in a
small market there is very little room
for maneuvering. To me this is very
obvious and I am stunned by the
number of startups that are going
after small markets. The art is about
figuring out what the real address-
able market for what you are doing
and not being overly optimistic. Sec-
ondarily, before you go into the mar-
ket think about what is the source of
your differentiation and how you can
continue to innovate around that. If
you are really crystal clear about
From day one
invest in
what the value proposition is and in-
novate around that and keep the main
attracting an
focus around that then it is much
easy to sustain differentiation.
ecosystem of
Tips to entrepreneurs
Being successful is more important
advisors and
than getting funded. So you should
focus on the basics, find a large proj-
angel investors
ect, differentiate its value proposition
to your customers and should stay
who have
laser focused on that. Then invest
early on in building a team around
experience with
you, at the end of the day an entrepre-
neur should be remarkable in selling
the fundraising
his vision to the people around him
and getting them on board. The early
team you get goes a long way in your
ecosystem
success. And finally, don’t be afraid to
fail, fail fast and get up and start again.
This is sort of the macro advice.
On a more specific level, as you start
a company you have to recognize early
on that fund raising is going to be an on-
going priority and focus for the CEO. If
you are choosing to be a CEO this will
be part of your job, this will be some-
QuickFacts
thing you do all the time. You might be
doing that for over 20 percent of your
The worldwide semiconduc- time over the course of the company’s
tor revenue is forecast to life. This should be recognized, this is
total $314 billion in 2011, my first piece of advice.
just up 4.6 percent from My second advice is, from day one
2010's estimated revenue of invest in attracting an ecosystem of ad-
$300.3 billion, as per a Gart- visors and angel investors who have ex-
ner report. The growth in perience with the fundraising
the fourth quarter of FY10 ecosystem. Great products have advi-
will likely become negative sors of different kinds. People always
for the first time in six quar- look for great technologists to give them
ters. The third quarter of advice which is a great thing to have,
2010 was the turning point, but in addition you need to find great
as semiconductor manufac- marketers, and people who have expe-
turing factory utilization rience with fundraising who understand
rates peaked midyear and that ecosystem.
subsequently started to re- The third point is, make sure you
duce chip lead times and av- find the right investor for you. Depend-
erage selling prices. Strong ing on what you are looking to do, your
holiday electronic sales will goals, and your personal style, find an
be important in keeping the investor who works with you and for
modest chip correction in you and not against you. So keep focus
check as we start 2011. on these and things will be good.
As told to Hari Anil
The Smart Techie
|15|
February 2011

Compiled by ST Team
LetsBuy.com secures $6 Million in Series A
LetsBuy.com, an e-commerce portal
out of India, has just announced that it
has raised its first round of funding.
The round which was led by Helion
Venture Partners, Accel Partners and
Tiger Global helped them to raise $6
million. “LetsBuy.com is on the fast-
growth path and the VC funding from
the leaders in the space will only spur
us on. The funds would be deployed in
strengthening customer service, tech-
nology and supply chain processes,”
said Hitesh Dhingra, Founder & CEO,
LetsBuy.com. It functions as a con-
sumer electronics, communication and
computer goods vendor.
Komli Media Raises About $14.6 Million
Komli Media raised about $14.6 mil-
lion in a funding round led by Nor-
west Venture Partners. With the
funding, the company is planning an
expansion in its technology portfolio,
to expand further throughout India
and across its key markets in the Asia
Pacific, and to invest in its two core
businesses, the ad network and audi-
ence measurement business. Komli is
also in the process of strengthening its
sales team, so that it would help them
to reach out to the Middle East and
South East Asian markets.
The Indian ad network market
which is currently a $220 million mar-
ket and it is growing in a very high
The Smart Techie
|16|
February 2011
It was launched in 2009 by Hitesh
Dhingra and Amanpreet Bajaj and is
based out of New Delhi. The site’s on-
line catalogue has about 150 brands,
which includes HP, Microsoft, Canon,
Airtel, BIG TV, WD, MapmyIndia and
over 5,000 products. Dhingra added
that they sell no grey goods and that
all the products on their website are
branded. “The LetsBuy.com team has
the vision and the business acumen to
identify opportunities and make them
stepping stones towards growth. In the
process they present the best offerings
to their customers and meet the goals
chalked out by the partner investors.
rate of 35 percent annually. “If one is
mulling for short-term results then the
market won’t be much of a lure. We
think long term and hence,
there are lots of opportuni-
ties. Within four years in
2010, we have grown 600
percent year-on-year com-
pared to 2009,” says
Prashanth Mehta, Chief
Operation Officer of
Komli Media. Last
year the com-
pany has ex-
panded itself
in the Asia
Pacific, Eu- Amar Goel
The strategy and plans match those
valued by the Accel Partners team,”
said Prashanth Prakash, partner, Accel
Partners.
“India has witnessed tremendous
growth in e-commerce and Letsbuy
has been part of that growth. The team
has the vision to have identified a very
compelling opportunity and the exe-
cution skills to deliver to it,” said
Ashish Gupta, Managing Director, He-
lion Venture Partners. As part of
strengthening their customer service
the company, which currently has a
head count of 25, is planning on hiring
35 – 45 people in the next quarter.
ropean and Australian regions. “We
have grown from two people working
from home to a 115 people team
within seven offices spread across
Mumbai, New York, Toronto, Palo
Alto and New Delhi,” says Goel.
Apart from Norwest Venture
Partners, their existing investors
Draper Fisher Jurvetson India
(DFJ), Helion Venture Partners,
and Nexus Venture Partners also
participated in the funding
round. These three in-
vestors had previously
invested about $6
million in the com-
pany.
Ybrant Digital raises $48 million in
venture funding
Ybrant Digital, a digital marketing
solutions provider which is well
known for its acquisition strategies,
has raised $48 million in funding
from Oak India investments, Asia
Pacific Capital and ICICI bank. The
company has acquired around six
firms so far, including a $36 million
acquisition of Lycos. The aim behind
the present fund rising doesn’t seem
to differ as well. The company is
planning to use this funding to grow
its reach, develop new technology,
expand internationally, and explore
acquisitions.
After acquiring Lycos, a leading
Internet and search portal, Ybrant
launched its local search platform,
‘Ybrant Reach’ (‘YReach’) in India.
“Having a buy-in from Investors like
Oak, Asia Pacific Capital and ICICI
Apalya Technologies secures
$ 7.5 million in Series B funding
Apalya Technologies, an interactive,
on demand Mobile TV service
provider in India raised $ 7.5 million
in a Series-B funding round lead by
Indo-US venture partners (IUVP).
“We are pleased to have IUVP on
board for this round of funding in ad-
dition to IDG and Qualcomm who
have been strong supporters of
Apalya since its inception,” says
Vamshi B. Reddy, CEO, Apalya
Technologies. This marks the first in-
vestment by IUVP in Apalya. In
2009 the company raised $ 3 million
in a Series-A funding round from
IDG and Qualcomm, who also
participated in this round.
The company which has
tie-ups with Reliance commu-
nications and Tata Teleservices
for delivering mobile TV so-
lutions for their 3G
services is also partners
with various TV chan-
brings validation to our business
strategy, as we embark on our next
phase of growth and expansion,”
said Suresh Reddy, Chairman and
CEO of Ybrant Digital.
“Suresh and his team have
demonstrated unique ability to iden-
tify, acquire and integrate, relevant
businesses across the world. We are
confident that Ybrant will emerge as
the digital marketing leader of the
next generation with emphasis on
global growth and new media,” said
Roy Rodrigues, advisor to Oak In-
vestment Partners. The digital adver-
tising industry has grown
exponentially over the last ten years
and in this climate of increased ac-
tivity and consolidation, Ybrant Dig-
ital aims to continue its rapid growth
with the funding it acquired.
nels like Discovery, Disney and
Sony. Its content portfolio includes
68 television channels, which in-
clude news, entertainment and re-
gional channels and these contents
are optimized for viewing on mobile
screens through their MiMobiTV
service.
The company plans to use the
funds to expand its services and tech-
nology to take advantage of the mo-
bile TV opportunity emerging from
the recent rollout of 3G services in
India. “The widespread launch of 3G
services in India has the potential
to make the mobile screen a
dominant live streaming based
infotainment and advertising
platform,” says Vani Kola,
Managing Director, IndoUS
Venture Partners. Currently
their TV service is live
on BSNL 3G and
Vamshi B. Reddy MTNL 3G.
MotorExchange to
expand consumer
business with series B
MotorExchange, a technology platform to fa-
cilitate transactions, and inhouse certification of
used vehicles in India, has raised an undisclosed
sum as series B funding. The round was lead by
Epiphany Ventures and their existing investor
Canaan Partners. Indian used vehicle market is
presently a $20 billion worth market which is
expect to grow a 100 percent and reach a $40
billion market by 2015. With this new funding
the company, founded in 2009 by Vinay Sanghi
and Rajan Mehra, is eyeing to become a leader
in this market.
“It’s a vast opportunity. We do have com-
petitors like Carwale, but we are not mere an
online marketplace for vehicles, rather a com-
plete transaction platform. Wherein most of
our sellers are institutional banks, corporates,
fleet owners and consumers and the buyers
comprise mostly of the vehicle dealers,” says
Vinay Sanghi, the CEO of MotorEx-
change. Currently, the company reaches
out to institutional sellers in 80 cities
but their consumer business is limited
to two cities, Mumbai and Chen-
nai, with this round of fund-
ing the company is planning
to grow the consumer busi-
ness to 10 cities.
“The right blend of
team wherein one has ex-
clusive experience in deal-
ing with used cars and the
other’s proficiency in the
field of e-commerce has be-
come the best bet for us. Apart
from that, the company has kept
its strategies straight. Even in terms
of a secured transaction, the com-
pany has set proper protocols like
certification reports,” says Gaurav
Saraf of Epiphany Ventures. Apart
from strengthening their services
Vinay Sanghi
and increasing their consumer busi-
ness the company also has plans to
increase their head strength from 70
to about 250 in a year’s time.
The Smart Techie
|17|
February 2011
 SOCIAL CAUSE By Eureka Bharali
Sacrifice
2 indianS’
makeS SlumS iT-Skilled
hen was the last time you
W
heard an employee being
fired due to non-perfor-
mance? It’s an everyday
issue. Now, when was the
last time you heard an employer selling his
own property to ensure that the employees he
fired are empowered with the skills they lack?
That’s exactly what Mohammed Yusuf Attar
did. Commonly known as ‘Prof. Yusuf Attar’
of Synolog Systems, a distributor and supplier
of computer electronics, today, Yusuf selects
and enrolls slum people to make them IT
skilled - a skill which has become the new
norm for any career.
The real phase behind this generous act
dates back to 2002, when Prof. Yusuf and his
partner Shaikh Imran Salim established Syn-
olog Systems. “After a point of time, we went
hunting for professionals in the IT institutes
and found a bunch of them to work for us. All
of them had Diploma Certificates of IT
courses ranging from 12 to 18 months. Grad-
ually, we realized their performance was un-
satisfactory and even the feedbacks from
The Smart Techie
|18|
February 2011
clients began to deteriorate. That was the time
when we thought of firing all of them and shut
the company for some time,” says Prof. Yusuf.
develop literacy, uplifting society
The decision did not satisfy them. “It’s an in-
and preventing them from the world
crease in unemployment. How would this
of crime,” says Prof. Yusuf Attar.
bunch of kids really make it to other compa-
The society’s normal trait is to ap-
nies?” is the only thought that disturbed the
preciate and pat the back of the top-
two partners. And right at the next moment, tion towards the issues. “Meals were 925 students had benefited from
pers and also helps to guide them for
they were up with an audio-visual tool to en- arranged to calm the hunger and the their free computer education pro-
a successful future. But when one
sure their ex-employees are in the industry next step was to bring them into gram and many among them are em-
drops out, scores lower grades and
with the right skills. Yusuf got the basic IT confidence. We have to bend down ployed with companies like
even fails, the only popular reaction
flair during his days as an Accountant in an and be at par with their level to ex- SkyTronics, Sai Sales Infotech,
normally noticed is to ignore them
MNC in Saudi Arabia. tend a warm hand of friendship. Lit- QLC, Accura Infotech, Radiant
without any care to understand the
reasons behind. This is where the tle talks with emotions helps them to Technologies, Printrade Issues, Ab-
The Act open up and give out the reasons of hinav Technical Institute, Entrosys
foundation wanted to make a differ-
The unskilled employees were roped in, their treatment. Also don’t leave Computers, SHN Solutions, YAS
ence.
Diploma courses in Computer Engineering their elders, they need more coun- Technologies and ICON System.
The duo took notice of the cru-
and in Basic computer application were intro- seling than a child.” The parents are But such societal acts, unless is
cial problems. “Each of them came
duced - all for free under the banner of SIIT helpless, they want to give every- all the time boasted with different
to school with a breakfast that con-
(Synolog Institute of Information Technol- thing out of their way to their child marketing tactics, hardly gets no-
sists just a cup of tea and sometimes
ogy). Gradually, they expanded their reach to but their income never permits ticed. And only after six years of
nothing at all. How would a child
under-privileged slum-kids in schools and or- them. Ultimately frustration gulps continuous struggle, Yusuf and his
study when a hungry stomach
phanages. Though it’s free for the society, but both parent and child, which is eas- team has finally got the attention of
screams out? The hunger is quite
the two partners did have to bear the cost, ily seen in the society in different Aishabai & Haji Abdul Latif Chari-
disturbing for anyone to concen-
which went upto Rs. 22,500 per student for a faces. Hence, the foundation even table Trust and South Bombay Char-
trate; irrespective of how polite
single 10-month course. There are four indulged in counseling each one. itable Trust, who helped them with
would you really be while teaching
courses ranging from 6 months, 8 months to a better premise and some amount of
them. The student will either in-
10 months which costs Rs. 6,750, Rs. 15, 000 The Fruitful Ordeal monetary support. Yusuf is quite
dulge in more mischiefs to kill the
and Rs. 22, 500 per student respectively. The actions however, took a toll on clear on his intentions - to make all
hunger or keep mum. Teachers and
Today all these courses come to the students Yusuf and Shaikh to an extent that the slum kids of Mumbai IT skilled.
parents can easily blame a child’s
through Yusuf’s newly constituted Synolog they had to invest their own savings “In India, the highest number of
weakness, but it is not so. On the
Foundation. and even put across their properties slums exist in Mumbai, but there’s
other hand, just think if you put five
“The IT field has numerous job oriented on sale. Did this deter them? No. In- hardly any interest on this part of the
spoons of sugar in a cup of tea, you
courses, however we couldn’t manage all. Re- fact, they expanded it to educate society. We are primarily concen-
wouldn’t be able to drink it. Simi-
sources were limited hence, to include all the more from the masses. They ex- trated on the slums in Govandi, Co-
larly, unnecessary and unwanted
programs free were not feasible. Yet, whatever plored 10 schools, wherein they laba, Wadala, Bandra, Khar,
love and care spoils the career of a
we could we did. We are mainly focused on scanned 2893 students and finalized Jogeshwari and Worli,” Yusuf main-
child and then even if one wishes,
school students from Std. VIII, school dropped on 223 pupils. “Not everyone has a tains. He concludes with a remark
one cannot change the child’s atti-
out and those who fail or pass with very lower poor background and our course is that guides every humble man -
tude when he grow up and goes out
grades. In short, this effort to help a few to over- meant to uplift the underprivileged,” “Just do your work without any ex-
of control,” says Imran Salim. He
come the poverty line, reduce unemployment, says Yusuf. Till date approximately pectations, as God sees it all”.
further adds on to illustrate their ac-
The Smart Techie
|19|
February 2011
COVER STORY

