NY Times, March 18, 2002
By
SARITHA RAI
HYDERABAD, India - The temperature
outside is a steamy 95
degrees and the noise from the construction of dome
buildings is deafening. Inside the brightly lighted expanse
of a completed dome, it is a pleasant 72 degrees, and the
din is barely audible as software developers sit at
workstations lined up along the curved walls.
It was only in late January that
the Indian subsidiary of
an American company, Catalytic Software, moved into New
Oroville, Catalytic's township of dome-shaped dwellings an
hour's drive south of the technology city of Hyderabad in
southern India. But its software workers are already
settling in.
Ashok Kumar Madugula, a software
developer who is one of
the township's first residents, has quickly adapted to the
New Oroville lifestyle. His apartment dome has the distinct
feel of a bachelor pad. The cupboards are bare, and a
table-tennis setup stands where a dining table is supposed
to be. But he does not need to cook because he eats his
meals in the company's makeshift cafeteria. And he no
longer needs to commute in the horrendous traffic in
Hyderabad, a city of 4.2 million.
"Catalytic takes care of
everything," Mr. Madugula said.
"When I look at the new duplex domes being built, I dream
of marrying."
Mr. Madugula, 25, graduated two
years ago from Nagarjuna
University in nearby Guntur. In an earlier era, his career
might well have followed a predictable path: like thousands
of bright Indian developers before him, he would probably
have migrated to the United States in search of a bank
balance, Western work culture and material comfort, perhaps
never to return.
But Catalytic, in an effort to
keep Indian talent at home
or lure it back from abroad, has created New Oroville,
offering many comforts of the West. Its proximity to
Hyderabad is no accident. The city is famous for exporting
thousands of programmers to the United States and is now an
up-and- coming technology hub in its own right.
New Oroville is meant to be a step
beyond the less
ambitiously lush technology campuses that now dot the
suburbs of other cities, like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai
and New Delhi - operations that helped India's software
exports grow to $6 billion in the 12 months from April 2000
to March 2001, from $150 million a year a decade earlier.
So far, there are only 40
employees at New Oroville, a
50-acre green expanse where the domes completed so far sit
in a meadow ringed by eucalyptus trees - and a fence that
keeps away the grazing sheep and buffaloes. Catalytic
Software's eventual plans are to build an entire city of
domes on 500 acres.
The company's founders, two former
Microsoft (news/quote)
employees, Eric Engstrom and Swain Porter, intend to hire
1,000 software professionals in New Oroville the next few
years. The company, based in Kirkland, Wash., specializes
in software to support Web services. The Kirkland
operation, though, with less than two-dozen employees, is
primarily involved in sales, marketing and training. The
software development will be done primarily in India.
New Oroville's name is derived
from the founders' hometown,
Oroville, in eastern Washington. The dome architecture was
chosen for cost and convenience. Each concrete shell takes
barely five days to construct, and the low
surface-to-volume ratio makes each dome energy efficient
and low maintenance - desirable characteristics in a harsh
climate.
Before New Oroville, technology
companies in India were
already learning to pamper their employees. In India's
technology plateau city, Bangalore, 350 miles south of
Hyderabad, where many Indian and foreign technology
companies have operations, gyms, terrace cafes and even
swimming pools are almost mandatory. But by providing
housing, New Oroville is taking the amenities a step
further.
"We will go after people who
will deliver world-class work
by providing all the conveniences to streamline their
lives," said Mr. Porter, Catalytic's chief executive, who
has moved here to run the Indian subsidiary. "The $25,000
spent on building and furnishing each dome is the
equivalent of a sign-on bonus."
Catalytic pays each employee a
housing benefit covering
portions of the rent on the different types of
accommodations. Each apartment-style residential dome can
house up to six employees and comes fitted with appliances
like a washer, dryer, microwave and dishwasher -
conveniences that are not commonly found in most Indian
households. There will also be domes designed as two
apartments, for small families, as well as single-family
domes.
Catalytic hopes that the setup
will provide a further
incentive for Indians to return home as the slumping global
technology industry makes overseas jobs - and lucrative
stock options - scarcer than they were a few years ago.
Critics dismiss layouts like New
Oroville as being either
self-indulgent for the educated elite who work there or
being exploitive on the part of the Western companies. But
Mr. Porter counters, "It is legitimate to incentivize
people to come back to India."
He noted that life in India's
cities, with power failures,
horrendous traffic and pollution, could be grim. Against
such a backdrop, it is not hard to hold out the prospect of
a better way of life - even if, by American standards, the
costs of doing so are minimal. Indian programmers working
in India can be hired for salaries that are perhaps only 15
percent of what comparable work would pay in the United
States.
But Mr. Porter sees no reason to
apologize for that, citing
New Oroville's housing and the stock options that he also
offers employees. "This will make them wealthy by world
standards, and especially well off given the low cost of
living in India," he said.
Kailash Joshi, founder of Indus
Entrepreneurs, a Silicon
Valley professional networking organization set up by South
Asian immigrants, compared the situation in India to the
technology manufacturing migration to East Asia from the
United States in the 1970's.
With global tensions mounting,
more multinational companies
are expected to home in on India, where they can tap talent
without having to worry about visa procedures and security
considerations. Hewlett-Packard (news/quote)'s subsidiary
in Bangalore has 1,500 employees in its software and back-
office operations and is projecting that the number will
grow to 5,000.
Local governments here are also
encouraging the further
development of technology centers. The government of Andhra
Pradesh, the state in which Hyderabad is the capital, has
taken a portion of Catalytic's stock in lieu of the land it
has given to the New Oroville project. "Such projects will
promote brain gain," said Chandrabau Naidu, the state's
chief minister.
The United States still offers
much allure for young Indian
professionals who immediately begin taking on mortgages and
car loans with their comparatively huge salaries. "But now,
half the young engineers I meet talk about their plans to
return to India as soon as they have a nest egg of
experience and capital," said Norman Prouty, a former
general partner at Lazard Frères in New York, who is now a
venture capitalist in Bangalore.
Some employees of New Oroville say
there is no need to go
abroad in the first place. "I get a handsome salary and
international work and living conditions right here at my
doorstep," said M. Vishwanath Babu, 24, one of Catalytic's
15 developers involved in software testing. "Why would I
want to go the United States?"