That was IT in the Year 2009

General

• It was clearly the year of President Obama, his unusual style of swearing-in, his bold moves on Iraq & Afghanistan, approach to global warming, protecting American interests in Copenhagen Summit, financial bail-out that seems to end recession finally, and, of course surprisingly winning the Nobel Prize!
• Equally, it was the year of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his second and stronger innings as Prime Minister, bold initiatives on unemployment and education, getting a special reception as the first Head of State at the coveted Whitehouse on November 24, 2009 and joining hands with Chinese to contain the damage at Copenhagen Summit in December 2009
• The global economic recession that started in September 2008 finally ended in October 2009, though leaving a trail of devastation – 100+ banks go bust in USA, nearly 50 million job loss across the globe (million job loss in Surat and Tirupur alone), Sensex plunging to 8,427 in March 2009 from the earlier 20,000, negative inflation March 2009, foreign exchange plunging to $ 241 billion in March from nearly $300 billion in January, Rupee weakening to Rs 52 / $ in March and General Motors filing for bankruptcy on June 1, 2009
• Tata Nano that was announced in 2008 finally reached the end customers on July 17, 2009 (though from Gujarat instead of West Bengal!)
• General elections 2009 led to UPA II with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh continuing his second term. Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan got new governments.
• Slumdog Millionaire gets Oscar award in March
• The world celebrated 50 years of “Man on the Moon” on July 20; 40 years of the Internet on Sep 2 and 20 years of Sony Walkman
• China celebrated “60 years of new China” in style and hosted Olympics.
• Copenhagen Summit had month-long deliberations in December, though most key decisions could not be taken
• While the Wall Street-led global economic crisis is under control, another crisis Dubai crisis started in November 2009 in Dubai
• India-born Venki Ramakrishnan gets Nobel Chemistry Prize 2009
• TED conference comes in India for the first time in November 2009
• India was not that badly affected by the global economic crisis; job losses were minimal and GDP grew by nearly 8%!
• Ramalinga Raju of Satyam shook the confidence in Indian IT industry by his confession on Jan 7, 2009. Luckily, Satyam saga was handled well and Satyam gets a new avatar in the form of Mahindra Satyam; 40,000 jobs were saved
• H1N1 flu creates havoc after getting to “pandemic” status; LITE Prabhakaran is dead; Metro crash in Delhi, floods in drought prone areas of Karnataka / Andhra Pradesh, Orissa tornado and Mathura train accident cause untold misery
• Reliance finds gas, but gets stuck in the agreement to sell gas!
• Telengana issue paralyzes Andhra Pradesh in December

Technology

• “Touch” enters mainstream with RIM (Research in Motion – makers of BlackBerry), HTC, Palm, Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Dell, Acer launching “touch” based smart phones and HP launching Touch Smart PC’s and Windows 7 supporting “touch”
• Solar Mobile handsets become a reality
• Thanks to Palm Pre, wireless charging becomes a reality
• US switches to all digital TV on June 20
• Sony phases out CRT TV

Products

• The year 2009 saw many interesting product launches, the most prominent being smart phones and e-book readers

o     Palm tried to reincarnate itself through its Palm Pre (launched in June), Palm Pixi (launched in November) and its App Store

o     HTC, RIM & Nokia launch their “touch” enabled smart phones

o     Acer, Huawei & Lenovo enter the smart phone market

o     Motorola is attempting another success story thru Droid

o     Google is planning its own handset

• Microsoft launched “Windows 7”, “Bing” search engine and “IE8” in addition to “MS Office 2010” Beta
• Apple announced new iPod (including iPod Nano with video), Snow Leopard and iPhone OS upgrade (Aug 28)
• Intel Atom is highly successful; launches 48-core processor prototype in December
• AMD launched 6-core “Istanbul” processor
• Google announced “Google Wave”, “Chrome OS”, Instant search
• Nokia launches “Ovi” stores
• Oracle launched “Oracle 11g R2” upgrade to its core database on Sep 1
• Amazon launches “Kindle DX” and globally launches “Kindle”
• Sony launches color e-book reader
• Barnes & Noble launches “Nook” e-Book reader
• HP launches “Sky room” desktop video conferencing
• ISRO announces India version of Google Earth
• Kodak formally phases out chrome camera film
• Polaroid makes a new make over with ZINK printer

Markets

• Many high decibel mergers were announced in 2009.

