I too like and admire Narayana Murthy , Nandan Nilekani and other so called Pioneers of Indian IT Industry like many other people but sometimes I wonder whether we all miss to see what they also couldn't see or may be they deliberately put themselves outside of it.

What I want to bring out is that these so called pioneers have definitely lifted the Indian economy by creating and popularising the business model and contributed substantially to economic and personal growth of many Indians but they also pushed the Indian IT industry to the corner of a"low cost" outsourcing room roofed by limitation of H1 visas and rupee exchange price . Many of us may not like to accept this fact and dare to think why these pioneers couldn't establish a better business model than just building outsourcing & BPO model over these shaky pillars . Most of these pioneers have been contributing to the Indian Economy for more than 2 decades but they failed to see the perils of such a shaky business model . Whereas many other 'real' pioneers have seen that and created companies like Microsoft , Salesforce.com or Amazon or Google. If we go back and look at the timeliness when these other business models have been pioneered , i don't see much gap . Most of these have sown their seeds either in early 80's or 90's except Google. So why our Indian IT Pioneers couldn't build an enterprise similar to one of these . For sake of admirers of these people if we assume that they have visioned these other business models but were constrained by Indian economic policies but then one can clearly argue that during early 80's there were few Indian companies which were a head in manufacturing technological products like CDAC , ECIL , HCL and also since the birth of IT industry in mid 80's the government has been extending its best support for it . Few may argue that we had extreme difficulties in those days to import servers and other logistic issues but then when these people have overcome the other difficulties I guess these logistic and customs problems shouldn't be the reasons . One reason no one may not debate is the investment required for orchestrating a model like Microsoft or SAP . But then during late 90's and early 20's there was definitely no issue of funds as the share prices of these companies skyrocketed and it became the most lucrative business for any entrepreneur nor was the issue of imports. These pioneers have always missed to think beyond the advantages of Dollar Rupee exchange price . And since this model was giving more than 30 % YoY growth and profit , everyone was focused only on this model to make quick money and left the future of Indians and Indian IT industry to go a roller coaster ride like what is experiencing today .

Even after 2001 dotcom burst , these pioneers started talking about focusing on products and innovation but after 7-8 years none of these could actually make any significant contribution to this IT Innovation , which I call , a lack of true vision and commitment . Part of this can be attributed to share market which most of the times focuses on QoQ and YoY results rather than on fundamentals of long term business sustenance . Am not against the services model they have created but confining only to services model these people have left no way for Indian IT industry to march forward from the current cross roads.

One solution could be to look at M&A of product companies , which they started doing in bits and pieces , but they need to do in a much faster way in fact as a matter of urgency . Moving the portfolio to at least 30% revenues from licenses , 20% from Consulting and 50% from Services will eventually be the best model to sustain in long term even if world picks the protectionist path of safeguarding their own economies. Sometimes I wonder if instead of these people someone else has been in the forefront of this Indian IT Civilisation,then today we may be using a Tata OS and Infosys Database . Thankfully am using a Indian Desktop to write this blog . Am happy that at least one company thought of it . So though I admire and respect these great people , I do criticize them for not paving the best road . I hope they will realize soon and help further to the growth of this nation and this Industry.