Just when it seemed like the great Indian software gravy train was back on track, industry gold standard Infosys Technologies announced its results for the October-December quarter. Revenues were up 45 per cent as compared to the same quarter last year; net profit, 24 per cent. But the company's guidance for the January-March quarter-income is projected to be in the range of Rs 975 crore and Rs 989 crore-wasn't as sanguine as analysts wanted it to be. The result: the stock was battered 12 per cent in two days. Soon after, Wipro, Satyam, and HCL followed with numbers that weren't as impressive as one would have liked them to be. "The consensus on the recovery seems to be breaking down," says Mahesh Vaze, an analyst at Refco-Sify Securities. With large customers consolidating vendors, the Big 4 stand to gain but even this select club has it tough-Infosys' off-shore rates dipped 1.6 per cent last quarter. As evident in the numbers (See The Ups And Downs), it's going to be a long climb back to their glory days for the smaller firms.

-Vinod Mahanta

JOLLY ROGER
Pssst, Want An Adobe Photoshop?
The slowdown forces companies to veer from the straight and narrow and opt for pirated software.

Jeffrey Hardee (R) and a pirate's den in Delhi: Thriving business

It's an insidious fallout of the economic slowdown the country is witnessing. After falling to 61 per cent in 1999, the software piracy rate in India zoomed to 70 per cent in 2001 (the estimate for 2002 is 73 per cent). That means seven out of every 10 business software packages sold in India are pirated. That's way above the global average of 40 per cent. Still, India is better off than China, which boasts a piracy rate of 92 per cent (losses from piracy in that country amounted to $1.67 billion, a full 15.18 per cent of the global total of $11 billion).

That doesn't cut any ice with Jeffrey Hardee, the Vice President and the Asia-Pacific Regional Director of Business Software Alliance, an organisation working against software piracy. "It's a very disturbing trend," he rues, referring to the U-turn in software piracy rates in the country. The Alliance carries out regular raids in association with the local police; already in January, five vendors have been raided and three people arrested. Hardee has noticed another worrying development: the high profit margins in the pirated software business is attracting the underworld in countries such as India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. Indian law is adequately equipped to deal with piracy and is being amended to check that of the online variety; states such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have been proactive in fighting piracy; but Hardee feels awareness and enforcement still remain areas of concern. The easy way out, according to the man, would be for companies to just shop around. ''If you can't afford a Jaguar, go for a smaller car; there are several options available.''

-Vinod Mahanta

REPORT CARD

As the Reliance Infocomm juggernaut rolls towards its commercial launch, there are finally signs that the company has gotten its marketing act together. Part of that is purely motivational: such as the pep-talk Mukesh Ambani dished out to Reliance Infocomm execs in Delhi during a recent visit to the city. The rest is more pragmatic-the buzz is Reliance is rethinking its distribution channel. About time too.

Last July Novo Nordisk terminated clinical trials on a Doctor Reddy's molecule licensed to it; now it is Novartis' turn to do so. For a company harbouring notions of (discovery-led) pharma greatness in 7-10 years, that's a setback. Not so, claims founder K. Anji Reddy. "The drug discovery market is a painful journey; in my view, the latest development cannot really be termed as a setback; on our part, we will now study the data and determine the appropriate development path for the molecule."

-Vandana Gombar & E. Kumar Sharma