Is India a Software Leader…Really?
Time
and again this question pops in my head … Is India a Software Leader? ..
Indians form a major chunk of the software world and hence one comes to expect
that Indians would be working on the latest and the greatest in this field, but
to me it seems that we start a year or so after people elsewhere did … we do
more of following than leading.
In my past three years in this Industry two major software corporations … EMC
and SAP, both these companies have several “research and development” centers
across the globe, including India, but to me it seems that more of the research happens
elsewhere and more of the development happens in India. Judging from the opinions of others I have talked to,
this observation seems to be true in many other multinationals as well. I am
not placing any blame on the companies though, as I feel that the managements
everywhere are trying their best to foster innovation and new ideas, I’m just
citing my observation of the current state of affairs.
To start the discussion, do we even know what the latest and greatest is? … I
was watching a show on CNBC TV 18 today where they were discussing Convergence
of Media … the host of the show seemed so excited about the latest and greatest
concept of Web 2.0 … I was amused to see that we are finally talking about it
…. web 2.0 is just one example … most buzzwords on the web catch on in the
Indian technology circuit a year or more after they actually became buzzwords
else where … Web 2.0, AJAX, Semantic Web, RIA, Flex, AIR, Silverlight, User
Generated Content … they all seem late to me. If this is true then how can we
be leading when we don’t even know what the latest is?
Another reason why I am compelled to think that we are not leading is the lack
of Startups. In comparison to elsewhere there seem to very few product based
startups in India. At BarCamp last weekend I met Harish Kumar who is in
the process of building a startup and he also agreed that the number of
startups in India is low and very few companies are focusing on building
new products.
Now what should we attribute all this to? There are of course many reasons but
some that I have noticed are ….
Inherent nature of the Software Services Industry
Major portion of our industry here in India is based on the Services model. The functioning of
this model requires its employees to be “Jacks of all trades” … they are used
to moving between multiple projects, learning multiple technologies and
platforms …. this adaptability is very hard to develop and very important to be
successful as a services provider. On the flip side though it means that these
developers never stick to one platform, never become passionate and hence never
innovate. Their business is to provide whatever the customer asks for and they
don’t need to worry about making the latest innovation. The service oriented
firms have been making many process innovations … but the amount of product
innovation is very less. These companies adopt technology when a market demand
develops for it. It takes about a year form the time a technology/platform
became a buzzword in US till the time it starts generating an outsourcing
demand … hence my above observation, we use the latest and greatest a year
after it was the latest and greatest … we don’t lead we follow.
A disconnect between education and industry
I also feel that our educational institutes have a lot of catching up to do,
the syllabus being taught in most Engineering colleges lags a lot in comparison
to where the industry is at. Barring a few of the top notch institutes there is
very little research orientation in most engineering colleges. Another major
problem is the quality of faculty (no disrespect intended) … college professors
are paid a lot less than what the software industry can pay and hence most of
the knowledgeable people prefer being in the industry over teaching, thus the
knowledge of faculty in computer science departments of most engineering
colleges is mediocre at best.
No Blogging Culture
Reading and writing Blogs is not popular culture among Indian software
technologists. I can confidently say that less that 1% of the software
developers in India have technology blogs, a slightly bigger number reads blogs. Most
Indians go to the web to get information and not to share it .. look at Flex-India,
hundreds come to ask questions… very few stay to answer. The lack of reading
and writing blogs means that most people are not in touch is what is the latest
and greatest and hence they are not contributing to it.
I also study on this area, as everyone says India has done a lot in IT industry, India is the leader,,,but till now, We are not able to make any O.S., any database, any graphics software, any software like office, acrobat reader, any portal etc....Why because here if 100 people think about their own business only one of them would be able to start,...if anyone start their business out of them 99% close in their first year....and rest of them acquired by the big companies... mean our all innovative ideas were taken by them...So I think, In India we need some entrepreneur approach...which can help India to have something of their own.
would like to read a lot more
That shows mindset of Indian people.
May b why we r not that blogholic, because of nature of Indian culture,as we r more comfortable 2 discuss the things face 2 face and even people connected with IT ind r also not exception 2 this.
I think NRI's will play increasingly imp role 2 promote IT ind of India as they have advantage of best of both worlds.
Sunil Shinde
The reason they don't post blogs is because of someone taking their ideas. Its selfishness and greed that motivates the hightech industry. I for one find it most unsatisfying because money isn't everything in life. Everyone is ahead of everyone else, and everyone is following someone else is quite an unrealistic way to build society and friends. America was the first on the moon, and where are we today? We aren't on the moon, and that was some 40 + years ago....It is not a real achievement toward success anymore. So what was then is now not. Interesting. I have more ambition toward other concerns in trying to get people to stop killing each other and ending war in the world. Having things and money I think are not as important to me now that I have gotten older in life, because things don't give you happiness. Being in tune to our daily life and helping each other we care about most is what keeps us happy, than the next gadget we can throw in the closet.
nice seeing u on silicon, hope v can b gud friends, waiting for your reply
if u wish u can mail me on jnag2008@gmail.com
Nice write up.
some points to ponder on
1. As of now the talent pool in the urban areas is exhausted. 70 % of the population falls in rural areas where in the education levels are not upto the mark. So how does India cater to the increased quality manpower / SW engineers demand and become top in the domain?
2. I guess software companies need to invest in rural areas for fine tuning and tapping the manpower resources? is n't the time for biggies to invest in rural youth and their education, this would actually in turn be a big asset for the companies themselves.
Rgds
Inherent nature of the Software Services Industry: Now most of these IT industries are selling themselves as managed services. As per the industry it is very difficult for one to just stay with one technology or a specific domain for a long time. even for a individual to grow faster you need to adapt very fact to the changing needs of the industry. that''s y we are all "JacK of all trades, but master of few"
Very rightly said if you look at the proceess inovation Indian IT companies have done even better than any top 5 MNCs. I have seen most of the MNC has followed some of our process in their own companies. Hardly we have done anything on product wise just a few.
NO BLOGGING CULTURE: Most of us are quite selfish they don't like to share knowledge but we are ready to argue after reading. But they never write anything to prove its right or wrong. I have seen most of our blogs any comments posted are taken perrsonally and they don't understand the fact that it is one individuals personal tought and feelings
I read your topics , all are quite interesting. I appreciate your feelings regarding the disconnect between education and industry. Now a days all educational institutes are only profit oriented not to quality oriented. Even some of them never revise their course contents.
http://blogs.siliconindia.com/atul_joshi/
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