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Once touted as a rival to Bangalore, for long the first choice of local and foreign software firms, Hyderabad never quite achieved the fame of a Bangalore or Mumbai despite its efforts.
For the 400-year old city, where crumbling mosques and minarets sit amicably by the side of gleaming malls and gated communities, Satyam Computer Services was a showpiece company with which the state lured other local and foreign firms.
Its former chairman Ramalinga Raju, who on Wednesday admitted to inflating profits for several years, was regarded as a true son of Andhra Pradesh, and called the "Narayana Murthy of Hyderabad", in a reference to the well-regarded founder of larger rival Infosys Technologies.
Now, the "pride of Andhra Pradesh has been hurt", local newspapers rued, its reputation damaged by "India's Enron".
"Hyderabadis are taking it very personally," said R. Prasad, a software engineer at a multinational firm in the city. "Everyone was very proud of Satyam and of Raju."
Raju was regarded as a close ally of former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, who is credited with the vision of attracting investors and transforming Hyderabad into "Cyberabad" to rival Bangalore, considered the Silicon Valley of India.
Fiscal sops and a focus on improving infrastructure drew several global giants including Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, Amazon and Google to Hyderabad even as Bangalore, with its gridlocked roads and power outages, began to look increasingly unattractive.
Microsoft's sprawling facility, with its tennis courts and football tables, is its largest outside its Redmond headquarters.
Far From Over
First-time visitors to Hyderabad, famed for its lustrous pearls and flavourful biryani, are often pleasantly surprised by its charming gardens and modern airport, one of the first examples of a successful public-private partnership.
"Naidu marketed Andhra and Hyderabad very aggressively, and there was a huge investor interest," said V.K. Jairath, a consultant and former bureaucrat in Maharashtra state.
"It had the advantage of a talent pool for IT, and it was a smaller city whose growth could be properly planned," he said.
A significant number of professionals at India's top software firms Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, as well as at Microsoft and other global firms come from Andhra Pradesh.
In addition to its mission to create a software hub, Hyderabad had other grand plans: a film city to rival the one in Mumbai, home to Bollywood, and a business school to outclass the elite Indian Institutes of Management.
But the glitzy Ramoji Film City remains a distant second, and on Thursday, the dean of the Indian School of Business resigned days after he stepped down as an independent director on Satyam's board amid growing criticism from students and residents.
Rao had been dean since 2004 at ISB, whose governing board includes such names as LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, Goldman Sachs head Lloyd Blankfein and Dell chairman Michael Dell.
"We are far from seeing the end of the controversy surrounding Satyam," Rao wrote in his resignation letter.
It may also be a while before the wounded pride of Hyderabadis is repaired, dented already by the negative press from a bridge collapse last year and bomb blasts the year before.
But they are hopeful: "Good times will be back again," an employee at Satyam, which means truth in Sanskrit, wrote on a banner outside the Satyam campus.
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why fall down satyam, have satyam r ghuskor
After the Satyam scandal,everybody is generalising Hyderabad
Infosys is no demi god!! They too have skeletons under the closet, its time for the industry to open up and know on the un-written rules of the trade. Narayanmoorthy too knows there are lots under his carpet at Infosys, they too as part of Corporate governance open their doors for external vigilance on their activity.Have to scrutinise how Progeon was merged with Infoys. This was similar to Satyam merger with Maytas. Lucky is that they made through the merger and succeeded in bringing more revenue in books. If am right the exageration of accounts at Infy would be around 45% straight. As a sensible public, they too open doors for public scrutiny because General Public should know how this is being done, because hectares of land are grabbed from the Government which are public property, isnt it friend? They can claim clean in accounts not in other deals like taking more subsidry, tax benefits and export benefit which are none but tax payers money, which are taken from even from the soap you buy - either direct or indirect!Infosys modus operandi for accumulation of revenue may not be the same of the other failed company? They follow different route to source book figures. Secondly they are Land Mafias in disguise. Lots of land deals done under FTZ, EPZ, SEZ for collateral has to be scrutinised.
We very often put CEOs on huge pedestals and glorify them and get hurt when they fall down from that exalted position. We should not forget those employees who have contributed to the success. I have trust in the abilities of the employees and Satyam would reemerge from the ashes.I wish them all the very best.When we think of Taj Mahal, it is not about Emperors, it is about those nameless workers who lift the stones and chisel them into a shining monument.
Satyam means the Truth. However we did not know Satyam IT Co. was riddled with untruths. What an irony! As a Hyderabadi, I am pained.
Satyam was the jewel of Hyderabad to the localites it was more than charminar in pride. I am extremely pained by this fiasco...
I've always had a feeling that Hyderabad was not professional but pretending to be so. Satyam and Ramalinga Raju have confirmed my suspicions. Talk to most Hyderabadis in any field and you find a world of difference between them and their counterparts in Bangalore or Mumbai or Ahmedabad. Hyderabadis aren't open, they pretend to be the best while being nowhere near the best! Satyam's manipulation of figures have only shown this to be true. I won't be surprised if other companies in Hyderabad also follow similar practices.Only time will tell!
In every society, every state and in every country there is the ugly, the bad and the good.Please, for heavens sake stop generalising the whole of Hyderabad.
One bad apple does not prove the whole crop is rotten. One sarrow does not prove summer is coming. Please wake up, otherwise the whole world will treat India with Satyam standards.
It is really hurting to see a big corporation like Satyam Computers fell down in disgrace due to silly actions by its promoters. This is a reflection of greed, immaturity and corruption that is spreading across the leadership through out our country. The country has become a breeding ground for power hungry politicians who amass wealth with the help of greedy businessmen and industrialists. The shameless and dangerous combination of power, greed and wealth if not stopped would turn our country in to utter anarchy. We have seen examples of many leaders who come in to politics with good intentions but unfortunately turn in to corrupt and immoral and authoritarian as well.
Even it didnt acheive the numve rone status in all the 3 areas, People of AP/Hyderabad should also be proud of generating most of the FAKE Software engineers, most of the FAKE Certified professionals and most of the FAKE IT companies.
This is too much. Was Raju Andhra Pradesh? There are crooks everywhere, Hyderabad need not be too proud. This is just a symbol of the times,where success at any cost becomes an end in itself. People are slaves to their ambition, the roles they get captured into. Do you feel this man would have been happy doing this? One cover up followed by another, and then it becomes difficult to ever catch up with the truth. We have all faced this. Raju faced it on a larger level and his actions impacted quite a lot of people. If you read up a bit on what the top executives in the civilized West, who give us lectures on corporate governance get up to, Raju is a baby. We had only one Big Bull and Ketan Parekh and this is the third. Enron, banks, Maddox.. if I start listing the Gora scandals I will run out of space. And in this poor, corrupt country, the crooks (most of them) go to jail.