REDPINE SIGNALS

THE BAR HIGH

SETTING
IN WIRELESS
INDUSTRY | By Vimali Swamy

Redpine Signals at a Glance

t an American football Wi-Fi connectivity requires strong

Founded: 2001
Headquarters: San Jose, California
Other Offices: Hyderabad, India
Headcount: About 100
Customer: Over 300
Website: www.redpinesignals.com
A game in September last
year, while a majority
of the 75,000 fans at a
New Jersey stadium
could only watch replays on one of the
stadium’s four, high-definition video
boards, a small number of people had
a more convenient way to watch the
key moments of the game - along with
their choice of replay angles. For they
had FanVision, a smartphone-like ded-
icated device – a hybrid of Wi-Fi and
locally broadcast UHF video tech-
nologies that has been revolutionizing
the way football is enjoyed at the sta-
diums. A small hand held device, Fan-
Vision allows audiences to view the
replays of the game during a break
session, order food from the food
court without having to go there and
seeing a host of statistics related to the
game. A device with such high end
wireless modules in it and this was
powered by Redpine Signals.
Founded in 2001, San Jose, Cali-
fornia, headquartered Redpine Signals
is a wireless systems company with
unique chipset and system level prod-
ucts for wireless networks and Smart
Energy solutions. Over the past
decade, Redpine has created advanced
wireless technology that has gone into
the creation of ultra low power and
high performance products for the
next generation wireless applications.
One of the first in the industry to
launch a single stream 802.11n chipset
in late 2007, the company today has in Chandra Sekhar Abburi
its portfolio, several modules and sub-
systems focusing on specific vertical Narasimhan Venkatesh
market segments including industrial,
wireless sensor, wireless audio &
video, voice over Wi-Fi and high end
consumer.
Made in India
2001 was a time of upheaval in the IT
industry as it saw both tremendous
boom and bust. But despite the insta-
bility, Venkat Mattela along with a few
very experienced technocrats found
immense opportunity in the VLSI es-
pecially Wireless segment and subse-
quently founded Redpine Signals. This
downtime also gave the company the
luxury of time to develop its technol-
ogy while keeping a very few key peo-
ple in. Also, despite being
conceptualized in the U.S., the com-
pany was keen on setting up its R&D
center in India. “The off shoring model
had really taken off in the IT services
sector and we were keen on using the
same for product development. So
keeping in mind both the financial
merit and the availability of technical
skill, we started our engineering center
in Hyderabad. The idea was to have
The Smart Techie
|22| February 2011
best of both worlds — technology, ex-
ecution and business expertise from
U.S. and skilled talent from India,” ex-
plains Mattela, Chairman and CEO,
Redpine Signals.
Unlike a software product, no two
wireless products are the same and the
key difference lies in the ability to ex-
tract the transmitted information from
signals that are subject to significant
degradation. Later, translating this into
hardware is another huge challenge
since size of the hardware has to be
limited. Developing such high level
fail proof wireless products requires a
high level of skill and domain knowl-
edge and innovation and Redpine kick-
started doing exactly the same.
“To address all the different aspects
of a chip is a matter of great innovation
and the challenge lies in making an al-
gorithm in a hardware using minimum
resources required. We started by de-
veloping expertise in that area. In par-
allel we also needed to develop core
VSLI blocks, what is today called the
System on a Chip,” explains Chandra
Shekhar Abburi, VP – Systems and
Software, Redpine Signals. The com-
pany initially used products sourced
from its partners to do the analog and
RF but going forward it had a wide
range of product portfolio in place with
expertise around each one of them, en-
suring everything was home grown in
the years that came by.
At the same time the company
began indentifying key individuals
who could kick start and grow a group
organically by bringing in people. The
majority of the talent that was brought
in was handpicked fresh out of premier
institutes like the IIT Madras, IIT
Guwahati, BITS Pilani and others. The
idea was to attract people with a tech-
nical bent of mind keen on working on
high end, innovative and industry first
products. Today, over the years, the
company has grown substantially both
in its product portfolio and skilled tal-
ent with some of the early employees
today being the engineering, products
and application managers.
A Vivid Product Portfolio with In-
dustry firsts
Focusing on high end wireless tech-
nology from day one, the company
began with development of wireless
LAN systems, and started licensing its
IP to a select few semiconductor com-
panies (who were selling several 100
million mobile chips per year) who
would use it in their product or SoC as
a wireless interface. This enabled Red-
pine to continue making R&D invest-
ment in advanced wireless technology
developments in other wireless tech-
nologies like Mobile WiMAX and also
enabled it to create its flagship 802.11n
low power chip in late 2007. The prod-
uct — a chipset based on the new wire-
less standard 802.11n targeted at high
throughput applications. “Spectrum is
one of the most valuable commodities
in the world, and those in the wireless
industry are constantly trying hard to
achieve maximum work done in lim-
ited spectrum. When the 802.11n proj-
ect was started by IEEE, we also
started working on it to understand
how to make efficient use of available
spectrum,” says Narasimhan
Venkatesh, VP – Advanced Technolo-
gies, Redpine Signals. One of the
means of doing achieving this effi-
ciency was MIMO (multiple
input/multiple output), a way of dou-
bling or tripling the capacity of a given
piece of spectrum. 802.11n MIMO
modes use 2 or more antennas, while
portable devices like mobile, MP3,
notepad and other devices can not have
more than one antenna - but would still
like to take the benefit of 802.11n.
Redpine was the first to see the poten-
tial in single antenna 11n and in 2008 it
got its product certified for Wi-Fi 11n,
one of the first in the industry to get
certified for single stream 11n.
With its product being certified for
industry standards, the company
started targeting emerging embedded
Wi-Fi markets like smart energy, in-
dustrial, building automation and med-
ical markets. It was also among the
first to get its product certified for a
new Wi-Fi program called the Voice-
Personal. “Initially we looked at tar-
geting our chips into mobile phone
market but found the market domi-
nated by large established semicon-
ductor vendors. Since in this segment,
the volumes are very large, margins
small, and competition intense, we de-
cided to focus on new emerging areas,
one of them being the “Internet of
things,” says Venkatesh.
A lot of devices today are con-
nected wirelessly. Till now, general de-
vices like TV remote use IR system
which was a one way communication
but the advent of wireless technology
has given way to convert these every-
day devices into a two way interactive
wireless device. Today one of the most
premium home theatre manufacturing
companies in Europe use Redpine’s
Wi-Fi chip into its wireless remote
control. Unlike the old remotes that
need pointing it to the sensor, these can
be kept it in any orientation one wants
to. By incorporating a small screen in
the remote, it can be used to make in-
teractive choices like getting a playlist
from media player.
Similarly, wireless security cam-
eras and sensors can be hooked wire-
lessly. The cost of deploying a new
wired network is very high and as
wireless became prevalent, WLAN
especially (if one goes to any office,
industry or home, there is a wireless
access point) it became increasingly
easier to deploy a sensor in a remote
With over 740 million wireless LAN devices
corner.
being shipped globally last year, highlights
the huge market that lies ahead in the wire-
less segment
The company is also targeting
SmartGrids, wherein smart appliances
such as Wi-Fi smart enabled electricity
meter allow people to observe the con-
sumption remotely. Going a mile fur-
ther, it also created a circuit breaker
with Wi-Fi that could be incorporated
in everyday appliances to control or
turn it off remotely, making them smart
appliances.
Apart from the high end con-
sumer segment, the company has
also a very deep focus towards in-
dustrial segment. In manufacturing
industry a lot of equipments are con-
trolled by other pieces of controllers
through wires which need to follow
several interfaces like RS 232, RS
485 and others in order to connect
industrial devices. To deploy this
wired connectivity to huge instru-
ments is very costly and a time con-
suming process. “Industrial market
was also where we saw WLAN had
good opportunity. So when we de-
signed the chips, we also designed
them for industrial operations. At a
time when the world is looking at
WLAN application in mainstream
markets in consumer, mobile and
networking markets, we created a
technology called ‘Connect-io-n’
(pronounced “connection”). It is a
802.11n based module which can
connect to any processing system
with as little as 1.5KB memory. This
is a highly differentiated product in
today’s market place for ‘Internet of
Things’,” explains Mattela.
By developing its expertise in the
newly approved 802.11n much be-
fore others, the company also saw a
huge traction for its products in med-
ical instrumentations; a promising
and fast growing sector. A medical
instrumentations company that de-
velops endoscope with wireless ca-
pability deploys Redpine’s chipsets.
The endoscope which has a wireless
controlling unit has connectivity to
the hospital’s network and transmits
data not only to the nearby monitor-
ing machine for a doctor to see but
also to the hospitals network for
archiving purposes.
“The list of our customers is end-
less. Ascom, a well established
Swedish company, makes connectiv-
ity solutions for hospitals. All doc-
tors and nurses there need to carry a
device which is essentially a phone
— robust and extremely fail proof.
To ensure that the connectivity is un-
interrupted in a mission critical en-
vironment, the device needs to have
the best of the chipsets available.
Ascom chose our chips after a year
long validation in all kinds of envi-
ronments,” says Venkatesh.
The Smart Techie
|23| February 2011

