Scenes: "Blasts rock Mumbai"

"Google+ access coming to Google Apps, eventually"

              What Google Apps users are currently greeted with when trying to sign up for Google+.

Good news for Google Apps users: your pleas to get access to Google+, the search titan's latest foray into social networking, have been heard.

In a public-facing note on the service yesterday, Google's president of enterprise, Dave Girouard, said that the company is working to make Google+ available to Google Apps users. Google Apps is Google's customizable version of the company's various productivity services including Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs and Groups.

"Sorry for the delay," Girouard wrote. "We need to do it right!"

No estimate was given for how long it will be until that happens, nor was any insight offered on how Google plans to handle sharing in what could be a company's private network with public circles.

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The news, which was picked up by Pocket Lint this morning, comes as Google is expanding the size of the new social-networking service to let more users in the door. Earlier this week the company opened up invites to existing users to effectively double the population by adding outsiders.

Google+ was launched late last month as part of a "field trial period", and continues to be a closed service unless you have an invite, or sign up to eventually get access. The service has drawn many comparisons to Facebook and even Twitter in offering users a place to share and view content in a stream with others with whom they've made connections. Google has built it up with tie-ins to a number of its other services and technologies like Gmail, Picasa, YouTube and Google Talk.

While the service was launched with mainly a consumer focus, there has been pent-up demand for Google to offer it to businesses both to use internally and to have public-facing pages akin to Facebook pages. Earlier this week, Google product manager Christian Oestlian (on whose Google+ page Girouard's announcement was posted), said the company was working on making adjustments to help out those "non-user entities" make less user-centric profiles. Actually allowing those businesses, if they're Google Apps users, into it is the next logical step.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20077925-93/google-access-coming-to-google-apps-eventually/#ixzz1S5YGE5f6

"Infy Bubble : Bursting Myths"

Rising wages might have hurt IT bellwhether Infosys's profit margins but that isn't stopping its hiring momentum. Infosys that plans to hire 12,000 employees this quarter has boldly added 9,992 employees this year.

When asked if this would further affect their revenues, the management strongly responded by saying that they are going as per their yearly target of 45,000 new additions. With the improving business sentiment and revival in IT spends , IT firms are stepping up hiring to meet demand for their services.

The company today posted a 15.72 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 1,722 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2011. During the first quarter, Infosys and its subsidiaries saw over 7,000 employees leaving.

As we know, with increased hiring comes a high rate of attrition. But the company isn't really worried about it. Nandita Gurjar, Vice President and Group Head, Human Resources , Infosys Limited, says, "This is the quarter when we normally expect employees to go for higher studies. 30% of the employees who have quit cited this reason."

She says, the company can't stop employees from pursuing higher studies. However, they are pondering on how to get them back with acquired skill sets. Gurjar says, "95% of the employees who quit to pursue higher studies actually want to come back. But since we have a structured process they have to undergo the complete interview cycle in the campuses. So may be in the near future we might have a policy where an employee can come back after getting MBA degrees or something else without getting into the complete interview cycle.".

But there is an interesting bit of information that Gurjar revealed. "34% per cent of our total employee workforce is woman. So in this quarter 32% of the woman employees who quit didn't cite any reason for quitting the job. They just wanted to take a break. Now this is something that we want to review."

With the company grappling with visa issues, Infosys HR has ventured into a social networking intra site to boost the morale of the employees. Called the 'Infy Bubble', this site mirrors Facebook and employees can bicker about anything they want.

Gurjar said this gives the employees an opportunity to build a network across borders. She added that the site doesn't encourage personal attacks but it does welcome negative feedbacks about their bosses and peers. The site also allows them to share photographs and other stuff that one can do on Facebook, thus giving them a platform to engage themselves with other employees.

On the same lines, the company is also planning an Infosys radio service where in the management will regularly interact with the employees. Looks like the company is engaging in some serious PR exercises with employees to build a few bridges. But will it curtail attrition?