Will Narayana Murthy's son join Infosys?

BANGALORE, INDIA: Infosys chairman and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy, who is launching his Rs 600-crore venture capital fund, said that the possibility of his son joining Infosys cannot be ruled out “ but the probability is somewhat low”.

“There is a possibility because he is highly qualified, but the probability is somewhat low. He will be finishing his studies this year, and then it’s up to him to decide what he wants to do,” Murthy said in an interview given to Business Standard.

As a practice, Infosys co-founders didn’t allow their family members in the company, because right from the beginning, the co-founders “wanted to create a company that was of the professionals, for the professionals and by the professionals”, he said.

Observing that Nandan Nilekani is an extraordinary individual, who can get along with a wide variety of people, Murthy said that he himself was offered a position in 1999 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but he was not interested.

He also said Infosys is looking at new geographies. “We have started expanding in South America, Africa and Asia. We are also looking at new technologies like cloud computing, which is a big thing now.”

Murthy said he decided to set up the venture capital fund Catamaran, as he wanted to help entrepreneurs in some way.

The Infosys chairman also expressed confidence that China could not take away India's services sector. However, he warned that the country would not be successful by closing its doors and sitting inside.

In another interview CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said Infosys is adopting a different approach and is trying to establish a strong local presence in non-English countries in Europe, while utilizing India and China as the back-end to service local customers.

“We are taking France and Germany as the first two examples in Europe where we will have a significant presence locally, and that base will provide us with a local front to the customers, with an India or China back-end,” said Kris.