Today, Redpine’s technology spans
the complete end-to-end wireless solu-
tion and includes an extensive patent
portfolio on OFDM, MIMO, embedded
processor architectures, and low-power
techniques. The company’s offerings in-
clude both the hardware and the soft-
ware as differentiated sub-systems to
provide flexibility and ease of integra-
tion to the system integrator. This sin-
gle-stop approach enables Redpine to
deliver an optimal wireless solution to
meet customer’s requirements at an op-
timal price point.
The latest feather on its hat is the RTLS
(Real Time Locationing System) devel-
oped by it and was certified for Cisco
CCX. Just like RFID in retail sector,
Redpine’s RTLS tags can track key as-
sets in wireless enabled infrastructures
like corporate, industrial ware houses
and hospitals.
Apart from its chipsets, the com-
pany also focuses on designing modules
that use these chips and can be directly
incorporated in to a product. A majority
of Redpine’s customers, the ODM and
OEMs (original device/equipment man-
ufacturer) prefer to buy an entire mod-
ule rather than just a chipset. For
example in RTLS, the company made
the entire system device. Since Red-
pine’s modules are globally certified for
industry standards; FCC certified in
U.S., IC in Canada, CE in Europe and
Telec in Japan; the ODM/OEM’s need
not undergo certification again, making
it one of the USPs of the company. “The
advantage is that our modules are mod-
ular certified for FCC, they are self con-
tained and many of the modules also
have complete networking stack imple-
mented in them,” explains Mattela.
To develop these high end modules,
the company has partnered with two of
the world’s largest developers of micro-
controllers, Renesas Electronics and
Freescale Semiconductor. In fact re-
cently, Redpine, along with other spon-
sors, sponsored the design kits to over
1000 participants in the design contest
held by Renesas. Redpine has also been
The Smart Techie
|24| February 2011
Redpine’s modules
are globally certified
— FCC certified in
U.S., ICE in Canada, CE
in Europe and Telec in
Japan; removing the
need for the
ODM/OEM’s to
undergo certification
again
a contributor to the ‘Wi-Fi Direct’ pro-
gram – which enables wireless connec-
tions even where a traditional wireless
network does not exist. And its product
was certified for Wi-Fi Direct soon after
the program was announced.
Culture of Innovation:
Road to Success
In just less than a decade, Redpine has
developed a myriad innovative
products, enabling it to compete neck
to neck with several leading
semiconductor players like Broadcom,
Atheros and Marvell. “And the
fundamental reason behind this success
is the culture of innovation that we
foster among our engineering team,”
says Mattela. Unlike U.S. and Europe
where one finds only highly
experienced engineers working hands
on intellectual property, the case is not
the same here. Having hand picked its
employees from premier engineering
institutions across India, the company
immediately puts them through a
rigrous process to identify and develop
their key strengths, technical skills and
the ability to think out of box. Later
based on their performance, gives them
the required training and a free reign to
explore.
To further leverage the quality of its
R&D engineers, the company has
established relationships with very
reputed institutions like Stanford
University wherein its employees
seeking to do higher education can
enroll into a distance education
programme — called the Honors
Cooperative Program – and study while
continuing to work. This program has
been going on for four years now and
already a couple of engineers have
taken up this course with the help of a
sponsorship from the company itself,”
beams Mattela. Hence, it comes as no
surprise to see over 50 patents being
filed by the company already, of which
20 have already been granted, and with
over 100 in the works. “Many of these
patents have been filed by the engineers
in the India center and those involved
in architecture and design in the U.S.,”
adds he.
Today, with over 300 customers, a
vivid councopia of technology
prodcuts, 50 plus patents and a strong
R&D team both in India and U.S.,
Redpine is confidently pushing the
limits of wireless industry set by the
exisitng bigwigs. Apart from the
pathbreaking rollout of modules and
subsystems that enable the wireless
monitoring and control of utility me-
tering systems in 2009, the company
has announced the availability of multi
stream 802.11n and Mobile WiMAX
convergence product in 2008. The
company is well underway to release
very advanced single chip device
based on its own technology in 40nm
later this year.
“We are at a sweet spot today. The
wireless market has been growing
tremendously. With over 740 million
wireless LAN devices being shipped
globally last year, highlights the huge
market that lies ahead of us. But at the
same time, the wireless segment is also
under going a consolidation. Atheros’
acquisition by Qualcomm for over $3
billion is a proof of what we can achieve
in the coming years,” says Mattela. And
with its innovative approach, out of the
box thinking and zeal to excel, such a
feat does not seem impossible for Mat-
tela and his team.
 TECHNOLOGY
Cleantech Market
The Next Favored Investment Destination
lean technology is an
C
umbrella term including
both the new energy effi-
cient technologies and
the related business
models that offer competitive returns
for investors and customers while pro-
viding solutions to global challenges.
It is driven by productivity-based pur-
chasing, and therefore, enjoys wider
market economics with greater finan-
cial upside and sustainability.
Cleantech incorporates a wide
range of products, services and
processes all aimed to provide high
standard performance at a lower cost,
eliminate negative ecological impact
and to improve the production and re-
sponsible use of natural resources.
According to a report by
Bloomberg New Energy Finance,
global investment in clean energy
reached $243 billion last year, which
is a 30 percent growth from $186.5
billion in 2009. The rapid growth was
mainly driven by players such as
China, European rooftop solar, Euro-
pean offshore wind, and research and
development. China topped in invest-
ment with 30 percent growth reaching
$51.1 billion in 2010.
Investment in this sector will hit a
new high in 2011 due to the continued
growth in Asia and the ongoing push
The Smart Techie
|26| February 2011
By Binu T Paul
for resource efficiency. Energy effi-
ciency represented the highest number
of deals last year. Solar energy was the
most popular technology area for in-
vestment which is followed by trans-
port and energy efficiency.
As the global economy is recover-
ing from the recession, 2011 is ex-
pected to be a record year for
renewable energy generation as more
and more clean power plants open.
Many countries like Germany, France
and Spain will generate more energy
from zero carbon sources without any
deterioration in reliability.
The revenue generating aspect of
cleantech comes from a variety of
areas such as energy generation, en-
ergy efficiency, energy storage, energy
infrastructure, transportation, air & en-
vironment, water & wastewater, mate-
rials, agriculture, manufacturing/
industrial, and recycling & waste.
The investment trends in cleantech
shows a very positive approach be-
cause the market has a gigantic poten-
tial to reap huge profits if successfully
exploited. Development of a viable
system for carbon capture and seques-
tration is a prominent market in clean-
tech which is not fully explored. It is
obvious that the development of effi-
cient, zero-emissions coal plants will
revolutionize the energy market. Low-
COMPANY SPOTLIGHT By ST Team
RV-VLSI
Bridging the Knowledge Gap
in the Electronics Industry
Venkatesh Prasad
n today’s scenario Indian semicon- destination to fulfill all the recruiting as a catalyst to enhance the productivity
cost desalination is undoubtedly going
I ductor companies spend millions
of rupees every year on just re-
cruitment and training its new hires
to make them productive. Typi-
cally, in hiring a new employee compa-
nies have to bear the recruitment cost
needs of core semiconductor/embedded
companies. “Our objective is to practically
bring down the recruiting costs of a com-
pany to zero, by providing the best trained
talents from across the country who are
productive to the company with little or
of students with a low TTP (Time To be
Productive),” he adds.
The institute offers a variety of post
graduate diploma programs in VLSI and
Embedded Systems, short term VLSI cer-
tificate courses and a range of corporate
ranging between 10 to 30 percent of the no training expenses,” says Venkatesh training programs covering VLSI Front-
to be the point of attraction in the fu-
gross salary. For a recruitment team com- Prasad, Founder & CEO of Bangalore end design, VLSI Back-end or Physical
ture. Another huge market of the fu-
prising of 3-5 experienced professionals based RV-VLSI Design Center. Design, FPGA design methodologies, full
ture will be vertical or protected
heading a placement drive at a college Core electronics companies have lim- custom design methodologies, and Em-
farming. It is expected that low-cost
anywhere in India have to consider ex- ited their recruitment to a very few col- bedded Systems. According to Prasad the
farming using hydroponic and aero-
penses such as travel (Air/Train/Taxi), ac- leges, mainly due to the large costs they programs are designed with the intention
ponic methods within large urban
commodation, food, promotions, incur if they widen their talent hunt. At the of nullifying the void present in today’s
structures will be a necessity to feed
stationary, and most importantly the cost same time majority of the non-core or UG programs and are at par with PG pro-
the ever-growing world population.
of non-productive billing hours of its ex- services companies recruit students ago- grams. Further the programs are struc-
Solar energy and PV systems will
perienced employees, which sums up to a nistic to their core discipline. Electronics tured in such a way to incorporate
emerge as another viable, long-term
huge figure. Even at the end of a long re- students and students from other related experiential learning by our industry ex-
prospect for replacing fossil fuels.
cruiting process companies still face the branches join these companies out of lack perienced faculty and a majority of time
Other major trends in cleantech in-
hard reality of losing out some of its of- of option and works in domains that are is spent in applying concepts to solve in-
vestments for the coming year include
fers to other competition. Those who ac- outside their field of specialization. As a dustry relevant problems just the way it is
a low growth rate for solar standards,
cept the offer undergo rigorous training for result the domain expertise of over 85 per- done in the industry.
a shift from biofuels to biochemicals
an average of 4 months to make them pro- cent students that could have been of The institute has big plans for the fu-
and increased investment on energy
ductive and billable resources to compa- much value to core companies are being ture. In the next five years they have plans
efficiency efforts.
nies. These months of training come with underutilized in non-core companies. to expand their VLSI training programs
Although cleantech offers a multi-
added expenses of training materials, tech- Apart from misplaced talent, another and corporate training services with am-
billion dollar opportunity for in-
nology/infrastructure usage and cost of major problem is the knowledge gap in bitions to reach out to more students
vestors, it has a number of snags
trainers to the company which is approx- the industry. “Unlike other domains there across the country and to be recognized as
which stops investors from step into
imately 1.5 months salary of the em- is a large gap in the expectations of the an official corporate training partner of
it. The venture capital investors are
ployee, plus the cost of payroll for the semiconductor industry and that offered leading semiconductor companies, pro-
mostly deterred by the lengthy time
non-productive months. A recent study in- by the academia. To bridge this gap RV- viding domain specific training. They also
lag between investment and commer-
dicates that the highest attrition is seen in VLSI has taken on various initiatives and have plans to expand their educational
cialization. It is a fact that the num-
the first two years of an employee joining programs to bridge the industry-academia consultancy services by partnering with
ber of successful cleantech exits
a company and the national attrition rate gap right from the grass root level of 4th leading colleges and universities in the
remains few because either the tech-
stands at 18 percent. The failure of an em- semester engineering, and also to fresh en- country thus facilitating faculty enrich-
nology is not as disruptive as com-
ployee to stay on during this initial period gineering graduates from the electronics ment programs, advanced labs, boot
peting solutions or it is simply taking
puts the entire process in the same loop. and related branches,” says Venkatesh camps for BE students, and setting up of
longer to adopt it. The large-scale
This is a challenge that RV-VLSI is Prasad. “We intend to further widen the nodal centers for advanced training and
capital expenditures required to de-
working to nullify. RV-VLSI, by produc- scope by working closely with not only research. As a whole the plan looks tight
velop the technology is also another
ing a pool of talented VLSI engineers academia but also with the industry to and the future looks good for RV-VLSI
obstacle.
from around the country, acts as a one stop bridge the industry-academia gap, and act Design Center.
The Smart Techie
|27| February 2011
 COMPANY SPOTLIGHT
N Ramakrishnan
Mandate Chips & Circuits at a Glance
Domains: Design of AMS & Power
Semiconductor ICs
Verticals : Consumer, Mobile, Auto-
motive & Industrial Electronics
Locations : India, Singapore, Japan,
Hongkong and U.S.
Website: www.mandatecc.com
here is a word in
“T
the Chinese lan-
guage called weiji
(symbol ) which
is made up of two
characters - ‘wei’ denoting ‘risk’ and ‘ji’
denoting ‘opportunity’. “Our company
epitomizes this” says N. Ramakrishnan
(Ramki), President & CEO of Mandate
Chips and Circuits. “Mandate started op-
erations in the thick of the economic re-
cession two years ago and in this period,
we have focused on opportunities in the
area of power semiconductors and pio-
neered cutting edge designs to become a
strong player in this field” he adds.
Company Profile
Mandate (derived from Mixed, Analog,
Digital and Advanced Technology) is a
collaborative semiconductor product de-
velopment company. Its charter is to pro-
vide semiconductor engineering
solutions through an engagement model
that fosters collaboration as well as co-
creation. Mandate’s focus is in the area
of mixed signal and power management
semiconductors and it has strong back-
The Smart Techie
|28| February 2011
By ST Team
for Power with Collaboration
and Co-creation
ground and expertise in these domains.
Its team has good knowledge about
semiconductors for the consumer elec-
tronics, mobile telecomm and automo-
tive industry verticals and considerable
experience in designing products for the
same.
Privately held and ISO 9001:2008
certified, it has presence in India, Singa-
pore, Japan, Hongkong, and the U.S. and
its customer list includes leading hi-tech,
electronics and semiconductor compa-
nies, primarily from the Asia Pacific re-
gion. The company’s suite of offerings
consists of the following:
1. Project and Roadmap based Product
/ IP Development – New Designs
2. Sustenance and Maintenance of Ma-
ture Designs – example Derivatives /
Variants
3. Engineering Solutions with Value Ad-
dition – example Increase NPI (New
Product Introduction)
Mandate’s team of highly experienced
and motivated engineers and managers
are constantly striving for technological
Semiconductor Product Lifecycle Phases
INNOVATION
Prototype
Requirements
Specs Resolve patent
Test prototype
issues early
and fix, iterate
System
Circuit
Design
Layout Parameters
innovation and business excellence.
Being a cutting edge technology com-
pany, Mandate organizes customized
programs for its staff on a regular basis
to keep them abreast of the trends and
ahead of the curve.
Comprehensive Product Development
Mandate’s approach to semiconductor
product development is comprehensive
and holistic. It covers all the phases rele-
vant to the semiconductor product life-
cycle — from requirements to
obsolescence. Broadly, this comprises
the innovation, execution, maintenance
and support phases with several activi-
ties coming under each phase. Over the
years, its team has acquired skillsets and
capabilities to participate in any or all of
these phases. This unique aspect makes
Mandate an ideal partner for semicon-
ductor product development.
Mandate has also gained rich expe-
rience and valuable insights into design
methodologies and flows, processes, op-
erations, project management, cultural
MAINTENANCE &
EXECUTION
SUPPORT
New Version
& Upgrages
Engineering
Parameters
Support
Mass Production
and communications aspects of several
companies. These attributes are also em-
bedded into the product development
process as they are critical for success.
Unique Design Profile
The designs done by Mandate consist of
R & D as well as mainstream product de-
signs. These include chips in the areas of
DC-DC Converters (buck, boost and
buck-boost type), White LED Drivers,
LDOs, Battery Chargers, Power SoCs,
Brushless Fan Motor Drivers, Data Con-
verters, SERDES, LVDS, High Speed
Transceivers and the like.
Design &
Development Intellectual Property
Foundry EDA Tools
Product
Engg
Test & Packaging
Verification
Applications Academic/ Research
Support
Semiconductor Ecosystem
Mandate also ensures that its designs
comply with industry specific and spe-
cial requirements. For example the chips
it has designed for automotive electron-
ics have high reliability, low EMI emis-
sion and ability to function in stringent
environmental conditions (high tempera-
tures & extreme voltage variations).
Semiconductor Ecosystem
The semiconductor ecosystem comprises
components and entities that go into
transforming requirements into a semi-
conductor chip which eventually finds a
place in a system or product. Activities
related to this include design & develop-
ment, IP creation & validation, EDA tool
and foundry support, application support,
testing & verification, product engineer-
ing, packaging and industry / academic
research and support.
“With a flexible business model that
offers a variety of engagement options,
Mandate can blend seamlessly into the
semiconductor ecosystem to deliver
business benefits that lead to customer
success” says Ramki. “These differenti-
ating features have given Mandate added
visibility in the industry and are helping
forge new partnerships across several ge-
ographies” he adds.
Positioning
Mandate understands that customer re-
quirements are driven by business rather
than technology issues. The company is
positioned in the value chain in such a
manner that its relationships with suppli-
ers and partners lead to symbiotic en-
gagements. This has led to Mandate
having collaboration with an enviable list
of organizations comprising the who’s
who of the hi-tech, electronics, automo-
tive and semiconductor industries.
Knowledge of multiple EDA tool
flows, exposure to a range of processes
and technologies and association with
multiple foundries gives Mandate the
leverage to develop new Products and
IPs for customers, with quick turnaround
time. Going a step further, Mandate
leverages relationships with Tier1 / Tier2
Suppliers, Partners and OEMs (Original
Equipment Manufacturers) to enable ef-
ficient collaborative product develop-
ment for specific requirements. The
value addition in this case again trans-
lates directly into business benefits for its
customers.
OEM
Tier 1 Tier 2
(Subsystems, (ICs, Components
Blocks etc) etc)
Preferred
Partner
for
Development
Value Chain
More than Collaboration -
Co-creation
“Collaboration is a given with Mandate
and this has always been one of our key
value propositions” says Ramki. Man-
date’s approach to collaboration, how-
ever, is distinctly different. There is
involvement right from the requirements
gathering stage and it goes all the way to
the production stage and beyond, cover-
ing the entire gamut of the semiconduc-
tor product life cycle. Mandate is seen,
not just as a service provider but as an ex-
tension of the customer organization - a
reliable partner that can get under its skin
with the capability to innovate and pro-
vide solutions for its current and future
requirements.
“Mandate realizes that success lies in
leveraging on experiences to derive in-
sights that lead to improvements in the
nature of its interactions with Customers,
Suppliers and Partners. This has led
Mandate to imbibe a new paradigm
called Co-creation that sets it apart from
the competition. Mandate and the rele-
vant entities come together to facilitate
their individuals to participate in value
creation through personal engagements
and participation” explains Ramki.
Going Forward
“The last two years have been tough for
companies across the board including
semiconductor companies. Mandate
has weathered the storm and emerged
strong in the process” explains Ramki.
The economic situation has since im-
proved and emerging economies,
driven primarily by China and India,
are growing at a fast pace. The semi-
conductor market is poised for a period
of consolidation and growth. Device
convergence, alternative energy, af-
fordable and power efficient electronic
devices will augment growth and con-
tinue to be strong driving factors for the
semiconductor industry in the coming
years. Against this backdrop, Mandate
is well positioned, since it has carved a
niche in the domains that encompass
these driving factors. Also, Mandate’s
focus has been the Asia Pacific region
so far. However, now on a growth
mode, there are plans to expand into
U.S. and Europe. “This is the ‘Year of
the Rabbit’ - we want to capitalize on
this by growing ‘Leaps and Bounds’
says Ramki.
The Smart Techie
|29| February 2011

FEATURE By Eureka Bharali
INDIA
THE PRoMISING VISTA FoR
SEMICoNDUCToR
Typically semiconductor
years earlier,
firms have expertise on
25 India found its
designs with silicon but
first software de-
now the differentiation
sign center from
will be created through
the multi-national
softwares, device
player, Texas Instruments, which had
structures, system
a special eye on simple analog de-
sign. The operation started small, cre-
architectures
ating software to automate chip
design. Currently, it has become the
company’s largest R&D center out-
side the U.S., designing chips end-to-
end. Over the years many followed
suit and today, India is an R&D hub
for each of the semiconductor play-
ers including Intel, Qualcomm,
Broadcom and NXP, and electronic
design automation firms such as Men-
tor Graphics, Cadence and Synop-
sys. The country has come a long
way since then and there’s more for
it. “Typically semiconductor firms
have expertise on designs with silicon
but now the differentiation will be
created through softwares, device
structures, system architectures. In
fact, to cut the chip design cost there
would be embedded software au-
tomation and distributed model based
designs,” says Walden Rhines, CEO
Walden Rhines, CEO and
and Chairman, Mentor Graphics. In
Chairman, Mentor Graphics
this new paradigm, India stands to
gain. The country has always been
The Smart Techie
|30| February 2011
People here are not akin
to idea sharing. For in-
stance, it took me one
year to make my team
enthusiastically partici-
pate in brainstorming
sessions
Neeraj Paliwal, Vice President
and Country Manager,
NXP Semiconductors India
strong on software and with more
software creeping into the chip de-
signs, India’s competency is lever-
aged.
Initially, it was the low cost that
turned the chip industry on, now, as
Rhines says, “It is more about finding
the software rockstars for product
building in the opportune land.” Half
of the masters and 71 percent of the
PhDs in electrical engineering from
U.S. universities are foreign nation-
als. In 2000, the number of foreign
nationals who remained in the U.S.
after they finished their doctorates
was about 97 percent. However,
while contributing to the companies
and the U.S. economy, these highly
educated graduates must wait for
years for their green cards, putting
their lives in limbo. As a result, there
has been a massive transition since,
and today, a number of foreign na-
tionals with PhDs are increasingly
heading back to their own mother-
lands, especially to China and India.
Thumbs Up to more Startups
The author of ‘The World is Flat’,
Thomas Friedman, once while rea-
soning out the importance of the high-
tech foreign workers for a more
competitive America said, “Not only
do our companies need them now, be-
cause we’re not training enough engi-
neers, but they will, over time, start
many more companies and create
many more good jobs than they would
possibly displace.” Silicon Valley is a
living proof of that. But those high-
tech rockstars are steadily returning
back, enhancing the product talent
pool, who are being readily absorbed
by the MNCs, with India being the
best place. Rhines pinpoints, “It was
always preferable to hire Indian engi-
neers than their Chinese counterparts
as, if you hire and let 5-6 Chinese en-
gineers work in a process for six
months, they would spin off and start
their own company. Now, a similar
trend is catching up among Indians
too.” This implies a chain of product
startups lining up in the near future.
And why not? After all, as Rajiv
Kapur, Managing Director, Broadcom
India says, “The revenue per em-
ployee is the highest in the country
compared to anywhere in the world.”
It’s an encouraging statistic, for any-
one to start-up in India. In fact, for
those who are mulling on a product
start-up in the semiconductor realm,
there’s more good news. The industry
is rapidly climbing up, for instance, it
grew 15.6 percent in 2009 while the
global market shrunk by 11 percent.
The Product Challenge
The positive vibes linger all around,
however, when it is about product-
centric strategies, a number of chal-
lenges haunt the country. “There are
no offbeat product innovation from
Indian designers which could be rec-
ognized worldwide,” says John Coo-
SiliconIndia-Mentor Graphics panel discussion: Semiconductors: Emerging Technologies and New Markets for the next decade.
Why India can't be ignored? Part of the siliconindia-Mentor Graphics Leadership Awards for the Embedded/VLSI industry, held in
Decemeber, 2010 in Bangalore, which saw over 150 leaders of the semicondiuctor industry participating.
ley of Deepchip.com. The country, it- nurtured. “Personally, to highlight
self, does not entertain product start- their knowledge VLSI designers
ups, considering the IT services tag should go more online and online in
attached to it. Easy and quick revenue this phrase does not connotate being
models are appreciated more, and socially active in Twitter and Face-
considering product models take time book, rather more on tech websites
to prove its revenue generation poten- and forums,” says Cooley. More so-
tial, the funds too do not comes its cial participation, wherein they can
way. The discouragement at times
Technology has reached
forces many product firms to get a
a stage, where it is
portfolio change and end up providing
touching more people in
IT services.
India than earlier and to
India has poor infrastructure, low
an extent that even
literacy levels for many people, and
grandmothers have
labor inflexibilities. So, high-volume
started apprising on
manufacturing has not taken off yet in
business models.
a big way and adding onto it are cer-
tain typical traits of the Indian work-
force, which fails them to showcase
their innovative streaks even within
companies as employees, let alone as
entreprenurs. The key to innovation is
brainstorming of ideas, however,
“People here are not akin to idea shar-
ing. For instance, it took me one year
to make my team enthusiastically par-
ticipate in brainstorming sessions on
‘how to ensure more product innova-
tion in India’,” says Neeraj Paliwal,
Vice President and Country Manager,
NXP Semiconductors India.
Nurturing the Innovative Streak
Innovation is just on the edge. The
Srini Rajam, Chariman & CEO,
creative streaks of the Indian de-
Ittiam Systems
signers are yet to be recognized and
The Smart Techie
|31|February 2011

