Infosys' Mysore centre is now Narayana Murthy Centre of Excellence

Infosys has renamed its Mysore development centre as the Narayana Murthy centre of excellence. The centre, which was started in 2002, houses around 6,000 software professionals and with a developed area of around 1.44 million sq.ft is said to be the world's largest corporate university.

Announcing the change in name, Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Infosys, said, “People say we are not aggressive, but if you look at a facility like this, I don't know how you can say this.”

Mr Gopalakrishnan said the Mysore office of Infosys, which clocked around Rs 1,300 crore in software exports, was the result of the ability to look far into the future. “We started in 1999, when we were a $120-million company and looked at how a billion dollar company will look like,” he said. Touching upon the training that Infosys gives to freshers, he said that no other company gives six months of entry-level training.

Mr Mohandas Pai, who recently resigned from Infosys, said, “India has not seen a person like Mr Murthy for the last 30 or 40 years.” Recalling how Mr Murthy had told the directors in Infosys to get started on the Mysore centre, Mr Pai said that in 1998, Mr Murthy said that he wanted a leadership institute close to Bangalore. “Mr Murthy said, ‘This is barren land, now go and create a paradise'.”

Today, said Mr Pai, the centre is the third largest, after the US and China, in producing the maximum number of software engineers in the world. In a lighter vein, he recalled that while developing the centre, they added a bowling alley without telling Mr Murthy because he might have considered it a luxury. “He is a socialist at heart, don't forget that,” he said.

Thanking the Infosys leadership for renaming the centre after him, Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor, said “I spent many of my growing years in this city. This is the only town in the world where I know every street.”

English training

Discussing the need to teach software professionals better English, he said that there should be a two-hour course on English every day, which means that over a 29-week period with a five-day training schedule, trainees would be getting 290 hours of English.

Saying that the management that took over the reins after his departure in August should concentrate on education, he said, “Please resist the temptation to shorten the course from the current 29 weeks. If needed, you should extend it.”