o     Oracle acquisition of Sun (for $ 6.7 billion) in May is still awaiting approval from European regulators

o     Intel acquired Wind River with leading-edge real time OS product

o     Cisco acquired video conferencing equipment vendor Tandberg

o     EMC acquired Data Domain

o     IBM acquired statistical software company SPSS

o     Dell acquired IT services major Perot Systems for $ 3.9 billion

o     Personal accounting software major Intuit acquired financial information company Mint

• In India,

o     Global travel services major Travelocity acquired TravelGuru

o     Banking software major Polaris acquired another Chennai-based banking software product LaserSoft

o     Mindtree acquired Kyocera Networks group in India

• Airtel MTN deal is dead after months of negotiation
• Microsoft & Yahoo ink a 10-year business-sharing pact
• eBay sells off Skype
• The iconic General Motors files for bankruptcy on June 1
• Telecom equipment major Nortel files for bankruptcy
• EDS brand is no more! (HP acquired EDS in 2008)
• Google brand is $ 100 billion worth (the highest ever) as per BrandZ
• Acer becomes No 2 PC brand after HP (displacing Dell)
• Citigroup shares touch a low of $0.67 in March!
• Microsoft revenues see a dip in 2009 (the first ever in 90 quarters)

Indian IT Companies

• But for Satyam fiasco, Indian IT industry was not badly affected by the global meltdown
• Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant & HCL continue to grow, though at modest levels in the year 2009
• Thanks to the official “end of recession” towards the year-end, TCS & Infosys plan to add 20,000 to their headcount in the year 2009-10
• TCS is officially $ 6 billion annual revenue
• 3i Infotech, a relative late entrant crosses Rs 2,300 Cr revenue in 2009
• Due to unique contribution of individuals like Deepak Parikh and Kiran Karnik, key officials and the ministers, and government policy, Satyam organization with 40,000 professionals is intact under new brand Mahindra Satyam – a remarkable “corporate resurrection” story in the world!
• Indian IT companies continue to go global in the year 2009

o Infosys starts Brazil operations

o MPhasis goes to Sri Lanka

o InfoTech Enterprises enters Malaysian markets

o Mindtree enters China.

• Indian IT companies continue to win laurels

o HCL is No1 as per “Black book of IT Outsourcing”

o Fortune IT 100 has TCS & Infosys

o BusinessWeek includes TCS & Infosys in “Most Innovative” list

o Infosys is the “Best SAP Implementer” (Forrester Research)

o iGate launches the largest “green office” facility in Bangalore

o With 100+ million customers (May 15), Airtel is world’s No 3 telecom service provider

o Wipro & HCL bag large orders from Government

o Tejas Networks wins $ 150 million BSNL order against global competition

MNC Companies in India

Global Corporations continue to let on India in the year 2009

o Cisco launches second campus in Bangalore and talks of $ 2 billion investment

o EMC commissions 1.5 millions square feet facility in Bangalore and plans $ 1.5 billion investment in India

o NVIDIA talks of Pune facility as second headquarters

o IBM is the largest IT vendor in India

o Nokia starts sourcing Indian content (AR Rahman album)

o Mercedes Benz to increase headcount from 250 to 800

o Perot Systems to hire 1,000 professionals in India

o SAP starts innovation center in Bangalore

o Intuit starts operations in India with focus on India specific products

o McAfee starts 3^rd India development center

o French IT services major CapGemini to double India head count

o Israeli IT services major Ness Technologies expands Bangalore center

• Honeywell, Harman International, SKF Bearings, Boeing R & D, EADS start their R&D Center in Bangalore in 2009
• Vodafone and Suzuki find their India operations contribute significantly to their revenue
• Sony Ericsson decides to close Chennai assembly plant

Telecom

The Indian telecom story continues to be interesting

o     On Nov 19, 2009, overall phone user population in India officially crossed the 500 million mark

o     By Dec 31, 2009 Indian mobile user population would have touched 500 million (official TRAI announcement will happen on January 23, 2010)

o     Monthly addition of 15+ million subscribers continue to better the global benchmark

o     Reliance adds 5 million GSM subscribers in their first month of operation (January)

o     Tata (with DoCoMo of Japan), Telnor (under Uninor brand) and MTS launch their GSM operations in India in 2009

o     Telecom tariff continue to drop (though Indian tariff is lowest in the world); all operators offer “per second” metering of charges!

o     The government continues to delay 3G licenses missing the opportunity of increasing mobile broadband in India

