Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

'Tech jobs downturn may end by mid-2002'

The Indian American who spearheaded the phenomenal growth of a US telecommunications major says that the downturn in the technology job market may end as early as mid-2002.

"Tech jobs will certainly see a growing demand soon, as early as mid-2002," said Krish Anant Prabhu, the Karnataka-born former chief operating officer of Alcatel and now an adviser to the company's chairman.

"We are currently going through a downturn in a somewhat cyclical business. This has happened a few times in the last 20 years, but it looks worse now because of the sudden and dramatic downturn," Prabhu said. "We should bounce back next year and see some moderate growth sustained for five years.

"In the Internet economy, service jobs will be more in demand, and manufacturing will be highly concentrated," he added.

Prabhu is credited with launching the ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line) product line, of which Alcatel holds a global share of 53 percent. He is today adviser to Serge Tchuruk, chairman and chief executive officer of the France-based company.

Prabhu joined Alcatel in 1991 when the company bought the Rockwell unit where he worked. Born in Ankola in Karnataka, Prabhu was in 1999 named COO.

He was closely associated with Tchuruk in the company's eight acquisitions since September 1998, on which Alcatel spent more than $15 billion.

Despite the failure of the $23 billion merger deal with Lucent Technologies that could have placed Alcatel at the top of the industry, Prabhu has been credited with the expansion of company operations throughout the US and North America.

Last July, Prabhu, citing personal reasons, stepped down as COO. He was, however, reinstated as strategic technical adviser to Tchuruk and elevated to the board of directors.

Armed with a master's degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, Prabhu arrived in the US in 1975. He earned a master's and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1980, he was hired at Bell Labs, then part of the long-distance telephone giant AT&T Corp and now the jewel of Lucent Technologies. At Bell Labs, he worked in the research wing and after two years moved to the product department.

Prabhu has also served as an adjunct professor for telecommunications at the University of Texas at Dallas and has taught courses in telecommunications at the University of Texas at Arlington.

At Rockwell, Prabhu led the research and development teams responsible for launching several new products in the area of fibre optic telecommunications between 1984 and 1991.

At Alcatel, he said, "my most significant achievement has been increasing the business (in the US) five-fold between 1997 and 2000 to an annual revenue of about $5 billion."

Prabhu was also the head of a division that developed and launched Alcatel's flagship DSL product line, which is a major revenue source for the corporation today.

Prabhu, who said he has played an active role in raising funds amongst US-based alumni of IIT Mumbai, has set up and funded a scholarship program. "The current endowment is about Rs 1 million for underprivileged kids in Mysore," he said.

Asked where he saw himself in five years, Prabhu said: "I hope to be someone who has helped create successful companies.

"I am currently involved in advising early stage technology companies and am working actively with a few of them. Through their success, I am hopeful that we can create new-economy jobs, both here and in South Asia, and nurture the launch of more new companies," he said.

Indo-Asian News Service

Money
Business News

Tell us what you think of this report