actively suggest solutions to peers
worldwide, will benefit them to get a
better know-how of the market. At the
industry level, the leaders of the prod-
uct firms are also providing a helping
hand to encourage the innovation
within their Indian workfrorce.
As the Mentor Graphics Chief
maintains, “The product strategy is
all about getting them more involved.
For instance, creating an analog de-
sign tool, with bits of the project
spread all across the globe including
a part of it in India. This wouldn’t
create any interest in the Indian cen-
ters. They look for more challenging
roles and hence, when we entrust the
entire tool production process to the
Indian centers and the brainstorming
goes beyond limit.”
This tactic has shown valuable re-
sults. The best example would be
NXP’s low-powered integrated circuit
- NXP MPT612 IC, entirely built by
the India team. The circuit ensures 98
percent efficient power extraction in
Solar PV Applications. The team
joined hands with independent design
The revenue per employee
is the highest in the
country compared to any-
where in the world.
Rajiv Kapur, Managing Director,
Broadcom India
The Smart Techie
|32| February 2011
Personally, to highlight
their knowledge, Indian
VLSI designers should go
more online on tech
websites and forums
John Cooley, Deepchip.com
houses and also indulged in informal
peer reviews, as well as innovation
concept budget and protection via
patents and non disclosure agree-
ments. Such feats of innovation have
been shown time and again. Another
instance of a great feat of innovation
would be when Texas Instruments’
India center delivered the first mobile
phone ever built entirely in India, TI’s
AR7 DSL modem. The modem is on a
single chip, digital signal processor
(DSP) - based digital media proces-
sors and affordable motor control
DSPs. Several of these single chip
mobile phone technologies are being
designed today in 45 nanometer (nm)
processes across the world.
Point of Focus for the Firms in
India
While innovation plays a great role to
succeed in the semiconductor realm, the
targeted market also plays a big role, es-
pecially India – the land of diverse prob-
lems. Firms in the semiconductor space
were more inclined to reach out to the
international market, sorting the prob-
lems globally. Due to this approach,
they missed out on a potential revenue
growth. Now, the strategy has changed,
as for the firms, the new mantra is solve
the local problems first, and later, go on
to address similar international prob-
lems. Semiconductor companies in
India are on trials
to exploit the com-
plexities and
achieve the remark-
able 35 percent annual
cost reduction – a standard
set by the high tech industry itself.
Currently, in India the next phase
in semiconductor market revolves
around one fact – create solutions to
make the Indian consumers’ life easy
as the semiconductor consumption
will thrive incessantly. Paliwal, pin-
points at the China situation 10 years
back. “Their consumption of semicon-
ductors was around five percent of
global production. Today, it is close to
20 percent,” he says, while eyeing the
statistics that China accounts for a fifth
of revenue for all semiconductor play-
ers. Paliwal expects a similar con-
sumption road for India, which will
explode in the next decade.
To explain further, Srini Rajam,
the Founder of Ittiam Systems men-
tions a small instance, which high-
lights the intensity at which
technology is spreading across India.
“My mom wanted to talk to her grand-
daughter in U.S. As soon as I handed
over the phone, her face had an an-
noyed look. Why? Because she didn’t
want to make a mere phone call rather
a video call through Skype and see the
new activity of the 11 month old kid,”
says Srini. The next retort from her on
the same scene took away all his pride
as she said, “You consider yourself as
a technology innovator, but see, there’s
hardly anything you have done to
make my life easy and that too which
can be availed free.” The very next
moment, Rajam was out of sight but
he did understand – ‘Technology has
reached a stage, where it is touching
more people in India than earlier and
to an extent that even grandmothers
have started apprising on business
models’. Hence, the next turn in semi-
conductor has to be – solutions which
are “Made in India, Made by India and
Made for India”.
 Technology: By Alok Mehrotra
The author is Managing Director, Magma Design Automation
The Indian Semiconductor Market
Trends to Watch in 2011
he Indian semiconductor indus-
T
try represents every aspect of
the semiconductor lifecycle—
from cutting edge electronic
design automation (EDA) and
very large scale integration (VLSI) design
companies to an evolving manufacturing
ecosystem. The semiconductor industry has
grown into a prominent player in the past
couple of decades and has been a vital con-
tributor to the nation’s economy. In 2011,
emerging trends in semiconductor design
and growing demand for electronic products
within India give reason for additional opti-
mism about the future of the India semi-
conductor industry.
The Smart Techie
|34| February 2011
In 2010, virtually every SoC design is a
mixed-signal design –– a mixture of digital
and analog functions. For example, the
modern high-end cell-phone has a single,
large, high-performance mixed-signal IC
containing the bulk of the analog and digi-
tal functionality combined with a special RF
chip. Mixed-signal design has become
much more challenging, yet the evolution
of a true mixed-signal solution has been rel-
atively slow.
Existing EDA companies, tradition-
ally specializing in digital design, have
tried to address the problem by purchas-
ing existing, mature analog solutions.
The result is a disparate collection of
point tools not well-suited for integra-
tion. For example, analog and digital
tools use different databases, crippling
communication between the two do-
mains. Digital and analog design teams
still largely work in isolation with little
or no visibility into what the other team
is doing.
Because these EDA companies “bolt
together” existing analog and digital tool
suites, they fail to provide an optimal
way to handle the complexity of imple-
menting large analog, digital and mixed-
signal IP blocks.
Further, the majority of analog tools
were conceived in the early- and mid-
1990s, and the underlying architectures
of these tools were never intended to
support the sophisticated demands of a
mixed-signal design environment. As a
result, designers are limited to capturing
and simulating transistor-level schemat-
ics. Thus, analog ICs are still largely full
custom and are painstakingly crafted by
hand. In addition to being expensive,
time-consuming and prone to error, this
transistor-level design style does not
allow an existing design to be easily
transferred to a new foundry or
process/technology node.
As the EDA industry closes out
2010, a better solution for mixed-signal
design is on the horizon. It has to hap-
pen. As analog content grows and digi-
tal design sizes increase, a fully
integrated, automated analog and digital
design environment will be required for
the growing complexity of mixed-signal
SoC designs.
Digital implementation is another
area that will experience significant
change. Solutions that can automatically
handle more than 10 million cells flat,
pushing the practical capacity of EDA
solutions beyond their current 1- 2 mil-
lion cells, will emerge. These solutions
will intelligently partition and distribute
the design blocks across a network of
servers and then automatically re-syn-
chronize the design at major stages in the
flow. This will allow a designer to tackle
The improvements in mixed-signal design technology
will make it easier for India’s semiconductor industry
to meet the upsurge in demand for electronic
products that are more cost effective while offering
higher performance and lower power consumption.
a much larger design and still achieve
the same throughput –– in terms of cells
per day –– than they would using a tra-
ditional digital implementation solution
on a much smaller block.
Analog implementation will move
from fully hand-crafted to semi-auto-
mated. Analog optimization engines
will take process-independent specifica-
tions and automatically generate robust
devices with SPICE-accurate results.
They will also take into account intra-
chip random variations plus layout ef-
fects related to stress to produce
QuickFacts
While traditional PCs will re-
main the workhorse com-
puting platform for most of
the globe this year, Deloitte
predicts that more than 50
percent of computing de-
vices sold worldwide in 2011
will not be PCs - and will ex-
tend their lead over tradi-
tional PCs in 2012. Users are
bringing the latest shiny
gadgets to work and expect-
ing IT to support them. But
the lack of standardization
on these non-PC devices has
costly implications for the IT
department, according to
Deloitte.
layout-aware device sizes. Automated
device place-and-route capabilities will
further automate the overall analog de-
sign flow.
The improvements in mixed-signal
design technology will make it easier for
India’s semiconductor industry to meet
the upsurge in demand for electronic
products that are more cost effective
while offering higher performance and
lower power consumption.
In the past, India was a favorite des-
tination to outsource, we saw a spate of
companies off shoring their operations
to India to reduce development costs for
products sold outside India. These out-
sourced jobs have raised the income lev-
els of a large segment of the population
and is fuelling consumerism in India.
Today, the focus of many companies is
on producing products for growing
local markets.
In addition to boosting business for
large, established companies, rising de-
mands and growing markets for elec-
tronics applications is giving rise to new
opportunities for entrepreneurs. The
wireless sector is one such example,
where we are now starting to see many
players apart from established brands. It
is further enabled by the huge diversity
of India, which brings forth a wide
range of opportunities starting from the
entry level applications and going up to
high end sophisticated instruments.
In 2011, the combination of grow-
ing demand, the huge market potential
and new, automated capabilities for
mixed-signal design system could
lead to significant growth in India’s
semiconductor industry. This should
be welcome news for semiconductor
companies worldwide.
The Smart Techie
|35|February 2011
 TECHNOLOGY By Mitch Little

The author is Vice President - Worldwide Sales & Applications,

Microchip Technology acceptable performance is challeng- energy meters and many others. a wide variety of applications, rang-

T
ing for microcontroller providers, as Microchip has many innovative ing from meters to portable medical

Semiconductor Industry
low power and high performance are semiconductor products that are devices to thermostats to exercise
opposing forces. When more ad- helping designers to create these ap- equipment, while graphical displays
vanced process technologies are plications. Our eXtreme Low Power include everything from simple

outlook, New Development and opportunities used, Sleep currents increase. So,
low power development becomes
(XLP) PIC microcontrollers have the
industry’s lowest active and sleep
monochrome LCDs to full-color
WVGA user interfaces.
critical for the growth of these appli- power consumption, along with high Our mTouch portfolio of touch-
he industry was affected more severely in the last two years than ever cations. levels of integration in small pack- sensing solutions works in conjunc-
before. It has since recovered quite quickly, to counter that downturn, and Therefore, it is believed that a ages. This XLP technology allows tion with our vast microcontroller
has stabilized. In fact, the semiconductor industry has stabilized at a high good portion of the growth for semi- Microchip to adopt more advanced portfolio to enable everything from
run rate, with normal seasonal trends taking place, and there are a number conductor companies will come from processes, while keeping sleep leak- capacitive buttons and sliders, all the
of different perspectives as to the shipment level for 2011. My view is that energy-related and low-power tech- age currents low, which in turn re- way up to projected-capacitive touch
the world’s economies have settled into a low-growth mode globally, and that overall nologies, including applications in duces active power screens with multi-touch capabilities.
semiconductor industry shipments should be up roughly 5-10 percent for the year. the telecom, automotive, industrial consumption—providing the best of In some cases, we have integrated the
electronics and consumer electronics both worlds, in terms of the lowest peripherals for driving graphics dis-
markets. Another key area that is overall power consumption. plays and capacitive touch sensing
generating demand is the overall As for Human Interface, Microchip into a single microcontroller.
In India, the market forces will semiconductor product launched this growth of microcontroller-based em- has a broad portfolio of solutions that All-in-all, we will continue to sup-
reflect the rest of the world. With the year, and we will continue to see a bedded systems, and the microcon- include touch sensing, graphical dis- ply an extremely high level of techni-
growing globalization of the product- focus on display technologies that troller content within existing play and audio technologies. For ex- cal support, at all levels of the
development community, India will give us bigger, brighter and better embedded systems, which is being ample, Microchip has customer’s new-product development
continue to provide a huge base of display products in everything we in- driven by applications such as indus- microcontrollers that provide solu- cycle; helping them to reduce their
innovation and talent; adding to the terface with, from phones to tablets trial automation, medical equipment, tions for everything from simple seg- time to market, develop their products
international structure of the elec- to televisions. point-of-sale terminals, digital mented LCDs to rich graphical in a low-risk environment and lower
tronics community. They will con- The iPhone and iPad are exam- weighing scales, printers, three-phase displays. Segmented LCD is used in their total system cost.
tribute most to the global base; then ples of this. With fewer dollars being
they will add to their local infra- spent on consumer products, a high-
structure, connectivity and trans- quality user experience will be ex-
portation product developments. pected and demanded. Also, portable
India will focus a bit more on indus- electronics are increasing in sophis-
trialization than many other places tication. The computational horse-
around the world power is increasing. This puts a
That said, the Indian semicon- great demand on the power system.
ductor industry has grown into a Typically, these systems are battery
prominent player in the past couple tapped and vast opportunity for lo- powered. In order to provide a suffi-
of decades, and has been a vital con- cally made products for the non- cient application lifetime, the micro-
tributor to the nation’s economy. Ac- urban market, especially in verticals controller’s (MCU’s) power
cording to a joint report that was such as telecom and wireless appli- consumption must be reduced.
recently issued by the Indian Semi- cations. The growth of the mobile In terms of technology, the mar-
conductor Association and Frost & handset, consumer electronics and ket will continue to demand products
Sullivan, the Indian semiconductor telecommunications industries has with higher functionality and smaller
industry, following the global trend, contributed to the growing revenues form factors. Lower power con-
is set for tremendous growth, with of the electronics industry, and this, sumption yielding longer battery life,
sales expected to hit $8 Billion by the in turn, has helped the growth of the as well as more intuitive display tech-
end of 2011. Indian semiconductor industry. nologies, are other essential require-
India has great potential as a This year will look very much ments on semiconductor products.
semiconductor market, due to huge like this past year. This will be the To drive the growth of these ap-
domestic demand for electronics year of the Human Interface, in terms plications, power-system develop-
equipment. While the urban demand of how we interact with a variety of ment and advancement are
for electronic gadgets is a huge op- new end products. Low power will essential. However, lowering
portunity in itself, there is also an un- be the cornerstone of almost every power consumption while providing

The Smart Techie

|36| February 2011
 CAREER By Anshuman Ray
The author is Director - HR, Synopsys
EDA
Career
opportunities in
EDA stands for Electronic Design Automa-
tion. It helps to define what we mean for the
words behind those three letters, “EDA”:
 Electronic – anything electronic—from
computer chips, cellular phones, pace-
makers, controls for automobiles and
satellites to the servers, routers and
switches that run the Internet.
 Design – the part of the production cycle
where creativity, new ideas, ingenuity
and inspiration come to the fore. This is
also where designers try to model the be-
havior of their designs and analyze the
complex interactions of millions of con-
stituent parts in their designs to ensure
completeness, correctness and manufac-
turability of the final product. Why? Be-
cause it is difficult, expensive and
time consuming to “build it first
and fix it later.”
The Smart Techie
|38| February 2011
vides opportunities to pursue the path of Global Customer Base, Technology premier and most reputed institutions
Seasoned Technocrats (egg: Architects, momentum, Innovation, challenges have pursued their career in EDA In-
Scientists, Fellow) or a career in Techno- around “tech-nomics” and the rapidly dustry and blossomed into seasoned
Managerial ladder (egg: Senior Manager, changing landscape; the opportunity Leaders and the finest of Technocrats
Director, group Director or Vice Presi- space within EDA industry to nurture that world has known. Nothing is more
dents): leadership competencies is huge. This critical than DNA of the Human Capital
Technical ladder can grow them up includes Project Leadership, People for an EDA Company; as ‘per-capita’
to a Principal Engineer/ Product Archi- Leadership, Operations Leadership, productivity of talent has a huge bear-
tect. In this ladder the focus is on im-
pacting product towards the business
Cross Functional Leadership and
Strategic Leadership. Some of the key
ing on Business Excellence. A Senior
Business leader in an EDA Company
requirement. Visualize and align the competencies include Technical Skills, very aptly puts it as “the difference in
product with the future needs. Hiring & Staffing, Building Effective productivity levels between an average

