Calstar Tech- A Corporate Review

In the three months that I've been a parent, I've confronted a number of challenges that I have anticipated, and I've confronted a few that I never knew to anticipate. In the latter category, I have found myself having to come up with a constant flow of nicknames for my son. His (near) baldness is an obvious target: I've referred to him as Mr. Magoo, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Elmer Fudd, Luthor, and, my personal favorite, Ubaldo Jimenez. His name (Kal) has also provided fodder. Although his particular spelling is unusual, and it is not short for anything, I've compromised in referencing several people named "Cal" or "Calvin," at times getting fairly obscure (I grant that calling him Calvin Schiraldi is a somewhat unusual thing to do). I also admit that I amuse no one but myself when I refer to him during one of his screaming fits as "not so silent Kal." (Hey, I get it, even if no one else does).

On one occasion recently, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, I referred to him as "Cal Star Tech." Curious as to how in the world this particular designation popped into my head, I googled "Cal Star Tech." There is such a business as "Calstar Tech," but there is no good reason for me to know of its existence. It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. But what it does have is a website. And though studying this particular website gives me no insight into the inner workings of my own mind, it just may give me insight into the inner workings of today's corporate mindset. Looking at this website, I can't help but think: "no wonder we are in a recession."

First of all, Calstar Tech is not, as I would have presumed, in California. It is in India. In fact, the website boasts that "Calstar Technology is one of the Fastest Growing Company in India." So right off the bat readers are met with a combination of unnecessary capitalization and lack of pluralization. And apparently they are not so unique either--according to google, there are over 36,000 of the "fastest growing companies/company in India."

So what exactly does Calstar Tech do? According to the website, "Calstar Technology is one of the Leading Software development, Training and Consultancy Organisation providing Design, Development, Reengineering, Maintenance, Support, Consulting and Migration Services in the areas of Databases, Internet, ERP & eCRM to our clients." Cutting through the verbosity (and more grammar issues), it appears that we've got a company that writes software, and they will work directly with businesses to ensure that the software works. They boast that they have been "catering to the all High-End Software Requirements of Fortune 500 companies spread across the World."

Aside from grammar, so far so good. What kinds of businesses do they work with? Here is where it gets interesting: "Calstar Technology has years of experience with a number of industries, such as Healthcare, telecommunications, retail, Transport and financial services." They go on to boast that "Our specialist teams focus on the changes generated by issues such as e-business, globalization, and deregulation." I'm struck by the way that they try to balance an incredibly diverse (and completely unrelated) list of industries with the claim that they have "specialist teams" (even though the specialist teams seem to focus on incredibly broad "issues." "E-business" is an issue that your specialists work on? Really?)

Here is another sentence taken verbatim from the website which seems innocuous enough at first, but is very revealing under scrutiny: "The successful implementation of various projects is due to the technical niche our team enjoys in arenas as diverse as follows: [and a diverse list of technical projects follow]" For one, we have more annoying verbosity and passive voice construction (could you say "We are successful because" instead of "The successful implementation of various projects is due to"?). But the deeper issue here is that they boast that they fulfill a niche in diverse areas! You either diversify or you serve a niche, you can't have it both ways!

I could probably spend another 18 paragraphs criticizing this company's website (including the ridiculous graphics, one of which is captured above), but I don't want to run the risk of straying from my core purpose. Yet before I log off their site, I am tempted to take advantage of their "contact us" feature and send in a request. I wonder if they can write some software to help me come up with nicknames for my son.