India's major outsourcers now offer complex tech services

5/2/05
Bangalore's Big Dreams
India's major outsourcers now offer complex tech services, like design engineering
By Terry Atlas

BANGALORE, INDIA--Kaushik Mukherjee's workshop looks like a place where electronics go to die. The guts of tech gear lie exposed, their circuit boards tethered to computer monitors like patients on life support. But the reality is quite different. Mukherjee and his colleagues are hard at work on the next wave of consumer electronics. In one area, they are doctoring a low-cost computer chip to mimic a pricey one for a sub-$50 satellite TV digital video recorder. Nearby, they are designing circuitry for a 65-inch high-definition television. There are other projects, too, ones they can't talk about for competitive reasons.

The name of Mukherjee's employer, Indian tech giant Wipro Ltd., won't appear on any of the eventual products being developed for corporate clients with familiar names. Italian automaker Fiat, for instance, had Wipro design the satellite navigation system for its Alfa Romeo cars. Nokia, the big cellphone maker, sends work to Wipro's engineers. In general, though, anonymity is the rule when it comes to product design outsourcing, as the corporate culture here embraces the idea of packaging a "Wipro brain" under someone else's brand. "We're not a product company," says Mukherjee. "We're a services company."

If you think tech outsourcing is limited to call centers, software writing, and back-office operations, think again. The same Indian firms that generated the outsourcing wave--and the ensuing jobs controversy--are moving up what one executive calls the "value chain." The big three--Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies, and Wipro--and myriad smaller firms are taking outsourcing in new directions, tech product research and development being just one example. Since the trend is not as obvious as when it involves hearing an Indian-accented voice on a customer help line, it might be considered, as Wipro notes, a "silent revolution."

More: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/050502/2india.htm

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