Management Ladder can grow them teams, Project Management Skills, talent and the best talent in this industry
Automation – Automation is required
into people & process management; be- Planning Skills, Customer Focus, can be to the tune of 100 X.”
due to dramatic increase in complexity
sides technology management. In this Problem Solving, Timely Decision The unique challenges of this In-
that designers must tackle in electronics
path, focus is on managing teams to de- Making, Process Management, Inno- dustry coupled with the DNA of talent
today.
liver commitments towards technology vation Management, Drive for Results that this industry attracts; does offer a
EDA as a space offers opportunity to engage
or customers. and Change Management. compelling proposition to the pool of
in a cutting edge technology. The “increasing
The opportunity in R&D and Field The Industry is known for attracting stellar talent for developing career and
complexity” as world transitions from “ASIC
Organization helps talent to hone key the “Champion of the Champions”. It is achieving career goals. It goes without
to SOC”; the shrinking geometries of ICs, the
competencies that provides the desired known for providing career opportuni- saying that the Total Rewards extended
designer productivity coupled with chal-
trajectory to career aspirations. With a ties to the “brightest of the bright tal- to talent in this space is very attractive
lenges around “time to market”, ‘enhance-
backdrop of Global Companies, ent”! Several students from the world’s and extremely competitive.
ment of yield” and “reduction of costs”
challenges the best of the R&D talent.
Strategic partnerships assures our cus-
tomers meet their performance, cost, and
schedule goals. There are great opportunities
in the Field Organization that allows em-
ployees to actively engage and manage criti-
cal accounts at a Global, Strategic and
Territorial Level.
EDA is a highly niche area where the skill
set required is an esoteric combination of
electrical engineering, data structures and al-
gorithm, mathematics, programming and in-
creasingly knowledge of physics and
chemistry at sub-atomic levels. This industry
therefore requires mostly Electrical/Elec-
tronics Engineers (“hardware engineers”) and
Computer Science Engineers (“software en-
gineers”) who possess superior analytical
skills, logical ability, and programming skills
using C & C++. For a Fresh Engineer, the
EDA industry provides a great opportunity to
gain experience by
l. Develop programming skills.
2. Work with best of minds in the EDA in-
dustry.
2. Understand large Software systems &
product architecture.
After gaining certain years of experience
and required competencies, the industry pro-
 EVENT By Swikriti Singh EVENT By Shwetha Raghavan

Intelligent Business Insights

@ SiliconIndia Conference
usiness intelligence is a

SILICoNINDIA HERALDS THE MoBILE APPS BooM

@ MoBILE DEVELoPER CoNFERENCE
obile has grown be-
man, Founder and CEO at Divum, right
what is a smartphone now what it was
a few years back which is entirely
based on continuous and consumption
experience. “ The key considerations
while developing an App include map-
ping the genuine problem, a detailed
B comprehensive knowl-
edge of all of the fac-
tors that affect your
business such as your
customers, competitors, business
partners, economic environment,
and internal operations. To help or-
ganizations make effective and good
quality business decisions Sili-
conIndia organized the Business In-

M yond a gadget which

offers voice calls and
text messages, as it
today is a multipur-
pose little wonder in the hand, used for
a variety of things like gaming, video
calls, emails and entertainment. It is the
message and right experience is manda-
tory to convince the people as user ex-
perience is extremely important.
“Multiple platforms like Posting, Adop-
tion of New Technologies and Quality
Testing have been created to have mul-
tiple distribution channels, direct en-
research regarding any existing app as
the solution so that time is not wasted
in re-inventing, usage of a collabora-
tive model incase the model already
exists and flexibility to the feedback of
an app so that the consumer likes the
product,” said Rao.
telligence Conference on 22nd
January in Delhi.

Reporting for Business Insights

booming usage of these services that
has provided tremendous opportunities
for all the mobile application develop-
ers. This mobile application revolution
has also opened up business opportunity
in India both for developers, OEMs and
service providers.
The thought leaders and experts
from different domains of the present
mobile ecosystem had been brought to-
gether to share their knowledge and ex-
periences in the Siliconindia Mobile
Developer Conference. Although the
main focus of the conference was on
mobile application developers and tech-
nologists, it also aimed to help startups,
investors, mobile carriers, device man-
ufacturers to better understand the lat-
est technologies that will define the
mobile market of tomorrow. On the
same lines, the Nokia E7 was pre-
viewed for the first time in India at the
event.
As stated by Vaideeswaran Sethura-
gagement with the OEMs and content
owners as currently, developers are pri-
oritized before OEM operators,” he said
at the Siliconindia Mobile Developer
Conference held on 22 January 2011 in
bangalore
In the current times, the content
owners have been trying to have a tem-
plate which can be customized for any
kind of apps and the OEMs are being
continuously challenged by the devel-
opers. According to Gururaj Narayanan,
Project Manager, Teleca, the required
components to make a reality check on
the app economy are: Developers de-
veloping applications, Content
Providers, Web Experience on Apple
and the Development of Crash Proof
Applications.
An insight into different categories
of applications downloaded by the In-
dian consumers was provided by Sunil
Rao, Head- Forum Nokia India, where
he stressed upon the influencing factor
Parallely to the conference, tracks
named iPhone Track, Qt Track and
Andriod Track also took place. The
Android Track included the introduc-
tion to the Android programming and
operating environment, Building An-
droid Mobile Applications, Building
High Performance Applications, An-
droid Apps Testing – Overview of a
Structured Approach in an Agile En-
vironment and Dual Display for An-
droid Applications. The iPhone Track
included presentations on Effective
iPhone App Development, iPhone
User Interface Design Essentials and
Testing and Debugging Your iPhone
Application. Educative presentations
were made on the topics Introduction:
Deep dive into Nokia Technology
Platforms and Application develop-
ment, Qt App Development for Mo-
bile Platforms and Hands-on: How to
start Qt coding for Nokia Mobiles in
the Qt track.
Addressing the topic Building a BI
Solution Leveraging Analytical
Reporting, Ashok bhatt, Head-
Business Analytics, MapmyIndia.
com said, “The key important things
to keep in mind while preparing a
report is to know, Why to create and
use reporting for business insight,
what kind of reporting suits for var-
ious business purposes, what kind of
technology/platform to be used to
develop and deliver an effective and
useful report.” Ultimately it
provides maximum information
within a snapshot to understand the
blend of current maker scenario,
data informations, predictions and
technology.
Customer is the King!
“The trend is towards creating
greater visualization empowerment
to the Customer/end user through
availability of data in formats and
with greater levels of interactivity.
Finally, intuitiveness and ‘feel’ of
data is more important than accu-
racy and specificity,” said Vinay
Kumar, CEO, Datawise. “ Focused
Governance is the most critical ele-
ment for successful implementation
of Bi/DWH and this should not be
tacked at the end of BI/DWH Im-
plementation And speaking about
the mantra for business intelligence
Abhishek Jee, Director e-Gover-
nance, Domestic IT & Green IT,
NASSCOM said, “Plan Big – Take
Small Steps – Have capability to
Scale Up”. Venkatesh Babu Presi-
dent and CEO, Tiara Consulting
said, “Data Integration is the foun-
dation for building BI solutions that
enable informed decision making
capabilities for any organization.”
Audience Delighted
The conference, which was actively sup-
ported by Aditi Technologies, Tiara Con-
sulting, HCG and Lunexa, provided an
excellent opportunity to learn from ex-
perts. It was a rare opportunity for the BI
experts, developers to enhance their prac-
tical skills. Around 400 Business Intelli-
gence experts participated in the event.
“The conference attracted a lot of audi-
ence who was interested in this techno
managerial domain and that is always
good for the industry as a whole. It was
very encouraging to see some young
minds attending the conference and
showing interest in BI technology and so-
lutions,” said Sanjay Gupta, Entrepreneur,
Mentor and Incubator of MobiSolv.

The Smart Techie

|40| February 2011 The Smart Techie
|41|
February 2011
 TECHNOLOGY
The authors are Consultant and Senior Associate in the Innovation Group
at CognizantTechnology Solutions respectively.
C-D-EC Model
Consulting - Delivery - Extended
Consulting/Collaboration
Are you faced with questions like,
 ‘Consulting - Is it an Expense or
an Investment?’
 ‘Strategy - Is it just a jargon or a
savior?’
 ‘Roadmap – Is it on track as
planned? How do I do a health
check?’
Corporates over a period had invested
a lot of money in tools and technolo-
gies to cater to the needs of various de-
partments within their organization.
This has now started to eat into their
profits through licensing costs, main-
tenance costs, etc. Sometimes one has
lost count of the number of application
in the landscape, has no clue what a
particular application is for, who is
using it and why it was needed in the
first place? The impact of this has be-
come even more evident especially
during the recession period as the IT
budgets became slim and expectations
from the top management to cut costs
increased. The CIO now needs to
strategize IT spends to manage costs
within the budget. This paper tries to
address where the CIO can start and
how to leverage the services provided
by various IT service providers.
Recession hit Industry:
During recession, quite a few Corpo-
rates had employed IT consultants to
increase their productivity and cut
costs. They achieved this by trying to
The Smart Techie
|42| February 2011
By Jayakumar Rajaretnam & KrishnaKumar Subramanian
get a neutral third party view of where
they were and what they needed to do
next to sustain themselves during re-
cession. These corporates were prima-
rily looking at consolidation and/or
optimization of their existing setup
and re-org in some cases.
Situation in the IT Services indus-
try:
IT service providers realized the
need for value added services in the
market and forayed into the consult-
ing services spectrum. This was not
set up just to help the clients come
out of recession but also sustain
themselves during the recession. A
problem to note here is that the con-
sulting and delivery are two separate
arms inside the same organization.
No doubt, there are pros & cons to
this setup.
Let’s ask the question, “Can Con-
sulting survive another recession, if
it were to happen in the near term?”
The answer would be consulting
might not survive as well as it did in
the last recession as most of the com-
panies would now have already or
just about gone through a fairly large
consolidation and optimization exer-
cise. So in order to survive the next
recession, consulting will now have
to start looking at new avenues
through which it can find in-roads
into their clients and keep the con-
sulting arm from taking a hit.
The Solution:
Typically there is a strategy phase and
an implementation phase. The miss-
ing piece is a continual monitor-
ing/improvement phase. While
consulting takes care of the strategic
piece and delivery takes care of the
implementation, “Extended consult-
ing” can take care of continual mon-
itoring/improvement.
To sustain the consulting industry
in the long run, a strong link between
the consulting and delivery arm needs
to be created now. The result of this
link would be the C-D-EC (Consult-
ing-Delivery-Extended consulting/col-
laboration) model. The advantage here
is twofold. One, it helps the consult-
ants re-look at their existing frame-
work and build better frameworks.
Two, a minor tweak to the original rec-
ommendation based on user feedback
can go a long way in terms of user
buy-in and satisfaction levels.
If consulting and delivery is done
by the same vendor, initial homework
can be done in-house by letting the
consulting team interact with the de-
livery team. This will enable the con-
sultants to study what was carried out
and come up with tweaks before they
can go back to the client and make
amendments to their initial recom-
mendations.
C-D-EC (Consulting-Delivery-Ex-
tended Consulting/Collaboration)
model
Consulting models followed by organ-
izations globally when mapped to a
six-sigma methodology would indi-
cate that it only addresses a portion of
it. When the delivery team completes
the implementation, we can say 80%
of DMAIC methodology has been ad-
dressed.
C-D-EC model is based on the
lines of six-sigma and addresses the
complete DMAIC methodology. The
engagement starts with the consulting
phase (Define-Measure-Analyze) to
understand and define the client’s
problem, walk-through their land-
scape, measure (quantify) the bottle-
necks, and analyze the findings by
base-lining each identified parameter.
End result would be the typical rec-
ommendations and implementation
roadmap. When the delivery team
completes the implementation, we can
say that the Improve phase has been
addressed.
What we have seen till now is what
is being followed in the Industry as of
today. The Control phase is either left
out completely or addressed in parts
through a maintenance & support pro-
gram. The problem with addressing
the control phase through maintenance
& support is that, it takes time to real-
ize the complete benefit of the invest-
ment made. For example, the support
team can take a few months to just sta-
bilize and familiarize themselves with
the environment. This is because the
development team normally does not
end up as the support team. Hence, on
an average it takes anywhere between
four to five months for the support

team to figure out possible areas for
enhancement.
Let’s see how bringing the con-
sulting team back, post-implementa-
tion can reduce this time lag.
Extended Consulting:
The consulting team is brought back
to study the gaps, understand how
the users are interacting with the
new setup, collect their feedback
and propose an Optimize & Sustain
strategy. This could be as simple as
tweaking the processes/recommen-
dations proposed initially or bring-
ing in a completely new perspective
like a collaboration that could take
the setup to a completely new level.
Benefits of CDEC over CD
 ‘Ability to Re-assess and re-
align the roadmap in large deals,
especially roadmaps which are
two years and above
 ‘Ability to fine tune the pro-
posed solution keeping the cur-
The Smart Techie
|44| February 2011
BUSINESS By Chandramouli Kundagrami
The author is Lead - Product Strategy, Finacle, Infosys Technologies
components of this downplayed ver-
sion are given by the ACUTE
methodology.
ACUTE (Analyze, Compare and
gather User feedback to Trigger
Delivering Return
Enhancement)
Analyze
The setup, post implementation is
on Capital (ROC)
studied at a high level to check for
completeness and accuracy with
Through Banking Innovation
which the implementation has been
done. This is purely from a techni- Innovation and Return on Capital (ROC)
cal perspective. In a research report on the innovation strategy and practices of European banks, the
European Financial Management Association defines innovation as “a new idea or
Compare method, which creates value for the customer or the company itself.” On another
Details collected in the analyze note, for a bank, ROC is arguably the most important measure of business value.
phase is compared against the rec- Aside from being a key expectation of investors, a healthy ROC is usually a sign of
ommendations. Gaps are identified efficiency, productivity and customer retention. ROC is indeed a proxy indicator of
with root cause and impact of the the value created by an innovation project.
same. It would be an added advan-
tage to interact with the develop- How Meaningful Innovation Can Strengthen ROC
ment team(s) here. The realization of ROC and other secondary business drivers like efficiency and
productivity, among others has become elusive on account of tough environmental
User Feedback conditions characterized by:
User feedback is collected on key  Slow recovery from the global financial crisis for banks running in the ‘normal’
rent market situation in mind