People

• President Obama dominated the world scene in 2009; started with swearing in (January), financial bail-out (March), Iraq withdrawal (May), Nobel Prize (October), Health Bill (November) and Copenhagen Summit (December)
• Visitors to India in year 2009 include
  • UN Secretary General Ban Moon
  • Martin Luther King III
  • Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
  • Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama
  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
  • San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
  • Chairman / CEO’s of
    • GE CEO Jeff Immelt
    • Intel CEO Paul Ottelini
    • Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
    • Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz
    • AMD CEO Dirk Meyer
    • Freescale CEO Rich Beyer
    • Cisco CEO Join chambers
    • IEEE President John Vig
• N Chandrashekar takes over as CEO of TCS (from S Ramadorai) on October 6
• Dr V Radhakrishnan takes charge as ISRO chairman (November 1)
• Dr Bindeshwar Phathak gets Stockholm Water Award
• Nandan Nilekani resigns from Infosys to take charge as Chairman of UID Authority of India; he is in the “Most Influential People’s List (TIME Magazine), Yale “Living Legends”
• 2009 is the year of the women – Sonia Gandhi (second term as UPA chairman), Angela Merkel (Second term as German Chancellor); Meira Kumar (Lok Sabha Speaker); Biocon Founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Chanda Kochchar of ICICI in “Top 20 most Influential women”
• Stanford Professor of Indian Origin Rajiv Motwani passed away; Andhra Chief Minister YSR Reddy died in an aircraft accident; the world lost the Nobel Laureates Norman Borlaugh and Paul Samuelson, music celebrity Michael Jackson, Indian musicians Gangubai Hangal and DK Pattammal, and news commentator Walter Cronkite in 2009

Interesting Applications

• Indian Railways booking is increasingly online; every third ticket is done over the Internet in 2009
• ATM transactions on Indian banking networks are exempt from transaction fee effective April 1, 2009
• Finland legislates 1 MBPS for every citizen in 2009; plans to increase to 100 MBPS over time!

Infrastructure

• Bandra-Worli Sea link becomes a reality in Bombay in June
• “Airport to city” elevated highway is open to traffic in Hyderabad in November
• Calcutta Metro gets extended
• Mysore Airport is commissioned in November
• Several airport modernization projects see action on ground with new terminals in Delhi, Bombay, Goa, Jaipur, and Pune

Education & Research

• Venky Ramakrishnan (India born) gets Nobel Chemistry 2009
• Six IITs start operation in July 2009
• Nine new NITs are announced
• Twelve Central Universities are born
• National Knowledge Network Phase I is on
• IIT/IIM faculty salary rise gets settled after several hiccups
• Yashpal Committee, UGC Review committee and MHRD Review committee submit recommendations to streamline higher education; AICTE officials face corruption charges leading to clouds over the functioning of the education regulator; foreign / private universities to become reality in 2010
• CAT (Common Admission Test) for admission to B-Schools goes online (though with several glitches)
• Campus Placements were severely affected in March – May season; things have considerably improved by the year end
• Infosys announces Science Prize in economic, physical, mathematics, engineering and biological science on Feb 14 gets an international jury to select the winners on Nov 30; the formal prize distribution is on Jan 4, 2010

IT related services

• Belgaum Aerospace SEZ gets commissioned
• Rural BPOs are taking off at many places
• Jaipur, Nagpur & Ahmedabad among “global 31 BPO destinations” (KPMG)

Interesting Numbers

• Sensex drops from 20,000 to 8,547 in March and returns to 17,000+ in December
• Foreign exchange reserves drop from $ 290 billion to $ 241 billion in March and return to $ 287 billion by December
• Car sales cross 1 million in 6 months (Apr- Sep)
• Indian software exports touch $ 49.7 billion in 2008-09 (practically on target of NASSCOM-McKinsey projection of $ 50 billion by 2008 made in 1999!)
• Rupee weakens to Rs 52 / $ in March and gains position to Rs 47 / $ by December
• Oil price drops to $ 40 in March and moves to $ 70 in December
• Chinese auto sales with 735,000 exceed US auto sales
• Indian mobile phone users to touch 500 million by December; there are 250,000 mobile towers already
• SBI launches 154 branches & 1540 ATM in one day; Canara Bank launches 105 branches in a day
• Indian talk a lot and text a lot!

o     134 min / day / user and

o     8.4 SMS per day with 2.6 incoming and 5.8 outgoing

Tags: IT in Year 2009