Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/04/28/india_hitech_city/
El Reg visits Hyderaspace and sees bullocks, giant rabbits
A whistlestop tour of India's Hitec city
Posted in Bootnotes, 28th April 2008 12:27 GMT
Hitec City in Hyderabad is the home of Satyam, one of India’s top four IT players, and hosts offices for a raft of other Indian and international tech companies. It used to be a rocky wasteland on the edge of the city that Hyderabadis were afraid to go to – they feared you could be murdered and your body never seen again. Now with companies like Dell, IBM and Oracle setting up shop here alongside the local players, it’s your tech support calls that are likely to end up there...
Security is tight. BPO development and support workers are banned from bringing bags, memory sticks, cameraphones, or even scrap paper into the office. That’s assuming they even get in there in the first place. As you fly/crawl along the brand spanking new roads into the high tech quarter, you’ll see checkpoint security all over the place. We’re not talking software – we mean real soldiers, with real uniforms and real guns. And real comfy chairs.
Guarding Hitec City - lock, stock and barrel
Still, there’s always someone that tries to buck the system – we spotted this guy trying to make a run for it. Don’t worry, this scoundrel was quickly caught and is back where he belongs, handling level 1 server support for a major US bank.
The penalty for desertion is escalation
Even in this brave new world, the old India still intrudes. Swan into Hitec city in an air-conditioned Toyota and you’ll be dropped off outside shiny new offices that could be on any industrial estate around the world. Have a look through one of the back windows and you can see clusters of shacks and shanties that could be anywhere in India. Enjoy the view while it lasts - there’ll probably be 2,000 programmers overhauling your social security system or developing an avionics systems there before you know it.
For support, just call 007 SHANTY TOWN
If they’re lucky, they’ll have passed through the Satyam finishing school at its HQ and research centre outside Hyderabad. If it wasn’t for the 40 degree heat, you could be forgiven for thinking you were on a university campus in Silicon Valley. Single staff get to live on site, and they all get access to a pool, table tennis rooms, gym and billiards hall, along with possibly the greenest lawn in the whole of India. There’s even a zoo.
It's all greenfields and blue skies
Publicly, Satyam’s ambitions are confined to the technology and consulting world. We couldn’t confirm it, but we suspect it might have a genetics arm concentrating on flooding the world with gigantic white rabbits who will program ERP systems for nothing more than a bag of carrots a day. Or perhaps we just shouldn’t have gone out in the midday sun.
Lewis Carroll would have been proud
But it was that very midday sun that lit up the shocking truth about India’s plans to take over the world’s IT industry. They’ve even prepared a graveyard for the US tech industry. OK, they told us it was simply a selection of commemorative trees marking the visits of US bigwigs, including Gates, Mike Splinter and Bill Inmon, but we could see what was really going on.
The tech graveyard
Yes, it was very hot that day. Still, we think we caught a glimpse of the future. Some people might say all this talk of India being the world’s coming IT power is bull. Well, we know what bull looks like – this. ®
India: still bullish about its high tech sector