For Everything on Infosys

Infosys not the first venture..
Narayan Murthy first founded "Softronics" in 1976.It was an IT consulting company catering to Indian market clients. He wound it and joined Patni Computers...
Murthy wasnt employee #1..
Murthy is Infosys' employee #4, not employee #1. He decided to joined on Infosys on Dec. 29,1980, and went back to Patni to complete 2 pending projects. He re-joined Infosys on March 18,1982...
Nandan ties company knot..
Nandan Nilekani joined hands a few days before his marriage in january 1981. Murthy and Raghavan invited him to join Infosys in Dec. 1980...
Infosys has 7,not 6 founders..
The 7th lesser known founder is Ashok Arora. He quit in 1989...
Murthy considered best software engineer..
Murthy is considered to be the best-ever software engineer by his former founding colleagues. They say as long as computers continue to be based on Von Neumann architecture, Murthy will be on top of systems and software...
Company without a computer..
Infosys didnt have a computer in the first 2 years of its existence. It started operations as a body shopper...
Hegde first in employees' rank..
A former Patni Employee, Sharad Hegde was the first to join the company apart from the founders...
JV route to market..
Infosys' made early market inroads in the US through a joint venture with KSA, called KSA-Infosys which fell apart later...
The End was near..
Infosys was on the verge of being wound up in 1989. The JV with KSA had collapsed,Arora decided to leave that year. Murthy asked his co-founders if they wanted to quit.They declined and moved on...
Manmohan Facilitated the IPO..
Infosys wanted to issue its shares at a premium. Till early 90s, issue-pricing was decided by Controller of Capital Issues. It fixed Infosys' share premium of Re.1 at issue price of Rs 11. Infosys demurred. Then finance minister Manmohan Singh abolished CCI and Infosys went ahead with the issue in February 1993 at a premium of Rs 85 and issue price of Rs 95.
Close to Devolution..
Infosys IPO was on the verge of devolution. The issue was subscribed 1.06 times. But it almost didnt go through. Eventually Enam Financial Consultants,the lead manager, had to push it through...
Nilekani's Quiz Club..
Nilekani's Quiz Club members made it rich with infosys. Nilekani was a quiz master in college and was a part of an informal group that would meet and quiz in Banglore. One member remembers that Nilekani came to a quiz session with a battered briefcase, pulled out some IPO forms, and tried to coax them into buying the offering...
Behind the GE Fiasco..
The real reason why the GE business fell through in 1994 isn't know well outside the company. Murthy wanted the Indian sofware industry to stick to its guns; it didn't. In 1994, Infosys said it will no more do business with GE and slammed the door. Infosys was provoked by GE's insistence on a reduction in the billing rates. Murthy then met heads of major Indian software firms working for GE and mooted that if all of them refuse to do GE work on a lower rate, it would be forced to offer them a fair price. The CEO of a company backed out and Infosys ended up as the only company to give up GE works...
Surprise Emphasis on Product..
Infosys revised its strategy to have a product-play. Infosys in the 90s had projected that 30-40 per cent of its revenues would come from products...
Questioning gets a Job..
Mohandas Pai got the Infosys job because he asked difficult questions at a shareholders' meeting. "Give me any annual report and I can analyze it threadbare in minutes," says Pai, who earlier worked with Prakash Leasing, Bangalore. Pai has been reading annual reports since the age of 15...
Infosys NASDAQ Lead Manager..
Infosys picked Nations Banc Montgomery Securitites as lead manager for its 1999 Nasdaq listing. It was the only one of the 10 i-banks that was more business-oriented than product-oriented...
Seniority Versus Role..
Kris was senior to Nilekani. Nilekani, most Infoscions and Exfoscions agree, was always the big-picture man. It was Kris himself who suggested in the 1990s that Nandan could be given a larger role...