Out with the offshore consoles, in with the silver screens

(((The party's over for the Indian offshore myrmidons of Wall Street.)))

http://indiablogs.searchindia.com/2008/03/18/hard-times-ahead-for-tcs-infosys-wipro-party-is-over/

With the U.S. economy in complete meltdown, the party is over for Indian outsourcing firms like Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Infosys, Polaris, Satyam et al.

Some Indian software firms like TCS have already reported delays in orders from their top clients.

U.S. financial services firms that have taken a severe beating and borne the brunt of the recent carnage on Wall Street are among the major clients for several Indian software houses.

The big question now is when will Indian firms - that staffed up in the go-go days of hyper growth - start laying off employees, a practice that U.S. companies have turned into a fine art over the last couple of decades.

For the last 10 years, Indian IT firms have been growing like gangbusters, creating an oasis of software millionaires.

But as a story in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) makes it clear, the ripple effects of the U.S. downturn will be felt in India...

((Yet here comes Bollywood into the USA, with big ol' analog screens and canisters of film. What you lose in the high-tech meltdown, you make up in the low-tech lowdown.)))

(((If there's one form of American cinema that Bollywood most resembles, it's the keep-your-chin-up song-and-dance epics of the Great Depression. When you're dispossessed and in a breadline, four hours in a movie palace sounds great.)))

Link:

Adlabs Cinema Chain Follows Pyramid Saimira to U.S..

Indian entertainment conglomerate Adlabs Films (majority-owned by Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) plans to operate a 200-screen cinema exhibition chain in the U.S. that will show both Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

Adlabs’ plan is to have a nationwide footprint covering 28 cities across the U.S. including the key desi hotspots on the East Coast, West Coast and Mid-West.

Besides Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, the Adlabs’ cinemas are supposed to screen mainstream Hollywood films as well.

In the New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania areas, Hindi and regional language films are routinely screened in mainstream American theaters like Regal and AMC as well as in theaters run by Indian entrepreneurs.

On the West Coast, Indian movies are screened mostly in theaters owned by Indian entrepreneurs in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Apparently, Adlabs has already signed deals with several existing cinema properties in the U.S.

In India, Adlabs operates one IMAX theatre, 37 properties and 112 screens.

A few weeks back, Indian cinema theatre chain Pyramid Saimira Theater acquired FunAsia, which operates 17 screens at four locations in Texas - in Irving, Richardson and Houston - that screen Bollywood movies.

Pyramid Saimira has also formed a North American unit called Pyramid Saimira Entertainment America Inc, based in Richardson(Texas) with an office in Los Angeles to expand FunAsiA rapidly to major cities in the U.S. and Canada....