The Mac II, launched on March 2, 1987, cost $5,500 and was the first computer with a colour graphical interface. Three years earlier Apple had begun selling the LaserWriter. Combined with WYSIWYG (what

you see is what you get) software, the world was waking up to the marvels of desktop publishing.

Steve Jobs, who said everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die, did both on October 5 – at least it must be computing heaven – almost exactly 10 years after the iPod was launched, “a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket”. The Aughts were engorged with Apple delights, and you only had to watch toddlers use the touch screens on iPhones and then iPads intuitively and insouciantly to understand how far we have travelled from the Mac II and its one megabyte of standard memory. Oddly enough the Macintosh was launched with an Orwellian commercial, “1984”, where a young woman smashes a screen projecting Big Brother, while a roomful of human robots – a.k.a. Androids – look on aghast. Today, Google’s Android open-source platform looks like a serious threat to Apple’s iOS mobile operating system.

But back to the late 1980s, when Vinod Vohra, Chairman of Repro India, remembers producing what he believes to be India’s first CD-ROM. Its title? The Kama Sutra. Repro was trying to sell Macs bundled with the CD-ROM, which you played off an external drive. Suddenly people began to hear the word “multimedia” and were capti-vated. “I was fascinated; I was in awe; I was consumed by this thing,” Vohra remembers. Right from then, he says, Apple products were aspirational. Think of the kids who queued up to buy the iPad, which has up to 64 gigabytes of storage. That is 64,000 times the storage on the Mac II at one-eleventh its price.

Steve Jobs’s passing momentarily diverted morbid interest from the wan world economy. In India, all signs now point to a “new nor-mal” of seven-plus per cent GDP growth and seven-plus per cent inflation for quite a sustained period. Is India slowing? Yes. Will there be a “hard landing”? No. Were we guilty of believing that we had a divine right to 10-per cent growth? Undoubtedly.

Which is why the third Business Today Business Confidence Index (page 58) should be as much part of your archives as the earlier two quarterly surveys were. It shows that business is pessimistic, and that hiring may also be decelerating; this trend is additionally underlined in the BT-TeamLease Employment Outlook Survey on page 124. And as for our exports, which seem to hop about with the same abandon as the Energizer Bunny, you must read our sober assessment starting on page 64 of why they might just fall off the cliff.

“Cognizant” means “aware of something”. Our cover story this fortnight unfolds the story of a 15-year-old company with lower margins, relentless customer focus and wide-open eyes, led appropriately by a borderless CEO,which is snapping at the heels of India’s No. 2 software company (page 46).

Good business journalism is about telling you gobsmacking tales. Special Correspondent Sunny Sen, who worked on the Cognizant story, also describes how the Chinese are about to invade India – with five car models unleashed by their local partner General Motors (page 78).

And there is so, so much more…

chaitanya.kalbag@intoday.comwww.businesstoday.in/editor

From the Editor

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FEATURES

Mallya shuts Kingfisher Red at a time when low-cost aviation is flyinghigh. Will the move pay off?

Why even rivals admire ad agency Taproot

The corporate sector’s mood has deteriorated. It feels there is little hope of RBI’s policies improving the gloomy economic scenario

Export data is currently spectacular, but there may be rude shocks ahead

Zurich-based giant ABBis investing here to localise technology and be more competitive

MONEY

Eco-friendly homes may be expensive, but will help you save money in the long run

CONTENTS OCTOBER /30/2011 Volume 20/Number 22

FOCUS

Providing access to qual-ity health care should be the real concern, not the perceived impact of FDIon drug prices, says G.V. Prasad

UPFRONT

COVER STORY

Under headman Francisco D’Souza, Cognizant has turned the outsourcing model on its head. Having overtaken Wipro, it is chasing Infosys. Plus: Interview with D’Souza

How the Chinese are changing General Motors India

Aegis from the Essar fold and Aditya Birla Minacs are giving BPO veterans a run for their money

A year after being knocked flat by the Andhra Pradesh clampdown, microfinance institutions have redefined their focus and are busy diversifying

Now, get expert medical advice on telephone, or online

F1 is basking in cricket’s misery. But for how long?

