Google facing many risks in China standoff
February 5, 2010
Source: REUTERS

SAN FRANCISCO: Google Inc's near-silence and seeming inaction since its bombshell announcement it may exit China reflects the Internet search leader's fear of running afoul of the law and jeopardizing a multi-pronged strategy for the world's top Internet market.

Google sent shockwaves across the business and political worlds when it declared on January 12 it would stop censoring Chinese search results. But in the three weeks since, the Web giant has trod cautiously.

Despite early reports suggesting Google had lifted filters on certain search results, the company insists it has made zero changes to its Chinese search engine and that it remains in dialogue with Beijing. Otherwise, executives have mostly been tight-lipped about the entire affair.

That guarded, restrained approach reflects the thorny legal issues surrounding the situation and the high stakes involved in its standoff with China, the world's No. 3 economy and largest Internet market by users.

Many analysts believe the Chinese government would have no qualms shutting down an uncensored search engine. But experts on Chinese law warn that Google employees in China could also face prosecution for breaking the law.

China's detention of four Rio Tinto employees including Australian Stern Hu in July on accusations of illegally obtaining commercial secrets amid contentious iron ore contract negotiations has underscored the risk when business matters cross into politically sensitive areas.

"If they have a lot of personnel in China and they suddenly decide to change what they're doing in a way that was not permitted by the Chinese government, then that could lead to problems," said Donald Clarke, a professor of Chinese law at George Washington University Law School, noting Google staff could be at risk of everything from arrest to harassment.

And with political momentum building -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Senate have voiced strong support for freedom of expression on the Internet -- Google has room to sit back and let others advance its cause.

"As long as individual actors, even ones as large as Google, are doing this alone as opposed to collectively, then these risks are going to be much more pronounced," said Arvind Ganesan, director of business at Human Rights Watch.

STATE SECRETS: A CATCH-ALL

A sudden move by Google to lift search censorship in China could hurt other business interests in the country, including its fast-growing Android cell phone products, advertising sales and its research and development operations.

"Both parties probably want to reach some sort of a solution, so I think both have been careful in their public statements," UBS analyst Brian Pitz.

Websites in China are prohibited from publishing content that jeopardizes the security of the nation, divulges state secrets and disturbs the social order.

"It would be normal for anybody running a high-profile, politically controversial operation in China to anticipate worst-case scenarios, and to do everything possible to guard against them," said Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Open Society Institute who has written extensively about Internet censorship in China.

Google is therefore more likely to voluntarily shut down its search operation if it is unable to reach a compromise with China, rather than unilaterally lift censorship, she said.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said last month the company was still censoring search results in China, but that it would be making changes in a "reasonably short time." He added that Google was committed to having some presence in China.

The company does not disclose the size of its business in China, where it has several hundred employees and is the No. 2 search engine after Baidu Inc. Analysts estimate it generates $200 million to $600 million a year in revenue.

While many experts believe Beijing is unlikely to let Google operate an uncensored website, some say last summer's "Green Dam" software episode could offer a lesson for the company as it looks for a way forward.

Beijing backed down from a controversial plan that would have required personal computer makers to install special Internet filtering software on PCs in the face of opposition from industry groups, activists and Washington officials such as US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

"What you saw is a pretty much global pushback on what were pretty onerous and odious regulations on the part of the government. And guess what? As of today, there is no requirement" to install filtering software, said Ganesan of Human Rights Watch.

Microblogging may replace email: Gartner
February 5, 2010
Source: ET AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Social networking will replace email as the primary vehicle for communications for one in five businesses across the world, IT research major Gartner said on Tuesday. The research firm also said that nearly half of the companies globally will start using microblogging streams like Twitter in two years.

The forecasts were part of a Gartner report that tries to predict the realm of social networking in companies for 2010-2015 . The huge popularity of the consumer-microblogging service Twitter has led many organisations to look for an “enterprise Twitter,” that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features.

“However, it will be very difficult for microblogging as a stand-alone function to achieve widespread adoption within the enterprise. Twitter’s scale is one of the reasons for its popularity,” said Jeffrey Mann, research vice-president for Gartner.

Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on.

Already, Indian companies like Bharti have switched to SMS instead of email. Almost 90% of internal communication in the company happens through an SMS intranet developed by IBM. Gartner also predicts that by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and location , adds Gartner.

“Rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. Email will take on many social attributes such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities,” predicts Matt Cain, research vice-president at Gartner. “While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of cloud-based social networking services,” he adds. The shift will also be marred of challenges. Through 2013, IT organisations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. This will result in over a 70% failure rate in IT-driven social media initiatives inside companies , says Gartner.

During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Companies like Oracle and SAP already offer social networking applications inside their ERP systems.

Promotions may follow pay hike plan at Wipro
February 5, 2010
SOURCE: REUTERS

BANGALORE: Close on the heels of announcing salary hikes, the country’s third-largest IT services exporter, Wipro Technologies, is likely to go

ahead with promotions in April. And expectations are that the promotions this year would be much more broad-based unlike those in 2009.

An internal e-mail to employees by Wipro’s joint CEOs, said: “We had announced during Wipro Meet (a town hall event) that we will have salary increases in February and this is already under way and we hope this has brought a measure of good cheer. There are more changes coming our way in the near future and these include a progression cycle after the completion of the annual appraisal cycle.”

The internal mail further stated that “...with all our high investments into new technologies, we have over 4,000 open positions now. This means there are more opportunities for Wiproites to grow and get trained in best-in-class technologies.”

Wipro Technologies follows a two-cycle promotion policy that usually happens in April and October. During 2009, it was selective in promoting people.

However, with the hiring momentum picking up and attrition rates rising, industry observers feel that Wipro would be more liberal this time. When contacted, Pratik Kumar, HR head-Wipro, said: “We have already said that we would go ahead with our promotions in April and it would be as selective as in the past.”

A Wipro employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said while promotions are likely to be across-the-board in April, it is unlikely that the people at the very junior level would be considered.

Yet another employee, who also didn’t want to be identified, said they have seen quite a few colleagues leaving the organisation and this e-mail is a step to shore up staff confidence.

Wipro Technologies had 102,746 employees at the end of December quarter with voluntary attrition rate touching 13.4%. The overall attrition rate at the end of December quarter had risen from 10.5% reported at the end of September quarter.