Friedman said, "Mr Murthy is a truly historic figure in Indian economics and politics. He and Nandan Nilekani and the other founders did a great thing. They showed Indians of this current generation just how much they could bring their talents to the global economic playing field and play not only as equals but as leaders with any other country in the world."
Infosys' nominations committee has started the search for Murthy's successor, as the he would retire in August next year after he turns 65.
"While there is only one Infosys and tens of thousands of people and there are a billion plus Indians, the model and example they set is hugely important and historic. Of course it will never be the same. Microsoft would not be the same after Bill Gates. But I am pretty confident - having spent a lot of time with Infosys - that there is a new generation coming up there that's pretty dynamic and hungry," added Friedman.
The committee has ICICI Bank non-executive chairman K V Kamath, Cornell University professor Jeffrey Lehman and HDFC Standard Life Insurance chief executive officer Deepak M Satwalekar as members.
Murthy declined to comment whether he prefers an Infoscion to step into his shoes.
However, it will most likely be somebody who is very familiar with Infosys Technologies and its culture that will replace N R Narayana Murthy as chairman of the company when he retires in August next year.
"The world is so much flatter than I thought, it is so much flatter. It is flatter and getting flatter and the companies that understand that, that have the people and the insight to play in this increasingly flattening world, they are going to thrive and they will figure out which management can take them there," said Friedman.
Senior Infocians believe that Murthy would not like an outsider to become the chairman of the company.
The choice, some think, is most likely to be made amongst Kris Gopalakrishnan (54), currently the CEO of Infosys, K V Kamath (62) and Deepak M Satwalekar (61), both of who are on the board of the company.
Gopalakrishnan's term as CEO will end only in October 2012. "But that is not an issue, Infosys can find a CEO from within," said one official.
Well, Murthy on August 27 said the company is open to a foreigner becoming his successor. He was responding to a query on how Infosys' shareholders would react to a foreigner as his successor. "What they (shareholders) would look for is a person who can guide the company in a proper direction, who can manage the board well, who has the support of all the people in the company, so I don't think it would matter," he added.
Murthy established Infosys in 1981 with an initial capital of $250 along with six of his co-founders, Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal, K Dinesh, NS Raghavan and A Arora.
The succession plan of Murthy comes at a time, when India's top business house Tatas has begun the search for successor to its chief Ratan Tata, who is slated to retire in December 2012.
With revenues of Rs 6,198 crore at the end of June 30, 2010, Infosys has over 113,000 employees in over 50 offices worldwide.
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