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What are the expansion plans?
Infosys is adding more facilities. We started our Pune facility with 160,00 sq.ft. in phase 1 which would be further expanded in phase 2. In Bangalore, we are setting up a 300,000 sq.ft. office adjacent to our existing facilities in Keonics city. We have started our second office in Chennai and the Mangalore premises will be expanded further soon.

Some of the internet stocks are doing extremely well.
Internet stocks are totally a different genre. Yahoo!, for example, has gone on to touch new heights before settling lower. Stocks like Infosys are different from all these and we have to look at companies in the service industry for measuringperformance.

Yantra Corporation, Infosys' US subsidiary, has been making losses for sometime now. What is its future?
Yantra is into supply chain management solutions. The current team, comprising venture capitalists who hold 51 per cent in the company, has embarked on an aggressive sales campaign. It is still incurring losses but the model of American companies is such that they first build up sales/market share even if they make losses in the process.

What is the role of internet in new business opportunities?
Internet has thrown open a range of opportunities for companies in our segment. E-commerce, no doubt, is the most potential business tool in the internet. Second is the creation of intranet structures. Infosys has been in the business of internets and intranets for long and has created quite a few for various companies. But at this point of time, let me say that e-commerce and internet market in general has not picked up as much as it should. It is still growing, butslowly.

I see internet as a medium providing virtualisation. It also means that certain activities that were taking place within the organisation have now moved outside. What in effect it does is to bring the customer closer to an organisation by peeling off a few layers. It has also made an organisation much more transparent and faster in their reactions.

Even though placing orders and paying onsite are there, one will have to make few calls to confirm credit card number, acceptance, etc. Can't this be avoided?
There are certain banks providing facilities for payment through credit cards but it is not much in practice. From our point of view, when we talk about software solutions, it concerns developed countries. In India, credit card payment or other easier facilities are not taking place because of the legal structure and various frameworks. For this we have to work out solutions.

Has the IT task force draft taken into consideration these ground realities?
Reality is what youmake. And if you want to get out of the rigmarole, you have to act strongly. We have recommended so many things but recommendations are always made with a dream. Think of the future and forget the current scenario as it can be depressing. When you are expanding on a road, you have to push in a particular direction and only then do you go forward.

After all these years, today when you look at Infosys, how do you feel? Is this the company that you dreamt of?
We have worked hard and have been lucky. We have satisfied shareholders, customers and employees and have built up a good reputation.