I think all three -– Wipro, Infosys and TCS -- are very similar companies. They have a lot of things in common although they do a few things differently a little bit. Primarily I used Wipro to tell the story of all of them effectively.

I would say they (Wipro) are different in that Wipro is not quite market-oriented as Infosys and they are very engineering (oriented); they think like engineers and they are a very serious company, very focused on the projects.

Another thing different is they grew their engineering outsourcing, hardware engineering, chips and all that kind of stuff. That is 35 percent of their technology revenues and that is a big business. In fact, I believe in the long term that is going to be one of the best businesses for the Indians as software programing becomes more of a commodity done anywhere in the world.

During your interaction with him what impressed you most about Azim Premji?

Premji is really a very wise person. I have covered the technology industry for many years and I have met with a lot of people who are very aggressive, charismatic and energetic, but they are not necessarily wise. Premji is not an egotist. He very much thinks a lot about what are the basic things that must be done to build an excellent company like Wipro and what are the characteristics of a strong management team.

Here is a guy who owns 80 percent of the company, but he does not act like he is the king. He is the leader and he sends this message clearly about open-ness, honesty and those kinds of things.

One of the things that several other people mentioned to me is the zero politics management in Wipro. They have vigorous discussions and the best ideas win.

I talked to Vivek Paul after he left the company to check the veracity of this and he told me that this is true or it is as close as you can come. I was very impressed with his (Premji's) management style and philosophy.

Image: Columbia University journalism Professor Sreenath Sreenivasan, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji and Steve Hamm at the launch of Bangalore Tiger in New York, October 24, 2006.

Photograph: Paresh Gandhi