Infosys bashing - II

More credible articles/blogs on the Infosys bashing and in general emphasizing on the importance of being a product driven economy:

http://windia.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-infosys-cant-be-product-making.html
http://windia.blogspot.com/2006/08/is-world-flat.html
http://www.webyantra.net/2006/08/28/infosys-takes-to-corporate-blogging%e2%80%a6trying-to-be-noticed-in-the-web20-world/
http://www.amitranjan.com/2005/07/15/infosys%e2%80%99s-global-dreams-%e2%80%93-diagnosing-its-achilles-heel/

Infosys bashing

It is not easy being in the top. Everybody throws stones and mud at you .....its your choice to respond or to ignore ......Infosys bashing is becoming a favorite past time for many of us .....but the truth is most of them are valid ...if not all ....

No doubt Infosys is a great company, Narayanamoorthy is an icon and they may have generated a great amount of wealth but it is still a looooong way to be compared with a giant like IBM and other tech biggies. Simple reason - Infosys is not a company which generates "value" and spawns an "ecosystem". It is just a user of technology, provider of services in an efficient, professional, quality and cheaper way and makes an enormous amount of money (legally and ethically).

It is still in the tier-II of the software service providers and has a long way to go to be in the league of EDS, HP and IBM the top troika among the service providers. It comes nowhere near in the league of Microsoft, Oracle and SAP in terms of product innovation and global domination. Neither it is an innovator in the tecnology space like Google, Yahoo or Apple. Worse it cannot even come near to some middle level software product companies like BEA Weblogic, Symantec et all. And then there are a host of technology leaders like Intel, CISCO, Nortel. Where does Infosys stand among these. Are we just overhyping and overplaying a simple minor software service provider whose only advantage is dollar-rupee differential and does the job given to him in a perfect way - typical of an Indian clerk ? One point to be noted is - it is listed in NASDAQ as not as a software product/services company but as an "Technology Consulting company".

Where is the "value" ? Where is the "ecosystem" any major company provides. Both Infosys and our Software companies in general dosn't even provide one tenth of what the old economy companies provide in terms of eco-system. An industry like Automobile manufacturer spawns a network of auto component manufacturers, dealers, suppliers, infrastructure suppliers and the like - it generates a multitude of investment opportunities and wealth. Our $oftware companies are not able to sustain this kind of system - in fact it doesn not benefit any of the locals at all. Most of the Infosys type companies use Dell or IBM computers, CISCO switches et all, thus benefitting the global behemoths and not helping any of the Indian counterparts.

Is Infy aworld beater with its 69,000 employess ?- what is its employee-to-turnover ratio. How does it compare with Google, Microsoft and Apple or with IBM, CISCO and Oracle. Do they have an ecosystem that spans across the channels .....meaning any dealers or resellers selling Infosys products, any training institutes that teaches Infosys products, any desktops or servers that carry Infy's products ? Any free downloadable version of Infy's products ........... It is just a body shopping company that makes a ton of money by easy dollars .....but kills innovation among the India IT enginners.

Leaving aside all those - I doubt Infosys can survive this model for the next twenty or twenty five years - I doubt whether they will be able to celebrate their 50th anniversary - leave alone in the much same fanfare as they did their twenty-fifth anniversary.