John Ribeiro

As business booms for Indian IT outsourcing service providers, hiring and retaining software engineers at salaries considered reasonable in the country has become difficult. Despite the staff crunch, however, multinational companies are still setting up or expanding software development facilities in the country, or outsourcing to Indian software service providers.

Infosys Technologies Ltd. said Thursday that it is investing US$20 million into a business consulting subsidiary in the U.S., which will be managed by four former senior executives of global consulting firms.

IBM Corp. plans to acquire Daksh eServices Pvt. Ltd., a business process outsourcing (BPO) company in Gurgaon, near Delhi, IBM announced Wednesday.

Microsoft Corp. has tied up with the government of the Indian state of Orissa to support computing in the local Oriya language, under a program called Project Bhasha. Bhasha is the Oriya word for language.

America Online Inc. (AOL) has opened a software development centre in Bangalore, India, according to the company.

In this bustling city dubbed the Silicon Plateau, the frenetic pace of hiring for software development operations, call centre activities, and business process outsourcing (BPO)

Indians voting to elect federal and state legislators next month will press buttons on electronic voting machines (EVMs), rather than use the traditional procedure of stamping ballot papers to indicate their preference.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) on Wednesday announced a 10-year outsourcing contract from the Bank of India in Mumbai. The US$150 million contract is the largest won by HP Services for financial services in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Natarajan Sundaram, country head for marketing and strategy at HP Services India.