parameters like usability, productiv- business mode
 Low customer confidence, resulting in lower retail business and investment
‘Consultants get an in-road back
ity and user-friendliness. Only the
 Accelerated change and stringency in regulatory requirements
into the client’s organization to
actual users will be part of this
 Rapid escalation in the expectations of Gen-Next consumers
look for new business opportu-
phase.
nities
 ‘Sustain a long-term relationship
Trigger Enhancement Innovation, which revolutionized the face of banking in the past, now has a very im-
Findings from Compare phase and portant role to play in the alleviation of these issues. By accelerating product and
Framework for Extended Con-
user feedback are studied and alter- service delivery, improving customer engagement, enabling quick adaptation to
sulting
nate solutions, tweaks to the earlier changing compliance mandates and fulfilling higher customer expectations, inno-
Having brought the consulting team
recommendations/processes wher- vation can help banks meet these challenges and differentiate themselves to get
back in, questions like where should
ever required is drafted. through a phase of intense consolidation within the industry.
one start, how should we go about
It is not hard to see the salutary impact of innovation on ROC and drivers of busi-
doing this, can we follow the same
Conclusion ness value. For instance, customer experience innovation improves retention; prod-
methodology, will arise. One cannot
“Who does it, does not matter. Is it done, uct innovation improves cross-sales and process innovation improves the efficiency
follow the same methodology as it
is what that matters”. In today’s sce- and productivity of the bank as well as its customers. Small wonder that banks are
will be an overload and a down-
nario, this model is a win-win for both increasingly looking to invest in innovation to not only survive in the short run, but
played version is required. Key
the consultants and the clients. emerge as leaders over the long term.
Let’s take a closer look at how innovation can positively impact two key drivers of
banking ROC:
 Customer Delight
 Channel Experience
Innovation to Create Customer Delight
Customer delight – a primary contributor to ROC and business value - helps
banks acquire and retain customers. On the flip side, a bank needs a base of loyal
The Smart Techie
|45|
February 2011
customers that it can proceed to delight
and ultimately convert into advocates.
This sets in motion a cycle of higher
profitability, because it is well understood
that it is much more profitable to service
existing customers than chase new ones.
Innovation creates customer delight
by improving product relevance and
transparency, customer empowerment
and choice, as well as banking reach, all
of which make a great user experience.
The following examples are amply illus-
trative:
 Innovations in GPS based technology
and RFID enable banks to pinpoint
the current location and activity of
their customers and leverage that
knowledge to deliver context-relevant
messages.
 Innovation in analytics help banks un-
derstand their customers better and
gain deeper insight into their needs.
Armed with information about indi-
vidual customers including their pro-
file, preference, community and
affiliation, banks propose targeted
products and services to each, based
on the current context of the customer.
What’s more, this deeper understand-
ing of customers can also be applied
to a broader, holistic context to derive
long term advantage by way of re-
peated right-sales, deeper customer
engagement and advocacy.
 Innovative personal financial tools
make it possible for individuals to
learn more about products and serv-
ices of interest, at a pace and time of
their liking. If these tools, which are
usually available online, can also be
made available to customers at points
of purchase, that could further im-
prove customer convenience and the
bank’s cross-sell rate.
 Agile and flexible systems support
product innovation so that the right
product, at the right price and in the
right package can be offered to cus-
tomers at the right time. Garanti Bank,
Turkey offers Flexi Card, which per-
mits customers to determine 10 pa-
rameters including interest rate,
The Smart Techie
|46| February 2011
reward rate, card fee, campaigns, re-
demption type, and card design, is a
good example of personalized prod-
uct innovation.
Thinking Out-of-Box with Channels
Few bankers will contest the fact that the
emergence of new age channels has often
been deemed an overt expression of ‘de-
finitive innovation’ in banking. Channel
innovation has created immeasurable
business value by improving productiv-
ity, lowering costs and enhancing the ef-
ficiency of channel infrastructure. For
instance, several banks in the Finacle-
EFMA survey reported using ATMs and
self-service kiosks to deliver a wider
range of auxiliary services, from bill pay-
ments to loans, even to those without a
card. Bankinter improved its customer
satisfaction ratings and online product
sales by providing a video-call facility to
Internet banking customers using which
they could resolve queries, complete
transactions and even close deals.
Despite the success of banking chan-
nel innovation, there is much room for
improvement in future initiatives. When
channel innovation is deployed opti-
mally, it can deliver scale, reach and busi-
ness value at no additional cost.
1. Channels must be nonintrusive, yet
within reach of customers when needed.
Customer delight fades fast in the face of
pushiness.
2. Different channels must be leveraged
differently, in sync with the manner in
which customers transact over each, and
only relevant information or services
must be delivered. For instance, banking
services rendered over in-store display
terminals must focus on providing basic
account information and other commu-
nication that may be important within a
shopping context; such terminals are not
suitable for providing investment advice.
Another example is that of the unbanked,
whose requirements are very different
from those of the affluent; it is important
that alternate channels factor in these dif-
ferences if they are to deliver an optimal their peers’ opinion instead. Since this as voice recognition or fingerprinting use of innovative biometric technol-
experience to either segment. Equally, applies to banking and financial services can shorten the authentication process ogy for customer identification is a
channels must offer a fallback option to as well, banks can ill afford to ignore so- and eliminate the need for user names further step in this direction.
users to seek human assistance at any cial media. By taking a creative approach and passwords, which are susceptible to
time during the transaction. Hence, a to channel strategy, they can harness the theft. Hence, going forward, authentica- Summary
rural ATM kiosk must be able to render power of this medium to their advantage. tion of an Internet banking user should Maximizing ROC is high on the
voice-based assistance in the local lan- For that, they must enable their channel be possible with a swipe on a fingerprint agenda of banks. Several value-dri-
guage and non-branch channels must infrastructure to connect directly to vari- reader attached to a laptop, and a mo- vers such as efficiency, productivity
offer the comfort of voice or video chat ous popular social platforms, so that cus- bile banking user must be recognized by and customer stickiness link back to
with a bank employee so that their less tomers can immediately follow up on an voice. This also increases the security ROC. Innovations that rejuvenate
tech-savvy users can simply speak to interesting new banking service that aspects of the authentication process the channel experience and make for
someone when required. they’ve just come across by discussing it customer delight play a defining
Linked to the above point, banks within their communities. The facility to 6. Newer channels including mobile, role in optimizing the drivers of
must deploy channel intelligence to em- obtain timely advice from peer groups TV, VOIP phones and kiosks can be fur- business value. That said, to put in
power customers and thereby raise their while an idea is still “hot” will enable ther leveraged to create ubiquitous but place a cohesive innovation strategy,
financial decision making skills. Finan- customers to decide faster, and in all like- unobtrusive reach. is critical indeed. While laying
cial tools such as comparators and simu- lihood, improve the banks’ chances of down their vision for innovation,
lators can help customers understand the closing the deal. 7. Last but not least, channel innova- banks’ senior management must en-
difference between competing products tion must also focus on making trans- sure ground-level support by way
or the impact that a certain investment 5. Technological innovation must fur- actions absolutely secure through data of, employee training and a collabo-
would have on their overall portfolio. ther improve channel automation and encryption or the provision of multi- rative partner network in addition to
This type of support is especially needed ensure that customers are confronted factor and other sophisticated forms robust technology infrastructure.
by older or less financially savvy users with the least amount of clutter. An ap- of authentication. Particular care must This is the way to innovation suc-
who might be acting independently for plication that immediately comes to be taken to ensure that public chan- cess – the kind that strengthens
the first time. mind is in the area of authentication. In- nels such as in-store kiosks are not ROC and builds a sustainable dif-
Knowledge about the channel be- novative authentication measures such vulnerable to attack by fraudsters. The ferentiator for the business.
havior of different customer segments
must also be used to reward them by way
of higher reward points for non-branch
transactions or higher interest rates for
fixed deposits booked online.
3. User experience on alternate channels
must be multi-channel enabled, that is, it
must not vary drastically from one chan-
nel to another, and the information ac-
quired by one must be ported seamlessly
to the rest. For example, navigation in the
mobile banking site must be consistent
with that on the Internet pages, and it
should be possible to complete an inter-
rupted ATM transaction through the con-
tact centre without having to start at the
beginning.
4. Channel innovation cannot be purely
technology driven; an innovative chan-
nel strategy is as necessary. Today, social
media is a strong influence in any kind
of decision making. People don’t take
company sponsored communication
about a product at face value; they seek
 TECHNOLOGY By Kongkon Dutta
The author is Technical Lead, Ness Technologies
into a machine which comprises of a
couple of virtual CPU thereby increas-
ing the resource utilization. Similarly
the physical available memory in the
system can also be virtualized.
To virtualize this we need to have
some software which controls the hard-
ware rather than the Computer Operat-
ing System taking complete control of
the hardware resources. And this piece
of software has to sit in between your
Operating System and Hardware. In
modern computer science terminology
they are called as hypervisor.
If you look back in the history IBM
had come up with the first industry
standard hypervisor way back in 1960s.
They have CP/CMS operating system
which has an extra layer of software
which sits in between the hardware and
the operating system. IBM AIX has
LPAR and DLAR based logical parti-
tioning that enabled logical partitioning
of the storage.
In modern times, we have hypervi-
system. It is the Host system that as-
signs parts of the available hardware re-
sources to the virtual machine.
VMware, the commercial virtual-
ization solution, is an example of full
virtualization. Paravirtualization is pro-
vided by Xen, User-Mode Linux
(UML) and others.
Too many products
In recent time since everyone wants to
be in the same space, different compa-
nies have created different solutions ad-
dressing the similar problem if not the
same problem. To name a few are
VMWare has a bunce of products that
can be used to virtualize the hardware
infrastructure.
ESX is one of the main component
in this regard. ESX is a hypervisor
which controls thehardware resources.
And there are Operating Systems(OS)
on top of it. Similarly we have Open
Source Xen community. Xen is an open
source server virtualization solution.
in 1993. And since then the popular
XenServer become Citrix XenServer.
And the good thing that Citrix did is,
they made Xen opensource. After Xen
become open source Oracle started
building up their own front end man-
agement infrastructure to work with the
Xen Hypervisor. Oracle picked up the
same backend Xen community source
and build up a web based Java GUI to
monitor and manage the Xen Server,
they call it as Oracle VM Manager. In
case of Citrix the management part is
done by a desktop GUI component,
whereas in case of Windows this is
done by Host machine. Using both the
GUI based Xen Server Manager we can
connect to multiple Xen Servers or use
multiple VMs in side a single Xen
Server. Then there is VirtualBox from
Sun, which is again another software
that provide provisioning virtual ma-
chine like VMWare Player.
Microsoft has also followed the
trend and come up with their own hy-
manage Windows Servers. The best
part of VirtualBox is that they try to run
the guest code natively on the host
processor as far as possible. This works
well for guest OS as long as we use the
user mode code running in ring 3 of
Intel architecture, but when it comes to
privileges instructions that run in ring 0
they are intercepted by the hypervisor,
and fools the processor as if the in-
structions are running in ring 1 instead
of ring 3.
The latest entrant in this space is the
Red Hat supported and Linux Kernel
community back uped KVM, the Linux
Kernel Virtual Machine. Don’t get con-
fused with the older KVM switch
which means Keyboard, Video, Mouse.
KVM is the Linux kernel (from 2.6.20
version) provided full virtualization in-
frastructure. KVM supports native vir-
tualization using the advance
virtualization hardware support on the
processor. In case of Intel it is Intel VT-
x and in case of AMD it is AMD-V.

Server & I/o Virtualization

sor from the pioneer VMWare, and Citrix has bought Xen sometime back pervisor software called HyperV to (To be continued in next issue)
they are the guys who shown the new
world the power of virtualization and

Vs Cloud Computing virtual resources. VMWare popularize

the concept of virtual hardware and op-
erating system. VMWare has a soft-
here is a new buzz word in The Myth ware called VMWare Workstation

T the corporate community

called “Cloud Comput-
ing”. Every company now
wants to be on the Cloud
9 by leveraging the advantages of
Cloud Computing. But not many
know what Cloud Computing is and
how it is different from Virtualization.
For an average non-geek person cloud
computing is still a cloudy concept. In
a brief manner, Virtualization means to
virtualize your resources. What does
this mean? This simply means that in-
stead of having physical resources one
ought to have virtual resources. In
computing terms, resources include
CPU, memory and I/O infrastructure;
be it USB or TCP/IP based Network
Connectivity or Serial Com Port con-
nections to name a few.
Cloud computing and Virtualization is
not the same. They address different as-
pects of provisioning Cloud services.
When we talk about Virtualization we
mean the hardware aspect of it and that
means to virtualize the hardware re-
sources whereas Cloud Computing is
more about the software aspects of it
and how to provide software solutions
by utilizing the Cloud.
Here most of the research is going
on Automation and Web Service areas.
Hardware Virtualization
What is hardware virtualization? It’s
basically about how we see our hard-
ware resources. Virtualization means
virtualizing the physical resources you
have in your system. For instance, we
can virtualize a single CPU machine
(VM Player 3.1 also has this capabality
build-in) using which we can create a
virtual machine.
So, what is a virtual machine? A
virtual machine is a software object
which simulates as a real computer
system by sitting inside a real operat-
ing system in a real hardware. For ex-
ample, lets consider a simplistic
scenario. You can have a Linux Fedora
Guest VM in VMWare Player inside a
Windows XP Host machine. Does this
Host and Guest words sounds confus-
ing to you? The Host machine is the
one which has the real access to the
hardware or the base operating system
and Guest is the one that runs inside
VMWare Player as a virtual machine.
The virtual machine does not have real
access to the computer hardware in the

