HYDERABAD: The country has seen a sizable growth in revenues in software
services and now it is high time to take a look at software product development.
It may be because of the fact that Indian IT firms spend far less than US firms
on R&D. Microsoft has its presence in terms of research and development
activities in the country. Microsoft India Development Center managing director
Srini Koppolu spoke to Zia Askari on issues relating to product development
here. Srini was in Hyderabad to speak at a seminar organized by Hysea, the
Hyderabad Software Exporters Association.
What are the challenges that a company faces while developing products in
the software arena?
Developing products is not an easy task as there are millions of customers
whose demands and needs have to be fulfilled. Above all, a company may never
know what its customers want, so it becomes very critical for a company to keep
evolving its products according to the market.
What are the factors critical for a company developing products and how
can it cope with issues related to product development?
One of the key factors is time. As in the market, there is always a big
advantage in being the first mover. You need an organization with a unique
culture with open communication of ideas, designs, feedback and suggestions. A
product company needs people with passion -- a passion for products and
technology, and passion to make a difference. The timing one chooses to market
is the most important aspect of any product development and a company should
always avoid analysis paralysis. You don't need to wait until you have enough
facts to be 100 per cent sure, by that time it will be too late. Distance from
the market is also an important factor as it is also good for a company to be as
close to the market as possible or develop products for the market that you are
in. Winning the market share is also important so a product should be designed
to win market share.
What should be the main objective of a products company?
The primary objective should always be to make sure that the product is best
suited to the market and the business needs of the organization. Simplicity is
also a key issue as far as designing a product is concerned. This apart, one has
to think internationally and geo-politically and write features that are
accessible to everyone. Customer satisfaction is the other area that one has to
concentrate on while developing a product.
What is the development model at your R&D center here?
There are two ways of conceptualizing a software design: one is to make it
so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make
it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is
far more difficult. At Microsoft we practice a model wherein we first define a
product, then we design, test and deliver it to the market.
We at MS practice milestone-based product development. This idea gives us the
advantage of improving specs and design as we move forward in the development of
the product. We develop features in phases and improve quality in stages. For
us, each milestone is a mini-product - either for internal use or external, we
take time to pause, take stock and do course of correction if needed. That is
how we have developed our products out of Hyderabad R&D center.
On the products front, Microsoft has developed and released Visual J# .net, a
Java language development tool. The product is part of the Microsoft India
Development Center's product Banjara initiative for the .Net platform. It is
designed to enable Java language programmers to immediately migrate to the .Net
platform.
More than 35 engineers had been working on the development of the product for
the past two years. This is the second product developed and conceived by the
company's R&D facility in Hyderabad. The first product released was Services
For Unix (SFU).
The beta 1 version of the product is already made available through MSDN. The
beta 2 version is likely to be ready by the first quarter of the next year and a
final release is likely by middle of next year. The development center in
Hyderabad is also working on an add-on for Outlook Express, which is likely to
be released next year.
What process do you undertake to ensure products usefulness?
To make our products more useful and usable we incorporate user information into
all stages of the product design cycle. We work with product teams to ensure the
utility and usability of MS products and then create product prototypes for
testing them.