Today in Tech: Infosys defers hiring plans; Apple's iWatch and more

Infosys defers hiring plans

Infosys seems to have cut its hiring target for this year (2012-13) by half. It planned to recruit 35,000 people, compared to 45,000 a year earlier. Business Line reports that it will hire about half that number only in the second half of next financial year (2013-14), an indicator that its not getting as much business as it expected when it first revealed the hiring plans.

Once, Infosys was known for its conservative forecast. The assumption in the market was that it would always beat its guidance by a good margin. This year proved that such assumptions can be buried for good. It missed them, it stopped giving quarterly guidance and it lowered its annual guidance too. In April, it said its revenues will grow 8-10% in FY2013, but by July it had lowered it to 5%. It was in contrast to how some of its rivals were performing - TCS and Cognizant in particular - and worse even than the overall industry growth rate. (Nasscom, the industry lobby, said software exports from the country will grow by 11-14% this year.)

Infosys leaders have put on a brave face saying they are running a marathon and that things will get better. But, there are reasons to think they might be getting a little too nervous. Earlier this month, Infosys management said it might not meet even its 5% guidance. Interestingly, it was not in a stock market announcement or in a press conference. It was revealed to a few analysts - and it took a couple of days for the retail investors and the media (ET report here, Mint report here) to catch up with the news. It's not something that you would have expected Infosys to do when things were going good.

Update: Infosys spokesperson says: "Our hiring happens in batches, hence with the deferment of three months only a few of the batches will join in FY14. Plus HBL said we've deferred joining dates again - which is wrong. We only deferred it once."

Earlier this year, a start-up made news by raising $ 1 million through crowd-funding. Its flagship product - a wristband for iPod Nano. In fact, among many Apple fans, using an iPod Nano as a wristwatch has been popular for sometime.

Now, reports suggest that Apple is working on a smart watch, that could connect to your Apple devices through bluetooth. My bet: the watch will click, given that it's probably one of the best ways to carry a device around. More at Digital Trends; Business Insider; Geek and TGBus (the Chinese site which broke the news)

Also of interest

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• For every 100 web pageviews on an iPad, a Kindle gets 5, a Galaxy gets 3, and a Surface gets 0.22: Venture Beat