The Smart Techie

|48| February 2011
LEADERSHIP
RECoGNIzING
LEADERSHIP
Vishwas Mahajan, Former CEO, Compulink & member
of Senior Management, Glodyne Technoserve
M
ost of us could bring to
mind someone we think of
as a good leader and we
could even describe certain charac-
teristics they exhibit, such as being
charismatic, inspiring, driven and so
on. Are these characteristics enough
on their own and do they make a
leader successful? Life generally re-
quires us to take a certain amount of
risk, for some people more so than
others. In certain businesses risk tak-
ing may be seen as more desirable
than in others. But what makes one
leader take a calculated risk when
nine out of ten others would walk
away?
Vishwas Mahajan, Former CEO,
Compulink and member of Senior
Management Glodyne shares his
opinion on the issue and says,
“When you challenge status quo,
when you think you can go where no
one has gone before, it’s about risk.”
It’s not only the leaders at top hier-
archy of the organization who
demonstrates leadership and take
risk but even a customer care execu-
tive who’s at the bottom of the hier-
archy demonstrates leadership in his
own way while giving out solutions
to customers. Risk taking is leader-
ship’s attribute and ability to allow
people to take decisions might lead
to company’s growth, knowing some
people may fail. “Leaders should
support people under them by giving
The Smart Techie
|50|February 2011
RISK
By Shruti Ajitsaria
them the freedom of doing things the
way they think is right, not the way
others ask them to do because some-
times the person in the particular de-
partment knows his job better than
the one at higher level who orders
him,” says Beerud Seth, Co-Founder
and CEO, SMS Gupshup. Hiring
versatile employees in the organiza-
tion rather than a specialized one
sometimes goes in the favour of the
company because in scarcity they
can take up other roles as well as the
situation demands.
On the same lines, Ajit Balakr-
ishnan, Founder and CEO, Red-
iff.com relates that managing or
supervising others is a big risk. A
young person who joins the organi-
zation often succeeds by the virtue
of his own contribution. For them
moving up from being a personal
contributor to a first line supervisor
is the biggest challenge, where you
don’t do things yourself but manage
others.”
Leadership and risk go hand-in-
hand at some point in the organiza-
tion. It’s an opportunity at hand and
at each phase of leadership one has
to take decisions on their own irre-
spective of against others’ whims
and wishes. As the computer scien-
tists Admiral Grace Hopper had once
said, “If it’s a good idea, go ahead
and do it. It is much easier to apolo-
gize than it is to get permission.”
MANAGING THE
MoST TALENTED
By Anonya Roy
very organization desires to hire
E very talented and promising em-
ployees. Now when you say tal-
ented, the question comes how do you
recognize their talent and make most out of
it? During the hiring process, everyone who
comes on board does so because he/she has
some merit or talent. However, as they enter
the work environment, it does not take time
for a manager to spot who is truly talented.
Now that you know the team you are
managing is comprised of both talented and
somewhat less talented people. The ques-
tion arises how do you manage the most tal-
ented, and inspire the somewhat less
talented to be as motivated. There are chal-
lenges in managing both the groups but the
hard work of management goes in manag-
ing and retaining the most talented. Why we
stress on the most talented is because this is
where the ‘Paretos’s Law’ comes into play,
which says 20 percent of the people in your
organization do 80 percent of the work. So
to nurture that 20 percent, who form the
most talented group, is crucial for you as a
manager.
So what is it that you need to do with
the so called talented bunch? Once you
have recognized the talent, you need to col-
laborate with the other managers to accept
their talent and listen to what they have to
say. Talented people have a constant need
to grow and as a manager you can encour-
age this need of theirs to make them feel
valued. They also want to be abreast of the
happenings in the field, so increase their at-
tendance to conferences and summits, and
have them write journal papers.
Bipin Shah, Chairman &
CEO, Kovair Software
Bipin Shah, Chairman and CEO, Ko-
vair Software says that talented people get
bored very easily. He adds that to keep
them from getting bored, talented people
need to be given challenging assignments,
the right kind of task to make sure they are
contributing towards the growth of the
company. However, Shah is cautious when
he says that this is easier said than done.
Egos, complexities, seniority issues can
come into play, says he.
Another issue with talented people is
that their attention span is short-lived and a
manager should keep varying the type of
assignments given to them. As a manager,
you cannot take them for granted. They al-
ways think of what to do next in life, so
you need to set their expectations.
With respect to promotions, talented
people expect quicker promotions. The
manager has to plan in long terms for this
set of people. Special educational pro-
grams have to be conducted if the need
arises. A mutual roadmap for the manage-
ment and talented people does a world of
good to both the parties.
Having discussed at length about the
most talented, one should not neglect the
less talented group. It is essential for a
manager to strike a balance between the
two and constantly strive to bring up the
less talented ones to the level of the
most talented. A manager who is able to
achieve this equality in his team will
have his work reduced in many ways as
a team of motivated individuals will do
their jobs without the need of interven-
tion from their seniors.
LEADERSHIP-A QUALITY
ACQUIRED oR INHERITED?
By Richa Sharma
“I
t is not important where you are
from but where you wish to be”
is the basic mantra leaders all
over believe in. From Dirubhai Ambani,
and Mark Zuckerberg, everyone fol-
lowed this mantra. “The history is galore
with list of leaders known for the deter-
mination with which they fought all the
odds but at the end what really matters
was the destination,” says Dr. K.L. Kan-
odia, Chairman and Founder of Data-
matics.
According to Dr. Kanodia, leader-
ship, the most natural sociological phe-
nomena, is an amalgamation of will
power, passion, conviction and commit-
ment. Abbreviating the term MD as
‘Main Dreamer’, he points out that
thinking big and ability to foresee the fu-
ture is fundamental to leadership. For in-
stance, the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani
even while living in a 10x10 room used
to dream big and eventually with his ef-
forts and planning built one of the largest
empires in the country.
Witnessing the various leadership
qualities, it’s a common debate if the
qualities are learnt when we face vari-
ous issues or is born with. There have
been examples where situation has
brought out the leader in a person. Dr.
Ganesh Natarajan, Vice Chairman and
CEO, Zensar Technologies, immedi-
ately cites the example of Devang Mehta
as one of the greatest leaders this world
had. Mehta, a Chartered Accountant,
tried his hands at various kinds of work
LEADERSHIP
K.L. Kanodia, Chairman &
Founder, Datamatics.
including being a spot boy where he
worked with Shyam Benegal for two
months. However, his extra ordinary
leadership skills came into light during
his tenure as the head of Nasscom.
Apart from situation, it is also the atti-
tude of a person which makes him/ her
leader. On these lines, Jeya Kumar,
CEO, Patni Computer Systems pin-
points, “The skill of leadership depends
on behaviour which comes from attitude
which is made from beliefs. Beliefs in
turn come from experiences. If you can
change your own paradigm, you will be
what you want to be.”
However, there are some leaders
who inherited the trait from their family
and excelled in their respective fields by
integrating inheritance with their work.
Ratan Naval Tata, being from the fam-
ily of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, who is
often considered as the father of Indian
Industry, presents the best example. Ac-
cording to Dr. Kanodia, a leader is made
when he doesn’t shies away from taking
bold decisions; Ratan Tata also took
many like getting into the motor busi-
ness of the country which later turned
out to be a success.
Whether the leadership is inherited
or acquired with time, a leader is one
who gives his 100 percent to whatever
he/ she does. “Whatever you want to be,
even if you want to be a drain sweeper,
have the cleanest drain is the lesson I
have learnt for life, career, and success”
said, Jeya Kumar.
The Smart Techie
|51|
February 2011
 LEADERSHIP
BoSS SAYS, ‘Go!’
By Suman Ravikumar
S Go!’
A LEADER SAYS, ‘LET’
hen you take a
W look around you
and throughout
history, the world
has been fortunate
to have been inhabited by a whole
host of influential leaders. Some of
the most admired leaders have been
Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther
King, Jr., Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
What made these people such great
leaders? Is it a guiding vision, a cer-
tain principle that they adopted or the
people who supported made them
great leaders? “Leadership is like
beauty: it’s hard to define, but you
know it when you see it.”
A leader is one who sees more
Prashant Ranade, CEO & President, Syntel
than others see, who sees farther than
others see, and who sees before oth-
ers see. In today’s world of business,
what defines the strengths and weak-
nesses of an organization is a powerful
leader. He is the most powerful asset
any business can dream of. Barrack a
famous French painter once said that
what matters the most is difficult to
describe and leadership is like that.
Both art and leadership is so rich in
knowledge that both elements excel at
seeing trends, extracting their essence,
synthesizing their meaning, and com-
municating them back to people in a
way that inspires emotion and action.
A scientist at the University of
Ambareesh Murty, Country Manager,
eBay India
Michigan some years back listed out
10 dangers for the world. Some of
The Smart Techie
|52|
February 2011
them were very obvious. The first one
was nuclear war, second one was a
global epidemic of some sort, but the
third one was destruction of society by
quality of management and leadership.
Emphasizing more on this, Prashant
Ranade, CEO & President of Syntel,
says that there are different areas that
a leader needs to focus on to improve
the quality of management and to have
a successful company. Every leader
needs to have a clear vision of what he
is aiming for and what will it bear him
in future. Also he needs to think in
parallel to his followers who will sup-
port him to achieve his goals. Emo-
tional intelligence is very important
for a leader. A judgment or decision
that a leader makes will depend on his
Emotional quotient and will play a
very vital role when it comes to build-
ing a team.
Ambareesh Murty, Country Man-
ager, eBay India, beautifully describes
the importance of leaders and leader-
ship in an organization, “Leadership
comprises of fairly simple stuff. You
need have a great vision, a vision for
yourself, keep things simple, and the
most important thing is get the right
people on the bus. It is ok to make
mistakes as a leader but it is not ok to
repeat the same mistakes redundantly.
Every leader should see failure as an
event and not as a person. As long as
we can differentiate it then we can be
great leaders.”
EVENT By Shwetha Raghavan
TIPS oN SMARTER SELLING
@ SILICoNINDIA SALES SYMPoSIUM
n today’s highly competitive mar-
I ketplace and challenging eco-
nomic times, successfully
growing your sales revenues can
be extremely difficult, sometimes
frustrating and, of course, very reward-
ing. Sales are tough to come by espe-
cially when buyers see every product
and service as a commodity. Sales peo-
ple now-a-days must learn to outsell
their competition by selling differently.
Keeping this in mind SiliconIndia or-
ganized the ‘Sales Symposium’ on Jan
22nd in Mumbai. Around 400 sales pro-
fessionals flocked the event.
Fit into the Customer’s Shoe
It is imperative that sales professionals
will be able to differentiate themselves,
or their company and their products
from the competition within thirty sec-
onds of saying ‘hello’! And, that today’s
buyer wants to know what’s in it for
them. Dhananjay Shinde, Regional Sales
Manager at IBM India said, “Sales per-
son should understand the individual
customer, his organization & business
very well and act as a trusted partner in
every business transaction.”
The biggest challenge in every in-
dustry is that the Sales force organiza-
tion structures tend to be left alone
during stable economic times, when
companies are doing well. “They are
more apt to come under scrutiny when
times aren’t as good, or when a company
is facing significant change. At present,
in many companies, there is increasing
scrutiny of how sales forces are designed
and a willingness to consider changing
the sales function in ways that will bet-
ter serve customers and drive improved
financial results,” Meenakshi Sapru,
Sales Manager, Hewlett-Packard Digital
Press maintained.
Nurturing Smart Sellers
Not only does building your sales
force structure necessary but nurturing
it is also important. Prashant Pradhan,
Assistant General Manager – Training
INFOMEDIA 18 said “Implement
transformational leadership through
people connect, caring and motivation.
Trust your team, build your team, nur-
ture it like your own and see the fan-
tastic results they will deliver. Not to
forget that every team success has to
be backed up with product and mar-
keting superiority, adequate control
systems, and best processes”. Bhavik
Dangarwala , Regional Director -
Channel & Sales at Vision Solutions
said, “The learning in the selling
process helps not just in the career
path, but also as we conduct our
lives, the ingredients being Passion,
Commitment, Creativity & Belief.
These coupled with a continued Pos-
itive Attitude form the key”.
A Fulfilled Sales Day
This one day highly interactive program
helped sales professionals walk away
with improved strategies, tactics and an
arsenal of ideas on how to improve the
sales effectiveness as a manager, a leader
and a contributor. Also the sessions pro-
vided them with knowledge on improv-
ing the sales and sales management
skills, an arsenal of tactical weapons,
vital sales process components and key
to building a competitive sales force. The
Symposium proved to be an excellent
opportunity for delegates to learn from
experts from leading companies like
IBM, HP, Network 18 and others.
The Smart Techie
|53|February 2011
 TECH PRODUCTS
Compiled by Hari Anil

Price: `26990
SONY VAIO YB LAUNCHED IN INDIA

The new Sony Vaio YB comes equipped with AMD E-350

NOKIA’S LOW-END QWERTY 1.6GHz processor and Radeon HD 6310 graphics. With its
PHONE NOW IN INDIA 11.6 inch HD LED display, 4 GB DDR3 SD RAM, and 320
Price: `4,459 GB hard disk the computer weighs only 1.46 kg. It features
a characteristic isolation keyboard along with an ergonomic
Nokia has brought its new phone X2-01 to India. The touchpad an ASSIST button for instant access to VAIO Care,
phone features full QWERTY key mat and its other key and VAIO original software. Its 6 Cell Li-Ion battery offers
features includes 1-click access to email and chat via four hours of battery life. It runs on Windows Starter 7 – 32
Nokia Messaging, and Conversational SMS. It also pro- bit OS. The connectivity options of Vaio YB include 2.1
vides 1-click access to social networks and music player. Bluetooth, EDR, USB, HDMI, VGA, and LAN ports. The
It sports a 2.4” QVGA (320x240) display screen with up YB series comes in three vibrant colours, pink, green, and
to 262k colors, and 55 MB of internal memory which can silver.
further be extended up to 8GB using micro SD memory
card. X2-01’s 1020 mAh battery can provide 4.5 hrs of
talk time and up to 20 days of standby time. For data serv-
ices and connectivity the phone has GPRS, EDGE,
EGPRS, and Bluetooth 2.0. It also has a VGA camera.

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SPEAKERS
FujiFilm launched its new 3D digital camera,
Razer has launched the new Motorola released its Dual-Sim Android FinePix REAL 3D W3, in India. The camera is ca-
Ferox portable gaming WI-KEY TOUCH: WIRELESS phone XT 800 Glam in India. The 3.7-inch pable of recording High Definition 3D movies. This
speakers in India. The FREEDOM FROM AMKETTE (854x480) touch screen phone features one 10 megapixel camera can record movies at 640 x
player with its 3.5 mm jack Price: `2495 GSM and one CDMA slot and runs on An- 480 pixels / 320 x 240 pixels at 30 frames per sec-
is compatible with almost droid 2.2 OS. This 3G phone has Blue- ond with stereo sound. The camera is equipped with
all media players. Amkette launched a wireless keyboard, Wi-Key tooth, Wi-fi, HDMI-out port, EDGE, and two Fujinon lenses and two sensors, the data cap-
Equipped with an expand- touch. Wi-Key Touch with its 2.4 GHz RF gives GPRS for connectivity. It comes with a 512 tured by these are analysed by the camera’s inbuilt
able resonance chamber users up to 10 meters of wireless freedom. It also MB RAM and 1 GB internal memory 3D processor and combined together to form one
this pocket-sized speaker sys- has a built-in Multi-Touch touchpad, Laptop style which can be further enhanced up to 32 GB HD 3D image or movie. It also has a comprehen-
tem delivers 360° Omni-direc- tactile keys, and multimedia hot keys. It is com- using a microSD memory card. It features a sive manual shooting mode, 13 different scene po-
tional sound. Its 470mAh rechargeable non-replaceable patible with Windows operating system, MAC se- 5-megapixel camera with duel LED flash, sitions and an intelligent flash. Further, with a 2.8
in-built batteries give it up to 12 hours of playback time on ries and nearly all tablet PCs and desktop PCs. It autofocus, and image stabilization. Its Li- inch, approximately 230,000 dot colour LCD mon-
a full charge. It also features digital amplification for en- can also be connected to XBOX and Play Station 3. Po 1390 mAh battery gives up to 5hrs itor featuring Light Direction Control, 3D images
hanced battery efficiency. It has an LED battery status in- With its Power saving circuit the company prom- 40mins of talk time and 100hrs of standby or movies can be viewed without 3D glasses. It can
dicator and it can be played and charged simultaneously. ises long battery life. Wi-Key Touch comes with a time. It supports HD video (720p) playback also be connected to any 3D HD TVs using a
It comes in twin speaker set and with a carrying pouch. one year warranty. over its built-in HDMI slot. HDMI cable.

