MUMBAI, INDIA: As India is going for another general elections, the recently released IT Vision document of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become a hot subject for debate.

While the vision document includes promises such as multipurpose national identity card (MNIC) with unique citizen identification number (CIN), 12 million new IT-enabled jobs in rural areas, and laptop computers at Rs. 10,000 for students, with facility for interest-free loans, it is the prominence given to open source that has made the party's IT vision a hot subject for debate among the industry people.

The IT industry is somewhat uncertain about the impact of open source, especially when the software market is dominated by proprietary software makers like Microsoft.

If BJP comes to power and they aggressively promote open source across government institutions, semi-government organizations, educations centers and schools in India, it would have a far-reaching impact.

“If we come to power and form the government then we will definitely support open source and open software. In fact our IT vision clearly states that,” says Prodyut Bora, BJP's national convener-IT.

This move could impact the proprietary software business. According to Diptarup Chakraborti, Gartner's principal analyst - Personal Computers (PC) Market, if BJP comes to power and takes steps in favor of open source, then Microsoft will not sit idle and will approach the government.

“If pricing is favoring the open source, then Microsoft can surely work out pricing with the government to offer its software. However, Microsoft's pricing will depend on the number of computer laptops that will be supplied to students,” explains Chakraborti.

Further, Chakraborti points that for low cost laptops, Linux is not the only option as there's Google's Andriod used for netbooks and a few others.

“But, Linux has language barrier that could be a problem for students regional language students and are unfamiliar with English, while Microsoft supports languages. And so, if it sees large volumes, it will take on open source and moreover, Microsoft holds the inter-repeatability agreement,” adds Chakraborti.

According to him, “about 63 per cent people using personal computers have installed Microsoft's pirated software (Windows, XP or Vista) and only about 2-3 percent are Linux users in India.”

Chakraborti feels that the actual impact of BJP's IT vision on software market will only be known after the polls results are out.

Microsoft so far hasn't reacted to BJP's stand on open source. However, the company have welcomed the interests and emphasis on IT shown by political parties.

“We are very encouraged by the focus on IT by all of the political parties. It is imperative that we remain focused on IT adoption within the government to provide more responsive and transparent governance and also to use IT to bridge the various inequities that exist around education, IT skills, access to credit and healthcare,” a Microsoft India spokesperson told CyberMedia News.

Further, the spokesperson added that IT will continue to push India's socio economic growth.

“The stated policy of Government of India has consistently been one of technology neutrality because this has served the country well on its path to development by encouraging competition, choice and innovation,” according to Microsoft.

According to Microsoft, as technology evolves, innovation will lead to heterogeneous environments wherein both platforms will co-exist.

“The nation will be served well by focusing on Interoperability,” concludes spokesperson.

On the other hand the open source community is all praise of the IT vision.

Venkatesh Hariharan, corporate affairs director, Red Hat India says, “BJP’s IT Vision is a comprehensive document and addresses many key issues - creation of IT related jobs, Indian language computing, telecom and broadband penetration, ICT in education and others. It's for the first time that any party has unveiled such a detailed IT Vision.”

Hariharan comments that BJP has been making extensive use of open source for computerizing the party’s activities over the last 18 months.

“Therefore, they have a sophisticated understanding of the open source software's potential and the role it can play in India's development. If we have to implement e-governance, IT in schools and other projects in a large country like India, open source is the way to go,” he says.

In the opinion of Hariharan, open source is a development model and it is the right model for India to invest in for the long term as it is not controlled by any individual or corporation.