Indian IT Scene - More of a follower not leader?

S.P.Arya

If we go by our past 20 years in computers, we certainly can conceit, with so many feathers in our cap. While CDAC has been a pioneer in creating history by making India proud of having our own Super Computer - PARAM, the Indian big blues like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, HCL and a few others made us raise our heads with proud in Software Industry.

We are growing in terms of revenues and quantity of software professional production, maintaining quality to an extent, which can be said satisfactory if not outstanding. So far so good but the lament is that we still fall in the category of a follower or service provider and not in the category of Innovators or Creators.

Let us just think of what we could have been with such a huge best of the breed Software talent. The pains of never having proud in having a single entrepreneur in the category of Innovator or Creator is enormous but seems not bothering much to anyone. But a random thought in this direction is highly desired by those who are pioneer and great in Indian IT Industry and the, the Ministry of Information Technology.

We cry a lot on US for being partial with our service Industry on outsourcing and BPO fronts but not cry on our inability in innovations and creating a single product which can fall in the category of world class Software and Hardware products.

Let us have a look at some ground realities and introspect :

Operating Systems : India, till date has never contributed in this category of the Software except with some efforts put on creating bilingual capabilities in a few of the OS's. Having an Operating Systems developed and used in India is still eluding us.

So much so that despite being an open source code available to one and all, no Indian Company ever thought of having LINUX flavor of Indian origin. All of the LINUX flavors are from foreign soil be it RedHat, SuSe or any other. This tells us the true picture of our existence and we, still, are happy with our status quo maintained for past 50 years. A source of huge foreign exchange outflow.

RDBMS : In RDBMS arena, India nowhere stands and heavily depends on products from outside the country. Barring one case where one Chennai based company developed one RDBMS which failed to take up in India but was sold in US without much of success and support from India itself. Again, another source for great amount of foreign exchange outflow.

ERP : All top ERP packages are again from foreign soils. Only RAMCO Marshal could click but not outside India in a big way. India could never produce a world class ERP Software, a matter to ponder over. Yet, we are happy to contribute to major foreign exchange outflow.

Other Package Software : You name it and it is from outside India. Be it Multimedia Software, Web Development Software, Popular Language Compilers, Media Players. I am yet to look one such world class product having a tag like “Made in India”.

We hardly could achieve any significant milestones in developing and launching a world class Software/Hardware product. We are contented with serving and supporting foreign products without ever lamenting over our failure in Software/Hardware research and developments .

It was a pleasure to see one recent announcement by Japan, Malaysia and Korea to develop a regional Operating Systems of their own. In India, NASSCOM, MAIT and other organization working in the interest of Indian IT business community hardly cry for reserves and funds to create our own Research & Development facility for such a mission.

IT Industry must create a joint force in collaboration with Ministry of Information Technology to develop our own Software/Hardware Products which can not only save but earn potentially huge foreign exchange.

When India can develop and design Missiles, Rocket Launchers, and a mission to reach moon why can not we produce world class Software/Hardware Products.

Why can not we develop our own Micro Processors, native Software products? We have Vinod Dhams, Kanwal Rekhis, Sabir Bhatias in abundance but not the will and funds to encourage them to work for our countries. We have been contented in proving Lord Mecalley's theory to make Indian mass to serve forever ( a Clerk ) and not to govern or rule or create or innovate.

With such a huge pool of Software talent, we clearly had an opportunity to lead but failed miserably due to ugly vote politics. We need serious politics of developments to become a developed country by 2020 as said by his excellency President Dr.APJ Kalam.

Can we ever think to rule the world with our own world class products with such a huge Information Technology potential within our country? Still the bigger question is can we take a start?

(The author is Vice-President (Systems) Hero Cycles Ltd

(Views expressed here are those of the author and CIOL does not necessarily subscribe to the same.)