The Smart Techie

|54|
February 2011 The Smart Techie
|55|
February 2011
 PEOPLE MANAGER By C. Mahalingam
The author is Executive Vice President & Chief People Officer, Symphony Services.
He can be reached at mahalingam.c@symphonysv.com
Practices of Exemplary Leaders!
e discussed the lead-
W ership fundamentals
in the December
2010 issue. This
may well be called
as the leadership code. Without these,
leaders do not make the grade. However,
becoming an exemplary leader takes
much more than meeting the fundamen-
tals. In this issue, we shall see some of
the practices of exemplary leaders. I
will borrow extensively for this discus-
sion from one of the best works of our
times titled, “The Leadership Chal-
lenge” by Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner.
Kouzes is the Chairman Emeritus of the
Tom Peters Company. Posner is the pro-
fessor of leadership at the Santa Clara
University. Their work in this area is
considered as seminal by both the aca-
demia and the practitioners alike.
Personal best experiences of leaders
follow common patterns of action.
These patterns of action have less to do
with personality, but more in the nature
of practices that these leaders practice
every day. In the words of Kouzes &
Posner, “it is about the practices lead-
ers use to transform values into actions,
vision into realities, obstacles into inno-
vations, separateness into solidarity and
risks into rewards.” It is about leader-
ship that creates a climate in which peo-
ple turn challenging opportunities into
remarkable success. Let me describe
these five exemplary practices below:
 Model the Way: Exemplary lead-
ers understand that their behavior,
not their title wins them commit-
ment. Therefore, they effectively
model the behavior they expect from
their people. This is not about elo-
The Smart Techie
|56|February 2011
Values
Ac
Vision ali
Re
tio
va
Obstacles
Inno
d ari
Separateness S oli
rd
Risks wa
Re
quent speeches, but daily actions.
Modeling the way is characterized
by simple things – relentless efforts,
competence and attention to detail.
Being clear about comprehending
fully the values, beliefs and assump-
tions that drive you. The first law of
leadership that the authors pro-
nounce is: If you don’t believe in the
messenger, you won’t believe the
message!” Values constitute our per-
sonal bottom-line. As such, they set
the parameters for the hundreds of
actions we make every day. Values
are also empowering. We will be
much more in control of our lives
when we are clear about our per-
sonal leaders. Ask any leader you
know. You will get an instant affir-
mation of this reality!
 Inspire a Shared Vision: No matter
n s
what you call – purpose, mission,
tio
legacy, dream, goal, calling or per-
sonal agenda – vision has the same
intent: leaders want to do something
s significant, to accomplish something
tie
that no one else has yet achieved.
This is not to imply that leaders chase
the impossible, however. It is about
helping the teams find meaning and
ns
purpose. Leaders understand that ex-
ternal motivation is more likely to
create conditions of compliance or
defiance; only self-motivation pro-
ty
duces far superior results. By offer-
ing an exciting vision, a leader is
giving life and work a sense of mean-
ing and purpose. A challenge for
s leadership today is maintaining a vi-
sion, since there are a plenty of dis-
tractions all over and all the time.
Leaders articulate a vision and an-
chor it strongly by mastering two es-
sentials: (a) discovering the theme
and (b) imagining the possibilities
 Challenge the Process: Leadership
experiences are voyages of discovery
and adventures of a life time. They
search for opportunities to change,
grow, innovate and improve and that
is what we call as challenging the
process. They do not believe in sta-
tus-quo. When in doubt, they move
and act. In doing so, leaders want
their people to speak up, to offer sug-
gestions for improvement, and to be
straightforward about their construc-
tive criticism. Leaders create a can-
do attitude by providing
opportunities for people to gain mas-
tery on a task one step at a time.
Leaders set the bar higher. As Peter
Drucker observed, “the distance be- those who view the world with sus- flow. Flow experiences are those
tween the leaders and the led is con- picion and disrespect. Knowing times when we feel pure enjoyment
stant”. Profound in these words is the that trust is key, exemplary leaders and effortlessness in what we do.
wisdom that when leaders set stretch makes sure that they consider alter- Goals are a necessary condition to
goals and deliver, their teams stretch native viewpoints and make use of experience such a flow. Closely
too. Leadership and challenge are in- other people’s expertise and abili- connected with the goals is the
extricably linked. Leadership and ties. Leaders recognize the power of process of continuous feedback.
principles are inextricably linked as reciprocity in every day working. It And leaders know that encourage-
well. The implication is very clear. demonstrates both a willingness to ment is a form of feedback, very
The leaders people admire are ones be cooperative and an unwilling- personal and wonderful one at that!
who have the courage of their con- ness to be taken advantage of.
victions. If we are to become leaders, we
 Encourage the Heart: Exemplary must believe that we too can be a pos-
 Enable Others to Act: Leadership leaders understand the need to rec- itive force in the world. Leadership
is not a solo act; it is a team effort. ognize contributions and are con- does have everything to do with what
Turbulence in the marketplace re- stantly engaged in the essentials we think of ourselves. The quest for
quires more collaboration and not involved in encouraging the heart leadership is first to discover who you
less. Leaders recognize that collab- such as focusing on clear standards, are. Learning to lead is about what
oration is social imperative. To fos- expecting the best (playing Pyg- you care about and value. About
ter collaboration, leaders create a malion!), paying attention (listening what inspires you. About what chal-
climate of trust, facilitate positive & caring) and personalizing recog- lenges you. About what gives you
interdependence and support face- nition. Great leaders understand power and competence. About what
to-face interactions. Psychologists that values set the stage for action, encourages you. Why you discover
have also found that people who are but goals release the energy. The these things about yourself, you will
trusting are more likely to be happy ideal state- on the job, in sports, in know what it takes to lead those qual-
and psychologically adjusted than other areas of life – is often called ities out of others!
20%
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BuyErS PErSPECTIvE
How do you predict worldwide mar-
ket demand trend in 2011 as com-
pared to 2010?
Almost without exception, every analyst
firm is predicating FPGA market growth
for 2011 and beyond. IMS Research ex-
pects a gain over a billion dollars in an-
nual revenues by 2014 and IBS, states
that there will be higher growth than the
total IC market through 2015 because of
the steady enhancements in the com-
plexity and functionality of FPGA solu-
tions. We realized a 60 percent to 65
percent growth rate throughout last year,
which far exceeded the projected growth
of the overall semiconductor industry.
All of our products grew significantly in
terms of revenue in 2010 and following
on from our success at 40 nm we expect
to see continued growth.
Which applications or markets do you
see opportunities in?
FPGA content continues to grow within
the communications infrastructure, both
wireline and wireless, to where we think
we have a three- to five-year growth
cycle simply because of the number of
operators around the world that are de-
ploying newer generations of equip-
ment. Moving from 2G to 3G doubles
content, moving to LTE from 2G triples
content, and moving to LTE advanced,
or 4.5G, increases content of 2G, by 4X.
With every new box, there’s an increase
in FPGA content. And with that increase
from a unit perspective, as well as with
the increase in the data rate, there are up-
grades required to the backhaul net-
works with every new wireless
infrastructure deployment.
There are major deployments taking
The Smart Techie
|58|February 2011
Semiconductor Industry:
An outlook for 2011
Stephen McMinn,
VP - World Wide Channel Sales, Altera
place this year in China, India, and the
U.S. Japan is also moving from 2G and
3G to LTE or the fourth generation. We
see continued growth in the industrial,
military, and automotive markets, both
because of the increasing electronics
content in these systems and because of
the design win momentum we have in
these markets. The 40-nm process node
has been hugely successful for us. In the
programmable logic business, we be-
lieve that the 40-nm node will continue
to be the growth driver for the industry
for the next several years. We are intro-
ducing 28nm, but the primary driver of
that technology will be performance, not
price savings.
Customers have already begun to
adopt 28-nm in the communications,
test, and military segments. These seg-
ments are pushing the technology and
need the advanced features which are
not available at 40 nm, predominantly
the 25-Gbps transceivers and the per-
formance they bring, the density of the
FPGA fabric, and the significantly en-
hanced the DSP block capability. With
our technology leadership in trans-
ceivers, power and performance, as well
as software in terms of compile times,
performance, and features, we see our
product momentum continuing at 28
nm.
All totaled, we see a huge opportu-
nity, approximately $30 billion. Even
with a small fraction of that we see an
opportunity of unparalleled growth in
the coming years.
What will be the major technical chal-
lenges or marketing risks that you
face?
Overcoming technical challenges and
market risks are inherent to FPGAs.
Products and systems have to be reliable,
adaptable, and built to last. At the same
time, business success requires you to
both act quickly and drive down costs.
With innovative programmable solu-
tions becoming increasingly more at the
heart of many applications, these chal-
lenges can be adapted to quickly as end-
markets change, make cost-saving
design reuse a standard part of the de-
velopment process, and create products
that are virtually obsolescence-proof.
FPGAs were developed to deliver
high performance, reprogrammability,
and interoperability—key capabilities
for most design environments. These so-
lutions work with a variety of intellec-
tual property (IP) cores that enable
support for standards.
(As told to Hari Anil)
DoAttend: A one Stop Solution
for Event Managers
How did you come up with this
concept?
DoAttend is an online event registra-
tion platform that allows any event
manager to go online, create his own
event page, set up ticketing and invite
people to buy tickets for the events.
Based on This is based on the SaaS
model. This helps the event managers
a lot as they need to pay us only when
they want to sell their tickets online,
so if they are doing a free event then
the product is also free. This product
is also sold across the world. Though
for majority of our products, the for-
eign market is fairly large since it pick-
ups faster than the domestic market;
this particular product did very well in
India. We have customers like
NASSCOM, Python and many
more who are using this it. DoAt-
tend has got a lot of traction in
India and it has given us more vis-
ibility in the technology product
market.
How do you compete with other
contenders in the events field?
There are very few players in this
field. What sets us apart from the
competitors is the product’s inter-
face and ease of use. That helped
us to manage and bring in big cus-
tomers like NASSCOM who do
really large events. We are very
strong with user interfaces and
making a product clean and easy
to use. If you look at the website
of the product or any event page
for that matter you will immedi-
ately see the difference compared
to a competitor’s site.
BuyErS PErSPECTIvE
Are you building up mobile interface
for your consumer end?
Right now we support iPhone and
iPad, where one can go through the
browser, type the same url and you will
have a iPhone and iPad ready version
available. We are the first in the indus-
try to go to this end to make the at-
tendee process available on multiple
devices.
What is the revenue model?
When an attendee visits the site of a
particular event, he makes the pay-
ment, this payment comes to us, we
deduct our fee, and transfer the
monthly payout to the event manager.
We charges 4.9 percentage plus Rs 15
per attendee. To keep the transactions
Shalin Jain, Founder & CEO, TenMiles
clear, we generate monthly statements
for our customers.
How do you manage foreign cus-
tomer traction and marketing with
the only office based out of Chennai?
Internet, relying on Google Adwords,
and other PC advertising platforms, but
our main advertisement is through
word of mouth. We get a lot of refer-
ences from our existing customers and
that is how our business has grown
through the last several years. At one
point we even brought down our ad-
vertising budget to zero and still man-
aged to sell. In the U.S. we started with
a very aggressive advertisement plan
and from there on word of mouth has
got us most of our customers.
What are the challenges that you
faced as an entrepreneur? What is
the road ahead?
Today it is acceptable that I work for a
startup, unlike the scenario when I
started. Back then, I really had a tough
time hiring people. Services market
was very enticing because of the
salaries offered by the big five compa-
nies. Freshers too were hesitant to join
a startup. So hiring was a big challenge
despite being selective about who we
hire.
We still are a small company with
just 10 people. By February three more
will join us. We want to be small that is
when we all can be really effective.
The expansion we want to do is more
on the sales and marketing side. We al-
ready have the products and we need
to continue getting more customers.
(As told to Hari Anil)
The Smart Techie
|59|February 2011
BuyErS PErSPECTIvE
T
Integrating Workforce
Management in Real Time
include 626 of the Fortune 1000 users. We extend what typical ERP and HR solutions
offer in the administrative layer and bring it down to the last man.” says James Thomas,
Country Manager, Kronos, in a candid interview to siliconindia.
Define workforce management
There are four dimensions regarding
workforce that are critical for the or-
ganization. First, ‘time’, the number of
hours an employee spends in the com-
pany; second, ‘absenteeism’, leaves
and unauthorized absence of employ-
ees; third, ‘schedule’, having the right
person in the right place at the right
time to do the right work; and finally,
‘activity/task’, what an employee does
during his time in the office.
Kronos automates and intercon-
nects all from the HR system, to the
time, absence, schedule, activity di-
mensions, integrate them real time to
give a view and manage the 360 de-
gree day in the life of an employee,
and connect this to payroll to ensure
that the company is paying people ac-
curately. Investments in HR automa-
tion, is a high return, low risk game.
What are the common workforce
challenges in an enterprise?
Absence, whether it is planned or un-
planned, has an impact on productiv-
ity and cost. For example, if an
employee takes leave for one month
and the role is filled by a replacement
worker during that duration, the im-
pact on productivity and cost will
still be present as the efficiency of a
replacement worker is somewhere
The Smart Techie
|60| February 2011
he most valuable and expensive strategic asset to any organization are em-
ployees. Having the right people at the right place at the right time is the
key. This is why proper workforce management is very important in organi-
zations and here is where Kronos comes in. “We are the 800 pound gorilla in
this space, there is nobody near us. We have around 40,000 customers which
paid for and the amount he is working.
There is no magic formula to stop at-
trition. Performance appraisal once a
year is not going to help. A more ob-
jective formula is needed to track this.
Knowing people better in the opera-
tional realm helps in understanding
them.
How much can Kronos help compa-
nies to save?
Most organizations in the country
today follow manual scheduling,
which is error-prone and a strain on
both store productivity and customer
service. A workforce management so-
lution would increase sales conversion
rates.
James Thomas,
By giving an integrated view, Kro-
Country Manager, Kronos nos helps a company to save 3-5 per-
cent on its total payroll cost. This is
between 70 – 80 percent. Unplanned not just a onetime return, but a regular
absence costs even more. Typically annual return that comes every year.
planned and unplanned absence con- Our solutions take any where between
tributes to 25 – 35 percent of payroll 3 to 6 months to deploy and compa-
cost. This means around one third of nies will start seeing returns with in a
the total payroll is paid on absence. year as we make some tangible bot-
This is a major challenge to organi- tom-line impact.
zations as this causes significant pro-
ductivity and cost leakages. How is the market/customer re-
Most companies are dealing with sponse?
high rates of attrition of their work- We have always received a positive re-
force. Typically the reason is the mis- sponse from the customers. We have
match between what one is getting had customers ranging from Nursing
Directors and CFOs who say they are
overwhelmed by the product. Usually
in a hospital, a nursing director spends
3-4 hours a day in scheduling or ros-
tering nurses but by implementing our
solutions, the same task can be com-
pleted in about five minutes. But an
initial hurdle we face while customer
traction is making the management see
the urgency for the need of a work-
force management solution.
In most cases one sees that when
the company faces as financial crunch
due to recession or other factors, it re-
lieves about 5 – 10 percent of its work-
force. This is because the single largest
controllable cost in a company is pay-
roll cost which varies from 70 percent
for an IT/ BPO, 40 percent for a hos-
pital to 6 percent for a manufacturer.
But what we are trying to do is make
the management aware that if they
properly manage workforce, they
wouldn’t have to do this.
How is the Indian market different
and what are your plans for it?
We launched our India operations in
early 2007 in a bid to support our
global clients that are expanding oper-
ations in India but we have now been
gaining traction amongst local cus-
tomers too. As of now we have about
40 customers in India. But we are still
relatively an early entrant in the Indian
market as it is still 85 percent non-pen-
etrated. The amount of non-productive
time and absence is higher in India
when compared to that in developed
countries. This provides us with a
great opportunity.
At present though we continue to
concentrate on technologically mature
IT and manufacturing sector, we see an
immense scope in public sector as
well. We also plan to double our work-
force here in the next few years.
(As told to Hari Anil)
BuyErS PErSPECTIvE
Embedding Intelligence
Into Everyday Devices
Vivek Tyagi, Country Manager,
Freescale Semiconductor
With recession finally giving way
to economy revival, what is the
outlook for the semiconductor in-
dustry?
In 2009, every industry including
especially the semiconductor faced
stiff challenges A huge respite came
the governments that injected large
sums to fuel the demand during the
second half of 2009. In U.S. there
was the “cash for clunker” program
by Obama government under which
General Motors received a huge in-
vestment to revive automobile in-
dustry. Due to this, the U.S. the car
sale was almost up by 30 percent.
Similalry, the Chinese government
invested a lot of money in second
half of 2009 to roll out their own 3G
standard called TDS-CDMA. There
was $20 billion worth of capital ex-
pense done by China Telecom and
China Unicom to buy that new gen-
eration network, so that telecom
things started moving by the end of
last year beginning of this year.
Since Indian semiconductor indus-
try is not much export oriented, it re-
vived as the industry stabilized
globally. Even though some pockets
of Europe continue to struggle, gen-
erally Europe was a market is back
to the road. Currently the semicon-
ductor industry is up by 25 – 35 per-
cent this year globally.
The consumer market is witness-
ing a sudden spurge with the
Notepads, Netbooks, Tablets,
Smartphones, 3D HDTVs and
more. Where does Freescale posi-
tion itself?
Freescale does not play purely in the
HDTV market though we do have
peripheral components for the next
generation remotes of the LED or
3D TVs. Philips, Samsung Electron-
ics, Sony Corporation and Pana-
sonic have joined forces to develop
a standardized specification for
radio frequency-based remote con-
trols for audio visual consumer elec-
tronics devices. Working with
Freescale Semiconductors, OKI and
Texas Instruments, the seven com-
The Smart Techie
|61|
February 2011
BuyErS PErSPECTIvE
panies have formed the RF4CE
(Radio Frequency for Consumer
Electronics) Consortium to create a
new protocol that will enable the de-
velopment of radio frequency remote
controls that deliver richer commu-
nication, increased reliability and
more flexible use.
Tablets are an area of heavy in-
terest to us and that is where our
partnership with ARM comes into
the picture. ARM is positioning one
of their high end processor as alter-
nate to X86 platform for the tablet
market and while we build several of
our chips based on their architecture,
we have done a lot of IP in it too. We
made two chips called i.mx 51 and
i.mx 53, these will allow videos to be
played in the tablet’s hardware with-
out the support of any additional
software and the chip requires very
low power. So once the tablet is
charged it runs anywhere from 8 – 10
hours depending on what you are
doing. It also brings down the boot-
ing time of the Android or Linux run
tabletsto less than 25 seconds. Next
year several tablets with Freescale
chips are expected to be launched
globally and a global top brand is
building a tablet for Indian market
with us.
While we worked in the 3G
modem space earlier, we exited the
business in 2008. At present our
focus is on the Smartphone segment.
Many smartphones use an additional
ARM processor which runs all the
operating systems, the fancy graph-
ics and more. Our chips are currently
being used in some of the models of
BlackBerry and Motorola. There is a
huge smart phone industry based in
China and we are working with sev-
eral Chinese vendors. Most smart-
phones today have a motion sensor
which allows you to change a picture
from landscape to portrait mode or if
it is a game, the actions are based on
The Smart Techie
|62| February 2011
the motions one makes such as shak-
ing it to throw a dice and so on. Very
few companies develop this and the
one we do is the 3D accelerometer
sensor.
What are the new trends?
The trend is definitely “low cost and
low power”. To achieve this, the
semiconductor industry is doing
more and more integration with the
chip. Earlier a phone would have
five chips but now it has come down
to three. The ultimate goal is to have
a single chip per device, so that the
design of the board and the software
becomes very simple. This trend is
today known as System on a Chip
(SOC) integration that is driving the
consumer space, where low price,
low power and small size is the key.
In high performance product seg-
ment like 3G, 4G base station the re-
quirement is low power, low price
but high performance which is driv-
ing the trend of multi-core proces-
sors, where one chip has multiple
processors. How many is optimal or
practical is yet to be proven but
Freescale believes an eight core
processor is very practical today and
had already begun shipping these
processors to various customers in
2010 and hope to increase the vol-
ume this year.
How is Freescale positioned in
India?
Our company is divided into four re-
gions, America, Europe, Japan and
Asia. On business perspective
Freescale India is part of the APAC.
India contributes to roughly 5 per-
cent of our Asia revenue. Though
comparatively small, the share is
rapidly growing. But more than just
sales, the India center is involved in
designing of chips that get used by
conglomerates across the world.
Hence, a Freescale chip sold in Latin
America may add to the revenue in
that geography but it would be de-
signed in India. We call it design
win; we won the design here and get-
ting the revenue somewhere else.
The design win of India center is
much bigger than its revenues.
What are the plans for the imme-
diate future?
In India, Freescale is eyeing 30 to 40
percent revenue growth annually. We
are focusing tremendously at auto-
motive electronics and are in deep
engagement with Tata, Mahindra,
Bajaj and TVS; understanding their
requirements. There is a concept that
is being tried in auto industry known
as ‘start stop systems’. The idea is if
you stop at a signal for more than
certain seconds the car engine stops
automatically and starts back the mo-
ment accelerator is pushed. During
this period everything is being pow-
ered by the battery and Freescale is
developing a unique chip for Lead-
acid battery management system for
the Indian automotive industry. Then
we did another unique chip for car
speedometer. We are also in talks for
infotainment, which is unique to this
market and have done body comput-
ers in collaboration with Tata motors
for the recently launched Tata Aria.
We are also focusing on indus-
trial side with UPS, inverter, energy
meters, and more. Smart metering is
a good initiating we are taking. A
few of the Indian companies will
launch smart meter that are tamper
proof and if someone tries to tamper
with the meter it will record date
and time in which the tampering was
done and the electricity board can
give a generic bill from that date on-
wards. Any chip that we supply is
programmable so basically we are
embedding intelligence in the de-
vices.
(As told to Hari Anil)
Regn. No. KRNA/BGE-1046/08-10 RNI REG.NO. KARENG/2006/16955