Will the big need to get bigger? See Comcast’s bid for a controlling stake in NBC Universal.

Or will it be a question of being slimmer and more focused? Like Time Warner,  which is now essentially a pure content company after spinning off Time Warner Cable in March and AOL next week.

All these businesses are heavily impacted by the Web as a distribution tool and they are doing various things to counter that. But it won’t be easy, say analysts in our Summit preview. While content will continue to be extremely valuable, content owners will need to figure out how to make money from the Web and other new platforms of distribution.

Stephen Prough, of Salem Partners, a boutique investment bank that has backed several Hollywood deals, said the models are still not clear:

I think it’s great that people are experimenting with content for the Web. In theory, that’s a great concept. Right now, I haven’t seen a business model that works for original content for the Web. The experience of companies that repurpose content for the web is they’re generating per viewer.

Over at IAC/InterActiveCorp, Ricky Van Veen, founder of Collegehumor.com and CEO of Notional productions, thinks that developing original content that moves seamlessly between the Web, TV, and wireless devices will be key for the modern media company.

The crucial parts are the advertiser’s brand, the content creator and the consumers. What if it was the brand getting the content to the consumer rather than a cable company? With the Internet, you don’t really need a lot TV networks, film studios and cable operators. In the future you have a great idea they’re going to be able to get the content to consumers on their own or with the help of a brand. That’s what’s interesting to me.

It is how MphasiS Chief Executive Ganesh Ayyar refers to the Indian IT services provider’s strategy of going for small to mid-size acquisitions. The bigger ones can become a “noose around your neck”, Ayyar said.

The company, 61 percent owned by Hewlett-Packard, is buying the India-based IT services arm of troubled U.S. insurer American International Group. Ayyar, who spoke to us about the company’s “ambidextrous approach” to business, indicated today that any future acquisitions would be in the AIG ballpark.

DELIVERY CAPACITY 

Ayyar also told us that MphasiS was close to opening its first offshore global delivery center outside India.   He offered us no color, telling us to “let it remain a monochrome.” All we know for now is that this center will be in a low-cost emerging market. Your guess is as good as ours.

SAP has focused in the past on contracts with large customers but is increasingly turning towards mid-sized companies. While talking to us on a conference call from Singapore, Watts compared
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to breakfast. “Life begins with a good breakfast,” he said, emphasising the importance the company gives to SMEs.

SAP’s high-growth markets in the region are obviously China and India, but potential rising stars, as far as Watts is concerned, include Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

DEAL TALK 

Watts said SAP is “continuing to look at acquisitions” but he didn’t specify where. References to somewhere on the big planet, which is 70 percent water, can’t exactly be classified as helpful. But then for a person who works from 5 to 9 (and not the other way around), a sense of humour may just be the right elixir.

Infosys Technologies Chief Financial Officer V. Balakrishnan compared acquisitions to “falling in love,” saying that one does not generally know when or how it will happen. When we asked about who Infosys was dating, Balakrishnan was noncommittal.

Speaking of love, Infosys is one of the few companies that had a dating allowance for employees, and Cupid’s arrows have been bang on target in the company’s campuses. Balakrishnan wouldn’t tell us whether the allowance has returned with the improved economic climate.

He did seem to support the idea of mid-20-something employees falling in love and tying the knot. Information technology has played a role in removing barriers imposed by the caste system in India, Balakrishnan said.

Maybe the Indian government can take a cue from the information technology giant and look for innovative ways to solve India’s centuries-old caste-related problems?

“We all need to have a name; sometimes we like them, sometimes we don’t,” Kunwar said while explaining that the company known as Satyam Computers was also known for its “solidity” and “great delivery.”

Mahindra Satyam has managed to retain the 380 customers that the firm had when Tech Mahindra won an auction to take it over. The Satyam name may have been a hard sell after the scandal, but one organisation insisted that the old name was good enough to be displayed in lights: international football’s governing body FIFA.

As parent company Mahindra & Mahnidra is big in vehicles, Korean carmaker Hyundai objected to its logo being shown in the list of sponsors for FIFA events, Kunwar told us. So the old name stood during the Confederation Cup that was held in South Africa in June.

Of course, those fighting the company in a class action lawsuit in the United States may not seem too amused, but then again, does anyone in the country care about “soccer”?

Kannan, the youngest-ever CEO at the 134-year-old exchange, also had to gain acceptance from his employees in what had until then been a largely hierarchical firm.

