There will be a lot more of India in Apple products soon. The
$108-billion maker of iPhones and iPads is scaling up sharply the work
it outsources to Infosys Technologies.
The Bangalore-based IT giant has rented a 1.40-lakh-sqft office space near its headquarters in Electronics City to house employees who would work exclusively for Apple. Sources in the real estate industry who did not want to be named said the building would have the capacity to house 1,400 people. The centre will be operational by the end of the year.
It was previously reported that Apple CIO Neil O'Connor had met the Infosys top brass in Bangalore in January, leading to speculation that Apple was looking at outsourcing more to Indian companies.
When contacted, Infosys said in an emailed response: "We are unable to participate in your story."
Apple, the maker of products like the iPod and iPad, outsources application development and maintenance work to the extent of Rs 490 crore to Indian IT services providers. It is said to account for $50 million (Rs 275 crore) of Infosys' annual revenue of $7 billion.
Assuming that the new space that Infosys is taking for Apple will house a new set of employees, it would mean that Apple would be giving an additional business of at least $65 million (Rs 357 crore) every year to Infosys, considering that each Infosys employee accounts for an average annual revenue of $47,000. Infosys has about 1.5 lakh employees.
Former employees of Infosys who had worked on the Apple account said the current work is being executed by employees across Bangalore, Mangalore, Bhubaneswar and Thiruvananthapuram. The ultra-secretive Apple does not disclose the nature of work it does with third parties. But the former Infosys employees said Infosys played a role in developing applications for iCloud — a service that allows users to access music, calendar, documents and email via the cloud and which automatically syncs with your Mac, iPad and iPhone.
Infosys has also worked on developing applications for Apple Retail Store 2.0 launched last year, where iPad displays took the place of paper placards in Apple stores. The iPad offered an interactive way to explore the features and prices of the products being advertised, and it even had a call button to summon an Apple representative to the product for assistance.
Infosys has also helped in the design of frameworks for the iOS, the operating platform for Apple devices that provides interfaces needed to write software for the platform. Many Infosys employees are trained on Cocoa, Apple's native objective-oriented application programming interface.
Apple, with revenues of $108 billion in 2011, is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization, thanks to the phenomenal success of the iPhone and iPad. The market cap briefly touched $600 billion in April this year and currently is around $571 billion.
In 2006, the company had moved to establish a 3,000-people strong technical support centre in Bangalore. But it withdrew within months following a massive backlash from Apple fans around the world who felt India would not be able to deliver the quality of support they expected. However, it looks like the quality of Indian IT outsourcing work has been too good to resist.
HIGH-PROFILE CLIENT
Infy has rented 1.4 lakh sqft office space to house 1,400
Apple dedicated employees
May mean an additional revenue of at least $65 million every year for Infy
Infosys already receives $50 mn in annual revenue from Apple
Infy has worked on applications for Apple's iCloud and Retail Store 2.0
The Bangalore-based IT giant has rented a 1.40-lakh-sqft office space near its headquarters in Electronics City to house employees who would work exclusively for Apple. Sources in the real estate industry who did not want to be named said the building would have the capacity to house 1,400 people. The centre will be operational by the end of the year.
It was previously reported that Apple CIO Neil O'Connor had met the Infosys top brass in Bangalore in January, leading to speculation that Apple was looking at outsourcing more to Indian companies.
When contacted, Infosys said in an emailed response: "We are unable to participate in your story."
Apple, the maker of products like the iPod and iPad, outsources application development and maintenance work to the extent of Rs 490 crore to Indian IT services providers. It is said to account for $50 million (Rs 275 crore) of Infosys' annual revenue of $7 billion.
Assuming that the new space that Infosys is taking for Apple will house a new set of employees, it would mean that Apple would be giving an additional business of at least $65 million (Rs 357 crore) every year to Infosys, considering that each Infosys employee accounts for an average annual revenue of $47,000. Infosys has about 1.5 lakh employees.
Former employees of Infosys who had worked on the Apple account said the current work is being executed by employees across Bangalore, Mangalore, Bhubaneswar and Thiruvananthapuram. The ultra-secretive Apple does not disclose the nature of work it does with third parties. But the former Infosys employees said Infosys played a role in developing applications for iCloud — a service that allows users to access music, calendar, documents and email via the cloud and which automatically syncs with your Mac, iPad and iPhone.
Infosys has also worked on developing applications for Apple Retail Store 2.0 launched last year, where iPad displays took the place of paper placards in Apple stores. The iPad offered an interactive way to explore the features and prices of the products being advertised, and it even had a call button to summon an Apple representative to the product for assistance.
Infosys has also helped in the design of frameworks for the iOS, the operating platform for Apple devices that provides interfaces needed to write software for the platform. Many Infosys employees are trained on Cocoa, Apple's native objective-oriented application programming interface.
Apple, with revenues of $108 billion in 2011, is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization, thanks to the phenomenal success of the iPhone and iPad. The market cap briefly touched $600 billion in April this year and currently is around $571 billion.
In 2006, the company had moved to establish a 3,000-people strong technical support centre in Bangalore. But it withdrew within months following a massive backlash from Apple fans around the world who felt India would not be able to deliver the quality of support they expected. However, it looks like the quality of Indian IT outsourcing work has been too good to resist.
HIGH-PROFILE CLIENT
Infy has rented 1.4 lakh sqft office space to house 1,400
Apple dedicated employees
May mean an additional revenue of at least $65 million every year for Infy
Infosys already receives $50 mn in annual revenue from Apple
Infy has worked on applications for Apple's iCloud and Retail Store 2.0
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pple, the maker of products like the iPod and iPad, outsources application development and maintenance work to the extent of Rs 490 crore to Indian IT services providers. It is said to account for $50 million (Rs 275 crore) of Infosys' annual revenue of $7 billion.
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