India's large software service providers are going increasingly local with hiring in overseas markets, part of a drive to position themselves as truly global players and polish their image in advanced economies reeling from job losses.Beginning with employing foreign nationals for junior and mid-level positions, companies such as Tata Consultancy (TCS), Infosys and Wipro – together these three account for about a third of India’s IT exports – now have a number of foreigners in their top echelons.

Infosys Technologies Ltd today announced the launch of Flypp, an application platform, which it said, would empower mobile service providers to "delight" digital consumers through a host of ready-to-use experiential applications across the universe of devices. According to Subhash Dhar, Member Executive Council and Group Head, Sales & Marketing at Infosys, "Smart applications are now making it possible to deliver a personalised and interactive user experience.

The company has decided not to give the prize in that category to anyone this year. Infosys’ chief operating officer (COO), SD Shibulal, told a business daily that there were 34 nominees for the engineering and computer science prize but even after relaxing the age limit to 55 years, the jury could not find anyone who met all the criteria of the Infosys Prize. So, the jury has taken unanimous decision to not award the prize for the engineering sciences discipline this year.

“The IT industry has seen a better Q2 and given positive guidance for the rest of the fiscal. The GDP data reinforces this optimism ,” said S Gopalakrishnan, chief executive officer of Infosys Technologies. Indeed , while number-two exporter Infosys saw profits rise by around 7.5% during the September quarter to Rs 1,540 crore, topranked Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) grew its net profit by 29% to Rs 1,642 crore.