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| Mahajan: See the proprietary way his
hands encircle the globe? |
You
just can't keep telecommunications Minister Pramod Mahajan's name
off the headlines. If he isn't ruminating-aloud and in public-about
the merger of MTNL and BSNL, he is positing having up to six cellular
service companies in each circle (India currently has four in each).
If he isn't calling for meetings with the chief executives of large
telcos to discuss the sticky issue of interconnection-or one network
passing and receiving calls from another and the economic implications
of this-he is reviewing the spectrum policy. And if he isn't justifying
MTNL's decision to appoint a wet-behind-the-ears BJP loyalist to
the board of MTNL he is defending himself against charges unsavoury
enough not to be reprinted in a magazine like our own, which believes
in family values. Maybe because he does all this, and more, Mahajan
couldn't find the time to meet this correspondent and a faxed request
went unheeded.
Mahajan, who laces his speeches
with a healthy dose of earthy humour-he once remarked that the only
industries where India was doing well were it and beauty-relishes
the limelight. So much so that his roles as Telecommunications Minister,
telecom policy maker, telecom regulator, telecom operator (after
all, he does head BSNL and MTNL in a way), Indian it's spokesperson
to the world, and the BJP's sometime regulator merge into one larger-than-life
whole. And it doesn't always help the cause of Indian telecom (which
this correspondent is sure Mr Mahajan wants to). For instance, his
pronouncement concerning a merger of MTNL and BSNL eroded the former's
market capitalisation-it is a better-run company-some 15 per cent.
And his locus standi to resolve the interconnect issue, as the minister
in charge of BSNL which is an interested party, is, despite his
renowned impartialness, suspect. After all wasn't it this very hands-on
minister who perceived as a personal affront a purely business decision
(however flawed it may have been) by the Tata Group to get VSNL
(of which it owned an overwhelming 45 per cent, by the way) to invest
Rs 1,200 crore in group company Tata Teleservices-all because VSNL
had once been a government TELCO under his control.
With TRAI content to convert Mahajan's public
statements into directives-like it did a recent one with reference
to lowering the ceiling on the monthly rental for Wireless-in-Local-Loop
phones-instead of being the sole authority that can decide on tariff
rebalancing, the minister has emerged the most powerful figure in
the booming Indian telecommunications industry. For the record,
his intention to give private basic telephony companies to meet
their Village Public Telephone obligations-they have fallen woefully
short of the target for setting up such phones laid down in the
licence-goes against the recommendation of the government's Group
on Telecom and it which favoured December 2003 as a deadline. And
his keenness to resolve the issue of spectrum (or the lack of it)
may effectively undermine Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency
Allocations.
Unfortunately, some of his pet projects-and
these could have really helped the cause of it and telecommunications
in India-such as MIT Medialab Asia and the national internet backbone
haven't seen the success he would have liked them to. But Mr Telecommunications
shines on.
-Suveen K. Sinha
INTERVIEW
The Importance Of Being Paul Maritz
The
chief architect of Windows and Microsoft's .net strategy was seen
surveying Bangalore recently.
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| Paul Maritz: Did he really threaten to
choke Netscape? |
Zimbabwe-born, South Africa- bred Paul
Maritz was the #3 man in Microsoft after Bill Gates and Steve
Ballmer when he quit in September 2000. One of the main witnesses
summoned by the US Department of Justice in its case against Microsoft,
Maritz denied that he had, as one Intel exec claimed said "Microsoft
will cut off Netscape's air supply". Renowned for his ability
to spot tech trends, he is now scouting for the right companies
to invest in.
What brings you to India?
This is my second visit to India and the first
one was just a holiday. I want to educate myself on what is happening
in the Indian it market. Also, as an investor in Talisma, I also
wanted to check what my money was doing. (laughs)...
Which technologies do you consider hot?
Broadband and services that exploit the internet
infrastructure. Contrary to general perception, I do not think broadband
promise has failed. It has been slow taking off. I am also interested
in companies developing next generation products and services to
analyse the mass of data available on the net.
Are you looking at some Indian companies?
It is premature to discuss names. I am meeting
a couple of them. As I mentioned, this is an exploratory trip. I
am excited by the potential of Indian companies. That is also why
I invested in Talisma.
Do you think the Indian software success
story will continue? Are threats from countries like China, Ireland
and Philippines real?
India still has the edge but customers across
the globe are looking at cutting costs and getting more bang for
each buck. I believe that Indian companies should be on their toes.