Nokia is pioneering mobile payments in India, but it needs to straighten out many kinks – soon

CavinKare, which began the sachet revolution, is now working towards a global presence

CO

VE

RIL

LU

ST

RA

TIO

NB

YK

AP

IL

LBNL

Corporate honchos are also writing popular fiction

P-TECH

Amazon presents the most credible challenge yet to iPad

BOOKEND

This is a fascinating tale of the intersect of neuro-science and computing

EXECUTIVE HEALTH

If you feel listless at work, you should see a counsellor

CAREERS

The latest BT-TeamLease survey shows employers expect a drop in hiring

PEOPLEBUSINESS

LEADERSPEAK

CMD, Jindal Steel & Power

6 BUSINESS TODAY October 30 2011

King or Leader?Your cover story (King B, October 16) highlights Kumar Mangalam Birla’s vision and journey. He gambled with ideas, strategies and dared to dream of a global setup different from the typical Birla style. He tinkered with the business model of his father’s company, Aditya Birla Group, and was successful in growing it about 20 times. He was successful in balancing some traditional systems like Parta alongside modern concepts such as innovative management style and his ability to “carry and marry” both worlds. I feel he is a great leader in many ways, rather a real king.Bithi Dutta, Puducherry

Green MysteryThe Great Indian Green Trick (BT,October 16) was a brilliant analysis. Sordid environmental issues were exposed through a deep study of Krishnapatnam and other areas in Andhra Pradesh. They are not isolated cases. This is a pervasive mess across the nation. New business initiatives should not hamper the lives of breadwinners and their dependants with problems that roll out when ventures are allowed to unfold without proper environmental norms. Environmental hazards are offsetting the benevolence of the accrued aug-mentation of industrial expansion. B. Rajasekaran, Bangalore

Cooking with GasFuel’s gold (BT, October 16) is novel

HOW TO CONTACT

Re:

www.businesstoday.in/coverstory:

www.businesstoday.in/coverstory:

gold. The cooking technology developed by First Energy is a great initiative that will address two major problems – waste management and the energy problem of low-income households. It will save both energy and money. In fact, the Thiruvan-anthapuram civic body faced similar problems and is thinking of promoting this technology in a big way. Some households in Thiruvananthapuram are already recycling their daily waste and are using it as cooking fuel.Jacob Sahayam, Thiruvananthapuram

Correction In the PeopleBusiness item on Divya Narendra (BT, October 16, Page 135), the first start-up he worked on has been incorrectly named. It was called HarvardConnection. We regret the error.

Birla was successful in balancing some of traditional systems like Parta alongside modern concepts such as innovative management style and his ability to “carry and marry” both worlds

WEB EXCLUSIVES

Geetanjali ShuklaHard Times Ahead for Kingfisher Airlines

Kingfi sher Airlines has decided to shut its low-cost service, Kingfi sher Red. The move is one of many recent attempts by the airline to manage its debt, which stands at `6,000 crore. Recovery will be a daunting task.

Shah Rukh Khan has left no stone unturned in his quest to promote Ra.One. The fi lm may be one the most publicised in Bollywood history, says Anusha Subramanian.

The luxury carmaker recently released Brio, a small car, to compete with market leaders like Maruti Suzuki. Sunny Sen investigates Brio’s different models.

These four men support K.M. Birla’s empire. Read profi les of Ajay Srinivasan (businesstoday.in/srinivasan), Himanshu Kapania (businessto-day.in/kapania), Santrupt Misra (businesstoday.in/misra), and Debnarayan Bhattacharya (busi-nesstoday.in/bhattacharya).

PERSPECTIVE HIGHLIGHT

W

Uma AsherWord Mentality

N. MadhavanChatterati

A place that offers haircuts is not a saloon, despite Indians’ ten-dency to refer to it that way.

Investors may fi nally be looking at diamonds as an asset class.

BLOGS

Debashish MukerjiBook Bazaar

Suman Layak& Company

A new book might expose the publishing industry’s deepest secrets.

K.M. Birla has not lost his straight-forward attitude in the decade since Suman fi rst interviewed him.

MUST SEE THIS FORTNIGHT

Anusha Subramanian