The IT industry is the first and, even now, the only global industry where India can claim to have achieved world leadership. It has brought enormous pride (and foreign exchange!) to the nation. This essay recognizes the contributions of those companies and individuals who helped to create this industry.
 

It was May 1984 when I joined this fledgling industry as President of Wipro, which was then little more than a start-up, but destined to become an industry giant.In March 84, Dataquest India, the magazine which would chronicle the growth of this industry was born. The first DQ Top-10 list of May 1984 revealed an industry of Rs..125 crores of which a cluster of computer companies contributed about Rs..100 crores.

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The software pioneers, Tata Consultancy and Datamatics, had started much earlier and had been joined in 1981 by Infosys. These presumably contributed much of the balance Rs..25 crores in the industry total of Rs..100 crores. The top 10 companies were headed by two “biggies” of Rs..20 crores / Rs..15 crores (ICIM and ECIL) who would later fade away. Two of the companies, HCL and Wipro, would go on to become the only 2 significant domestic computer companies and the only two to also play a significant role in the growth of the software industry later.

The credit for laying the foundation for the computer and software industries goes to the entrepreneurs behind these companies – Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, Narayana Murthy and F C Kohli of TCS who, rightly, is known as the father of India's software industry.

To read more visit www.pcquest.ciol.com