He went as far as to stop gelling his hair to reveal more grays and look older, but at the Reuters India Investment Summit on Tuesday, the gel was back.

Kannan said he had become a lot older with his hair streaked with several more grays in the past six months, during which he moved out of a 26th floor office with sweeping views of Mumbai to a smaller office to be closer to his employees.

The old office is now a conference room.

But Kannan has a lot more to do if he wants to turn around his firm, something he hopes to do by more innovation to transform “what was essentially a single-product exchange to one which offers tradable products across all asset classes.”

He sees similarities between the current challenges facing the BSE and what his former alumnus, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), faced earlier this decade.

One of Kannan’s recruits to a seven-member top executive team that possibly seeks to emulate the NYSE’s successful turnaround includes James E. Shapiro, who worked at the NYSE for 16 years in several senior management roles.

At NYSE, Kannan was part of a top team that oversaw the purchase of an electronic trading system and a subsequent IPO.

In a move that invites comparison to his past, the BSE under Kannan has bought a financial technology services firm, Marketplace Technologies, and is in a preparatory stage for a listing.

The city has become synonymous in the West with outsourcing and “cheap labor” but is rapidly emerging as a hot spot for research and development. Bangalore is also marching ahead in the information technology value chain. Some companies like Wipro actually outsource work from India to Egypt.

However, the city poses several challenges for the multinational companies. Infrastructure growth in the city hasn’t kept pace with population growth and economic development. Power cuts are frequent, and it isn’t uncommon to see pothole-filled roads clogged with traffic against a backdrop of modern glass and steel buildings.

Other challenges for the outsourcing industry include pressure from populist U.S. politicians, who point out that the economic recovery hasn’t been able to curb unemployment. Buffalo, though, is unlikely to take away any jobs from Bangalore in the foreseeable future.

The Bangalore leg of the Summit will feature senior executives from the information technology giants including Infosys, Wipro, Mphasis, Mahindra Satyam and SAP.

Thain, speaking at the Reuters Global Finance Summit in New York, said a deal to sell a partial stake in Merrill Lynch to Goldman Sachs would have been better for him, but the sale of the entire Wall Street firm to Bank of America was the best outcome for shareholders.

Over a fateful weekend in September 2008, as Lehman hurtled toward bankruptcy, AIG floundered and the financial system looked into the abyss, Merrill held discussions with Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for various transactions, Thain said.

Initial discussions with Bank of America involved either the sale of the entire company or a 9.9 percent stake and a multibillion credit line, the former Merrill CEO said.

With Goldman, discussions only involved the stake sale and the credit line. Discussions with Morgan Stanley about a strategic transaction were brief, he said.

“When Bank of America offered $29 a share on Sunday afternoon, it was clear to me that was the best thing for our shareholders,” Thain said. 

Thain was fired by Bank of America soon after the deal closed, and is now considering a career in private equity and other jobs. 

“The risk to the shareholders, the risk to the company that a 9.9 percent stake and a multibillion dollar credit facility might not be enough was much too high,” Thain said. “Now, for me personally, it might have been better. But my job was to protect the shareholders.”

Takeo Sumino, chief operating officer of Nomura Holding America Inc, wants to make one thing clear: neither he nor his Tokyo colleagues are into the habit of breaking into song first thing in the morning at the office.

A Wall Street Journal story in July said that one group of Nomura traders sang a company song in morning meetings.

“Japan created the video game, Japan has created the karaoke culture, but that does not necessarily mean that Nomura as a company will ask people to sing a song every day,” he said, trying to debunk reports of culture clashes between Nomura bankers and their new colleagues at the former Lehman Brothers empire in Asia and Europe.

“I worked in Nomura for 22 years. I never sang a song in the morning,” he said. “If you want to sing a song or listen to my song I can take you to karaoke, but you don’t need to come to my office because I don’t sing a song.”

Sumino acknowledges that the Lehman deal has changed things at Nomura, but insists it's been in positive ways.

Bankers who could only communicate in Japanese are now rattling off e-mails and water cooler conversations in English, he told the Reuters Global Finance Summit.

“I do think a very big transition, a transformational change took place in Nomura after we started working with Lehman,” Sumino said.

“E-mail traffic in English . . . . is tremendously larger,” he said. “The number of individuals in Tokyo who used to be able to operate only speaking in Japanese, a lot of them are now communicating and writing and speaking in English.”