Today in tech: Microsoft's Surface Tablet; Siddhartha's Mindtree; Infosys' balancing problem

NS Ramnath
Updated: Oct 1, 2012 01:31:22 AM UTC

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av8NlAbPZi8[/youtube]

Microsoft's new tablet. On surface, looks good Microsoft announced two versions of tablets yesterday. One, Windows RT, is slightly heavier (by 24 gms) and thinner (by 0.1mm) than iPad and runs on NVidia's ARM-based processor. And the other, Windows 8 Pro, is bulkier and runs on Intel's Ivy Bridge processor. If Windows 8 operating system (I have been using its consumer preview version since March) tries to bridge the gap between PC and tablet in terms of the interface and access to apps, Windows 8 Pro, I feel, is designed to try and push the limits of what a tablet can do. Going by the specifications, it's almost like a laptop in a tablet format. What really takes the cake is the smart cover, which doubles up as keyboard.

Windows-Surface-Tablet-300x219

It doesn't look as cool as iPad. But hey, what's the big deal if it spares you from lugging an additional device around. (Micorsoft hasn't announced the price, battery life and the launch time - but I suppose we wouldn't be too off the mark to say that Pro 8 will be sold at a premium.)

 

VG Siddhartha ups his stake in Mindtree
VG Siddhartha, the man best known as the boss of Cafe Coffee Day, has picked up another 3.84 % in MindTree, increasing his stake to more than a fifth. He was one of the first investors in the company, and has over years bought more whenever a good opportunity arose. When Ashook Soota left MindTree to form Happiest Minds last July, he bought a substantial stake from Soota, and his most recent buy comes from Walden, another early investor.
I couldn't help but think how Siddhartha's approach of getting in and gradually increasing the stake mirrors MindTree's own strategy to get more revenues. As my colleague Mitu captured in an earlier story, Mindtree was betting on a so called Trojan Horse strategy, whereby it would use its expertise in select areas "to sneak inside the client’s business and use it to open the doors for more and more services." A recent report by Spark Capital says that its account mining efforts have started bearing fruits with its multi-million dollar customers growing in number.

Windows-Surface-Tablet-300x219

There is one more similarity. While Siddhartha is best known for his Cafe Coffee Day, he is in fact betting on multiple horses: he is trying to expand his financial services arm Way2wealth, he got into logistics by buying Sical, he is betting big on furniture business. It's good for an investor. But, one gets the same feeling of Mindtree, which might not be so good. For a $400 million revenue, it seems to want to be everywhere. "I am unable to associate MindTree with anything. It seems to be too many things at this point in time," Cognizant's Lakshmi Narayan told Mitu then. As if Mindtree's top management was in a mood to vigorously acknowledge whatever Lakshmi said, it soon announced the company would get into making mobile handsets - a kind of backward/forward integration. It eventually saw that it needs a lot more investments and pulled back. Interestingly, Sidhartha is a big believer in such integration, and it seems to be working for him. What works for one, seldom works for others.

Infosys - a battle between short term and long term
For sometime, it looked as if the depreciating rupee will actually help Infosys, since it gets most of its revenues in dollars and spends mostly in INR. A report in Economic Times gives the other side of the picture - of its dollar guidance. It quotes a few analysts who have said it might lower its guidance. Long term investors would be more concerned about what its broader strategy is, and there was an hint in a report Prabhudas Leeladhar shared with media yesterday. PL's analysts met Infosys BPO's finance head Abraham Matthews. What caught my attention was this sentence: "Management cited urgency for inorganic route to build non-linear momentum. The size of acquisition is likely to be at US$100-200m." Infosys has mostly depended on portfolio momentum for its growth rather than on acquisitions or aggressive marketing. Given the demand scenario, and its comfortable cash position, we shouldn't be surprised if it goes for a few small acquisitions in a year or so.

Also read:

  • Shruti Shibulal, one of India's gen-next entrepreneurs and daughter of Infosys co-founder and CEO S D Shibulal, has launched a 30-room boutique resort property in Coorg - Times of India
  • The IBM Sequoia has taken the top spot from Japan’s K Computer on the so-called “Top500” list of the fastest supercomputers in the world. Digital Trends
  • Facebook buys Face.com, getting access to technology that enables facial recognition in photos: San Francisco Chronicle

 

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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