One important thing: Tech billionaire Elon Musk plans to close his buyout of Twitter by Friday, he has reportedly told investors who are helping him fund the $44 billion acquisition deal.

• Meanwhile, Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users engaged on the platform, Reuters reports citing internal documents. 

In today’s newsletter: 

• Big Tech in pain
• Why ISRO is worried about draft telecom bill 
• Now, IBM warns staff against moonlighting 

The sharp slowdown in the online advertising market this year, which has upended the growth of several tech companies, has not even spared the usually resilient Alphabet, the parent firm of Google. 

Alphabet's revenue grew at its slowest pace in more than two years to $69.1 billion for the quarter. Revenue growth saw a significant slowdown to 6% against a 41% growth a year earlier. 

• Advertisers pulled back spending in certain areas such as financial services, including insurance, loan, mortgage and crypto, said Alphabet's chief business officer Philipp Schindler.
  
  
• YouTube ad sales, which has been a key growth driver for the company, saw its first-ever revenue decline to $7.07 billion from $7.2 billion.

In Q4, Alphabet will cut its headcount growth by half the number it added in Q3. It will also moderate the pace of hiring in 2023. 

"We are reviewing projects at all scales pretty granularly to make sure we have the right plans there, the right resourcing and making course corrections. It is something we’ll continue doing going into 2023 as well" CEO Sundar Pichai said.

A day after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) directed Google not to restrict app developers from using any third-party billing or payment processing services to purchase apps or for in-app billing on Google Play besides imposing a penalty of Rs 936.44 crore, the tech giant stated that the model has "powered India's digital transformation" and expanded access for "hundreds of millions of Indians".

This is the competition watchdog's second antitrust order in as many weeks. On October 20, it fined the Android maker Rs 1,337.76 crore for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem and ordered directed the company to modify its conduct with corrective measures.

Microsoft, which posted its lowest revenue growth in over five years due to declining personal computer sales and a revenue slowdown in its Azure cloud division, added to the Big Tech earnings gloom.

• Azure revenue grew by 35% during the quarter, compared to 40% in the previous quarter and 50% in the same quarter last year. The company expects it to drop again in the current quarter.

• The Windows OEM business, which comprises the operating software that Microsoft sells to PC makers, fell 15% year on year.

Concerns about the proposed telecom bill are not limited to Big Tech. India's national space agency The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has also expressed worry over one of its provisions.

In a conversation with us, ISRO chairman S Somanath stressed that the India Telecommunications Bill, 2022 should not regulate satellite spectrum with terrestrial spectrum.

Somanath explained that satellite spectrum was inherently different from terrestrial spectrum.

"Satellite is a global item, whereas terrestrial spectrum is a local item. Terrestrial spectrum is given for a country, state, district, etc, whereas satellite is given for everywhere," Somanath said. 

Somanath said that ISRO will relay these concerns to the Ministry of Communications, requesting that satellite spectrum not be clubbed with its terrestrial counterpart.

Somanath also said that the much-anticipated policy for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the space sector would be released soon.

• He clarified that the FDI rates will be different for different sectors in space.

Somanath also weighed in on the US Federal Communications Commission’s decision to direct companies to deorbit low earth orbit (LEO) satellites within five years and more. 

Go deeper.

IBM has now formalised its stance against the practice of moonlighting.

IBM India MD Sandip Patel, in an email to employees, said he wanted to clarify at a granular level about the practice — that the company’s employment contract requires employees to refrain from engaging in any other employment or business and not compete with IBM.

The note, which was accessed by us, said that while IBM encourages its employees to pursue hobbies like art, dance or music:

• Any other personal interest that could directly or indirectly harm IBM's interests will be considered a conflict of interest
  
  
• However, employees are allowed to operate small businesses, but not during working hours

Patel has previously described the practice of moonlighting as unethical during an IBM event in Mumbai.

• Wipro recently fired 300 employees found working directly with its competitors
  
  
• Infosys now allows employees to take on external gigs, with prior consent of managers
  
  
• TCS and HCLTech continue to oppose moonlighting, citing ethical concerns.

Moonlighting is one of the concerns that may be behind IT companies nudging employees back to offices, at least a couple of times a week. 

A three-day-a-week mandate (with consequences if employees don’t show up) has not gone down well with TCS employees. The other three IT majors have "encouraged" employees to return.

• Wipro has asked employees to come into the office three times a week
  
  
• Infosys is in favour of a flexible approach, return to office not a mandate
  
  
• HCLTech lets managers decide based on the project, not an enterprise-level expectation. However, 3 days a week recommended.

Recent surveys, however, reveal that making employees return to the office mandatory may irk them, with some saying that they may even consider quitting jobs as a result. However, the number of firms considering and implementing hybrid work is increasing in comparison to January 2022.

A new billion-dollar brand was recently minted in India. No no, we are not talking about startup unicorns, whose value is mostly on paper!

Instead, we are referring to a soft drink brand which actually wants people to stay cool and calm. 

Sprite has surpassed $1 billion in sales in the country, making it the second brand after the homegrown Thums Up to achieve this milestone in Coca-Cola Co.'s domestic portfolio.

The lime and lemon-based soft drink brand also has the highest household penetration in the company's India portfolio and was also the largest contributor to the overall volume-led growth for Coca-Cola India in the first six months of the year.

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