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Follow UsNEW DELHI, INDIA: Indian infotech industry veteran Amit Dutta-Gupta passed away on Tuesday morning. He was 62.
Dutta-Gupta, chairman and CEO of Adroitec Information Systems (formerly Hope Technologies), had been a senior and mentor for many of India's technology industry leaders, during the second half of a career spanning four decades.
On August 16, 2010, Dutta-Gupta fell ill, complaining of discomfort and nausea. He was admitted to South Delhi's Holy Family Hospital after midnight, and had a massive heart attack on August 17 at 3 am. He passed away in the early hours of the morning.
He is survived by his wife Poornima; two sons, one an engineer in Gurgaon, and the younger one in an engineering college in Bangalore; a brother who is a doctor in the UK; and a married sister. Adroitec's remaining leadership team comprises Saroop Chand, Dilip Phadnis and S K Basu.
For many infotech industry veterans, Dutta-Gupta was a leader they looked up to. Mindtree vice-chairman Subroto Bagchi observes in his book that Dutta-Gupta was his mentor and guide. Says NIIT chairman Rajendra S Pawar: “We have all lost a truly humane, erudite, brilliant and witty friend who made so many of us better human beings. I have lost a very special friend.”
For CyberMedia publisher and chairman Pradeep Gupta, who reported to Dutta-Gupta at HCL, “Amitda was my first and last boss. A brilliant mind and an exceptional human being. He was always my friend, philosopher and guide.”
HP India managing director Neelam Dhawan says she learnt “most of what she knows about marketing from him. Besides a being a wonderful friend and person he was a great guru. He taught something every time I met him.”
Headstrong chairman Arjun Malhotra, another HCL and IT industry veteran, says in his tribute: “What can I say about a friend and colleague who has helped me think through some of my most difficult moments...with whom I have had the pleasure of sharing over 30 years? Where will we get another person like him who is so intelligent and innovative, yet humble, full of humanity? We have lost a giant.”
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Amit Dutta-Gupta (1946-2010)
Amit Dutta-Gupta started off in 1968 with the DCM Group--passing up a chance to join IIM Calcutta--just after graduating in mechanical engineering REC Durgapur. Joining DCM as management trainee, he was in the first year inducted into its prestigious three-year senior management training program, which has produced industry veterans such as Shiv Nadar, Rajendra Pawar and Arjun Malhotra.
A year down, he joined the Coca Cola Corporation, first managing the Calcutta and Jamshedpur plants, and later, the bottling plants of North and South India. His seven-year stint there gave him a “ringside view of the evolution of the soft drink industry in India”, and a chance to travel all over India, covering hundreds towns–the stint ending in 1977 when Coke was thrown out of the country by the Janta Government.
Dutta-Gupta then approached his batch mate from the DCM SMT program, Shiv Nadar, and in May 1977, became HCL's regional manager (East), in Calcutta. He tried selling computers (in a market which had just over a hundred of them) and unit record machines. It was a change in lifestyle from a structured MNC life to an IT market in its infancy.
In 1979, he moved back to Delhi, heading HCL's north region at a time when the company was exploring the brand-new territory of the small and medium business, trying to popularize computers there. The strategy was a success, with revenues growing threefold to Rs 12 crore, backed by a popular campaign and–another first in the industry–roadshows. In 1986, Gupta became executive director, and set up HCL's CAD/CAM unit, turning it into a Rs 25 crore business in 1988.
That was also when Dutta-Gupta decided to go his own way, setting up Hope Technologies along with two HCL colleagues. Hope started with home PCs and handhelds based on the Psion palmtops–well ahead of their time in India. Unable to make headway in that space, Hope moved into CAD/CAM and GIS in 1993, becoming AutoDesk's main distributor in India.
At its peak, Hope had operations in the USA, Europe, in Japan and Middle East, and won several export and other awards. Hope Technologies subsequently evolved into Adroitec, a company that today provides technology solutions to global customers.
Additional research source: IT People (Indian Express)