Apart from the software services model,
do you see Indian companies successfully developing shrink wrapped
software. Do you see an Indian company posing a threat to Microsoft
one day?
I see no reason why Indian companies, at least
a couple of them, should not succeed and become major global players.
It requires long-term planning. My perception is that Indian companies
are weak in the area of marketing. If they brush up their act, there
is no reason why there should not be a Microsoft or a Cisco or a
Nortel from India.
-Venkatesha Babu
CURIOSITIES
Strange Sights
Department
What is it: Mobile hoarding
Where can you find it: Mumbai
What does it do: The hoardings move around
to exploit rush-hour
How does it move: Horizontally, on specially
made Tata Trucks; vertically, on hydraulic lifts
How high is it, really: 15 feet
Who do we owe this innovation to: Standard
Chartered and Portland India claim it for their own
Which other companies have used it: Airtel,
HPCL, Orange, HDFC, ICICI Pru, Pond's, Walls, Pepsi, Four Square,
HLL, Birla Sun Life Mutual
How much does it cost: Rs 3.5 lakh a month
for a drive through 40 locations in Mumbai
Which is the agency behind it: M'cons Advertising
Where next: Delhi
-Compiled by Dipayan Baishya
INC PLOT
Transparency, Stupid
What's unseemly about the controversy surrounding
former GE boss Jack Welch is not so much the largesse he got, but
the manner in which the company's shareholders were kept in the
dark about them.
 Much
has been written about the controversy surrounding former General
Electric boss Jack Welch's post-retirement benefits-the details
of which emerged only recently when his second wife filed papers
during their divorce proceedings. Welch has, subsequently, in an
article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal, announced that he
has refused a lot of the largesse that had been written into his
initial contract with GE. Welch's post-retirement benefits included
apartments, free private plane trips, cars, etc, that were worth
millions of dollars. Those benefits were probably not wholly unjustified
for a man who had for the 21 years that he had been in charge of
GE consistently rewarded shareholders well and taken the company
to dizzy heights both in terms of profits as well as market value.
The problem was that GE showed a lack of transparency while awarding
Welch that package, keeping its shareholders in the dark. Remember,
details of what Welch got came out only after his recent affair
with the former editor of the Harvard Business Review derailed his
second marriage.
If GE had bestowed Welch with the benefits,
the megacorp would have shelled out an estimated $2 million (Rs
9.8 crore) or more annually. If that's eye-popping, remember that
even lesser CEOs in the US often get benefits that are worth a lot
more written into their contracts. Sometimes these include downright
outlandish stuff, like a former head of the bankrupt TELCO Global
Crossing whose package is believed to have included free first class
air tickets for his mother.
But why look so far? Nine years ago when an
unseemly brawl broke out between Russi Mody and the Tata Group's
brass over his overdue retirement from Tata Steel, Mody had demanded-and
almost got-a lucrative post-retirement package of perquisites. Want
to know what Mody had asked for? The exclusive use during his lifetime
of a flat in Kolkata or alternative accommodation worth up to Rs
2 crore in that city, a three-bedroomed holiday home in Darjeeling
(a hill station in northern Bengal), a plush flat on Delhi's Prithviraj
Road, a house in Sussex, England, the services of company-paid bearers,
cooks, drivers, etc., for life, a company car and medical benefits
in India and abroad.
There were other goodies on that list of demands
that I cannot recollect. But what I do remember was that with the
exception of the Sussex house, the Tata Steel board had initially
approved the package. Only later did they renege on it when a Tata
Sons director pointed out that the board was not empowered to give
Mody all the benefits he had wanted and that it would have to be
approved by the company's shareholders and possibly the government's
Department of Company Affairs. As it happened, Mody finally got
a truncated version of his original wishlist after the necessary
approvals.
That isn't the point. What is, is the fact
that someone in Bombay House did think of transparency and shareholder
approval unlike at GE, where details of Welch's package came to
light only during his divorce proceedings. In other words, if Welch's
affair with a journalist hadn't disrupted his marriage, his post-retirement
benefits would still have accrued to him, Manhattan flat, corporate
jet rides, cars and other expenses included. Nor would Welch have
come out with flying colours-check out the laudatory pieces in the
US business press-when he wrote the Wall Street Journal article
heroically giving up the benefits. Just think. If he were still
married, would GE shareholders, or the world, ever have known about
the deal Neutron Jack cut with his former employer?
- Sanjoy Narayan
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