using H1B for 4 months stint is very strange. It is too valuable a visa slot (significantly oversubscribed lottery usually, at least in the recent years) to be wasted that way. Usually it is done using something like B1 for such a short trips, especially if it is training, etc. I wonder whether the journalists and others did mistake one visa for another, especially given that they naturally wouldn't be privy to such internal details of a 3rd party company like the HCL in this case.