Today in Tech: Cognizant, Facebook & Data Scientists

Unconventional: Cognizant enters into $330 million deal with ING U.S. It's not yet another outsourcing deal, for two reasons. As a part of the deal, Cognizant will hire over 1000 ING US employees, and also purchase an ING's facility in US and sub-lease some of its offices there. IT companies have tried this before. Back in 2007, Infosys made a similar deal with Royal Philips Electronics. It acquired three development centers, (in India, Poland and Thailand) inducting 1400 people. The revenue potential for Infy: $250 million. Around that time, Cognizant also executed an even more complex deal. To win the seven-year contract from Rabobank, it partnered with Ordina, a fast growing IT services company in Holland. Ordina paid an undisclosed amount and also took over hundreds of employees from Rabobank. Cognizant managed the offshore part - about 3.8 million hours of work. So, it has been done before. But what makes Cognizant announcement late last night interesting is that we are likely to see IT companies coming up with such deals more often. In the New Normal, unconventional might just become mainstream.

On Target: Facebook to launch real time bidding for ads on its network
Bloomberg reports  that within weeks the world’s top social media firm will launch Facebook Exchange which will help advertisers target a specific set of users based on browsing history, and let them bid for advertising real time. Nothing new or revolutionary here. Google has been doing it. But, such initiatives are key for Facebook, which is facing pressure to match its revenues to the oversized meaning it has among its users. (Here’s Economist comparing it with countries). In the latest issue Deepak Ajwani and I looked at Facebook numbers in India, and found that it has a long way to go here. Initiatives like this will help. But what we have to watch out for is how successfully it can integrate its revenue model with growing mobile internet usage. Here's the irony: that’s exactly what a typical Facebook user should be worried about.

Jobs!!! Growing demand for data scientists
For some time now, IT events and technology columns have been buzzing with the terms mobility, cloud and big data. So, it should come as no surprise that the demand for data specialists is picking up. Yet, a report  in Economic Times today has a few interesting bits of information. Data specialists earn 30-40% more than software engineers (of the same level of experience). IISc has a masters programme in business analytics and the first set of students will graduate next year. ISB has set up Asia Analytics Lab. IITs are planning to start programmes in the field. But before you rush to hire them, head for McKinsey's report on big data, if you haven't already.

Also read:
Evan Osnos on what US interest in Chinese companies relationships with its government and military means. (New Yorker)
A Roundup of Retina MacBook Pro Reviews (MacRumors)
Cloud competition is go: Amazon Web Services lowers support prices (Venture Beat)
Microsoft to buy Yammer for $1 billion (WSJ)

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.