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Follow UsWhat are the achievements of Component Management Group (CMG) in India in
its one and a half years of operations?
We are really proud of our achievements today in our national and regional
activities. About two years ago, including tutorial tours in five cities in
January 1999, we announced our plans of setting up Component Academys (CA)
throughout the SAARC region and we fulfilled our promise and established a
network of CA's which are providing the most advanced software training in CORBA
and distributed software architecture. We are very much on track towards our
original goals of having 30 CAs throughout the region (Asia Pacific) within the
year 2000.
You are essentially a non-profit organisation. What is done with the fee
that is charged for the CA courses? Do you plough it back into the business?
The companies that operate CAs are majority profit businesses. They
essentially need to have cost recovery for their own operations, so we are kind
of a wholesaler of intellectual property to help this network of CA to provide
best training possible.
How is CORBA used in global information technology?
CORBA has an expanding role in global IT. We have seen CORBA being applied
virtually at all large organizations both in the US and overseas. CORBA is a
necessity for large organizations because it is the only technology that allows
computers and software applications from different vendors to interoperate
effectively. CORBA is the technology that takes care of multiple programming
languages, total operating system, total software packages and in heterogeneous
environments comprising any medium to large companies, whether in IT industry or
other industries. So, we see CORBA being adopted and utilized virtually
everywhere that we look.
How is CORBA different from DCOM and COM in terms of market positioning?
There was a period of time when DCOM was considered to be a viable technology
for the enterprise development in the Internet. That is no longer the case
today. For business enterprises they have heterogeneous integration challenges
to resolve both in terms of internal information systems and interoperability
with their trading partners and customers. So, they have an interoperability
heterogeneous problem. CORBA is the only technology, which can survive
interoperability between heterogeneous systems. The DCOM technologies were not
designed with security capabilities and so it was discovered in the past few
years that DCOM is inappropriate for use on Internet and has similar limitations
inside the enterprise in its lack of security and support for multiple
platforms. COM technologies are a part of Microsoft technology base, of which
DCOM is distributed centric and it is the distributed computing problems which
are the challenges that today software developers are encountering and CORBA is
the best technology for resolving distributed computing challenges.
What is the potential for software components in India?
Potential for software component in India is substantial. We are seeing
tremendous growth in CORBA and component technology all over the globe,
particularly with respect to the new systems that are being built after the Y2K
projects. So, we see much of the new business that is created in the new
software projects is being started using the new technology based objects,
components and CORBA. People and companies that have skills in these
technologies are the ones that are going to be able to grow these businesses
most rapidly. These are the kind of technologies that we are providing world
class training at CAs.
How different is the Indian market from other regions?
The Indian market has some substantial competitive advantages to other
regions. We see some of the best programming talent in the world originating
from India and CMG would like to encourage their talent to contribute to
software projects both for regional and global economy.
What are the factors that will drive the growth of the software component
market in India?
The component market in India is part of the global IT markets, which is
growing very rapidly. However, in the past few years, people have realized that
global business is dependent upon IT that is a strategic function of business
competitiveness and business growth. The ability to develop IT systems is
becoming the competitive advantage in CORBA businesses and we see that demand
and revenue generation as a key element in the growth of Indian IT.
What are the hurdles that are affecting the growth of the software component
market in India?
We perceive a few areas of growth here. In fact our growth is very much along
the lines as originally envisioned; that we would grow within just a few years
on industrial flagship academy to a broad geographic presence and availability
of advanced software training throughout the South Asian region.
Has the software component market picked up worldwide as anticipated?
The growth of the software component market has paralleled the growth of the
Internet. It has become a predominant factor in all industries and we are
excited by the recent successes of companies in the stock markets in the IT
industry both in India and abroad. We see that the software component is the
enabling technology for future Internet capabilities. So we see Internet and
software components as tied together, Internet being the way to reach consumers
and products and services and software components being the core technology that
provide the mechanisms for that instructions.
How is CORBA relevant to the Internet and e-commerce segment?
CORBA is the technology that allows the server information systems including
databases and middle tier software components to be integrated into Internet
front-end capabilities. This is the same as the electronic business requests
that are transmitted past the e-server. We go to the back-end environment, which
include these large-scale software components, which have majority of the
systems that are integrated through technologies like CORBA.
Why should India move to Component Based Development (CBD)?
India should move to CBD because that is where the future growth of software product industry exists. When we look at software projects being started in global year 2,000 businesses, we see them adopting objects, components and CORBA technologies because those are the mainstream technologies which are available and enabled the integration of all the elements for electronic business.
What are the applications that can make use of CORBA?
CBD is useful for all phases of software development, we are seeing the
software industry grow very rapidly through CBD and replacing and advancing
their earlier object oriented process. So CBD is used for corporate development,
commercial software product development, Internet portal development and in
other forms of software development.