6 AM Pacific

Thomas Weisel Shutters Discovery Research

Last week Thomas Weisel Partners announced that it is shutting down its small cap research offering, Discovery Research. The 8-K filing says

Thomas Weisel Partners Group, Inc. (“Registrant”) announced today that it would discontinue its Discovery Research coverage of U.S. equities. That coverage is being discontinued as a result of the recruitment of key Discovery Research personnel to BNP Paribas Securities (Asia) Limited, a BNP Paribas affiliate. Thomas Weisel Partners is pursuing its legal remedies in connection with these departures. Discovery Research, a subscription-based research product, was produced out of Thomas Weisel Partners’ office in Mumbai, India. Thomas Weisel Partners intends to continue to conduct other business and operations through its Mumbai, India office.

There are two different reasons why I find this news interesting. More »

The real deal with offshore captives

Recently Forrester Research released a report that says that offshore captives, which have been much in vogue for the last three years, are “imploding”. A blog post here makes for interesting reading, especially the comments. More »

The H1-B visa program needs a revamp

This year the INS received 150,000 H1-B visa applications for the coming year starting in October, on the first day that it started accepting applications - for a total of 65,000 visas! An article in the New York Times takes a look at the issues surrounding this. A table from the same article reproduced below gives you the breakup of the visas requested by company. Indian IT Services companies are the only companies at the top of the list.

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Offshore Backlash Redux

It’s back. With the Democrats in Congress and soon perhaps in the Whitehouse and an economy that most think will turn sour soon, it is almost the perfect storm. Trade in services, fondly called “offshoring” is back on the front pages and it bodes ill for global business. More »

Wanted: VCs for a Flat World

India is a hot venture destination. My earlier post about TiEcon Delhi talks about the excitement I could sense amongst both the entrepreneurs and the VCs at the conference. In the same post, I also outline how I think the venture scene in India will play out – very different from what it looks like today in the US. Much of the VC community does not realize just how different it will be and is leaving big underserved gaps in the market.
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Of Mice and Men

Researchers at the University of Virginia have studied the effects of jet lag on mice and the news is not good for us flatworld types. We may be looking at prematurely flat-lining, so be sure to write your wills.
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Salon.com coverage

6 AM Pacific, this blog, got some ink on salon.com. Andrew Leonard in his blog about globalization, ‘How the World Works’ calls the post Imperial conference calls

He says -

Six a.m. Pacific might be the best time for a global conference call because everyone, everywhere that counts, is theoretically awake at that time, but there’s little question whom that time is really best for. The early bird gets the globalization worm. The sun sets on global conference calls, but it rises in Silicon Valley. For the moment.

You don’t need a subscription to see the full article. It’ll want you to watch an ad, which you can abort and move ahead by clicking on ‘Go to Salon.com’.

Salon.com is a critically acclaimed online magazine and I appreciate the coverage, but it has has had one downside. It has brought the blog to the attention of ‘comment spammers’ and I am having a hard time keeping the blog comments from becoming rated R. Thanks anyhow Mr. Leonard!

My Secret Starbucks Name

One of the many challenges facing the global executive is the important task of pronouncing and spelling foreign names. Indians in the US do face some difficulty with American names – a strong Mallu accent can change a ‘John’ to a ‘Joan’ for instance – but in general they do fine. American first names are designed to be simple. The ones that aren’t, are mercilessly shortened to nicknames. I know many Tims, but no Timothys.

Americans pronouncing Indian names is an entirely different matter. More »

Indian startups making a mark

Last week’s post on IndiaPost raised quite a storm of comments. Some of them were supportive of my central thesis that for Indian citizens to get better public services the issue of labour flexibility within public service organizations is the most important one to address. Many were not. Of these some thought that IndiaPost has actually done well, given the circumstances, and that I was looking at the glass half-empty.

So for a change, let’s look at the glass half-full. Let’s talk about some Indian startups that are being noticed.
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Tech Blowback

Heard this really interesting anecdote from friends at Infosys.

Infosys’ Enterprise Solutions group implements ERP and other packaged software for their clients. Infosys also does ongoing maintenance for software companies on their packaged software. Sometimes ongoing maintenance involves what is called Level 3 support where a software developer needs to take the call from a user because it goes into detailed technical stuff.

So the story goes like this. Infosys ES while implementing a package for some client in the US encountered a problem with the software that they needed help with before they could proceed. They talked to the client who told them to call the software vendor’s help line. The Infosys consultant in Pune then calls the vendor’s toll-free number. He starts talking to the guy at the other end. He’s getting this echo on the phone. He walks towards the voice and lo and behold, the guy on the other end of the phone is right there in Infosys Pune on the same floor!