BANGALORE THE WORLD'S IT HUB | EMERGING INDIA

[Ali_Baba]

Believe me, it doesn't take more than a PC OS ( Linux or Windows ), a PC emulator ( like Bochs ), a simple compiler set ( BCC - Bruce's C Compiler ) and knowledge of Assembly language to write an OS for the Intel x86 platform. I had written a simple one some years ago and had co-founded a company to commercially develop it further but the company closed down for non-technological reasons.



I agree that fabrication of processors and memory at large scale requires big investment but the design itself of processors can be done in a fabless way using FPGA boards and associated software and then the design handed over to first SCL Chandigarh ( which produces hi-reliability chips for ISRO and also the military I think ) to be produced in ASIC form for further testing and then after verification handed over to existing big commercial fabricators / foundries like in Taiwan, South Korea, USA and Israel. In fact the RISC-V implementation by IIT-Madras called Shakti was produced in a lot in South Korea ( Samsung ? ).

I agree - and if you have spent anytime working with Indian IT professionals allbeit as consultants in the UK on ICTs or managed IT teams based out of India (of which I unfortunately have to manage multiple ones concurrently) you quickly come to the conclusion that the resource quality that India is producing for its IT is not going to generate the level intelletual capital to generate the next Google or Microsoft or the next high tech startup to take over the world.

All of the core intellectual property, architecture, strategy and "innovative development" is still done in the west and most companies have realised that India is not the core location for innovation. Companies create "innvoation" centres - but they are mostly working under direction to perform specific tasks with core R&D and innovation done in the west.

Most of what has been outsourced to India is "procedural IT", ie looking after a Database, Servers, running IT patching upgrades or maintaining legacy IT systems where all of the innovation is complete and you need to it keep-the-lights on type of IT to keep it running with minor functional upgrades and where the new innovation work will still be done in the West.


Even companies like Intel, Microsoft are outsourcing "procedural IT" to lower there costs and using those IT savings to develop high end innovation centres in their home countries where they keep secure their intellectual property.

Dont get me wrong - the "procedural IT" has done wonders for India's econonmy and India is now in the advantageous position of getting "first look" at outsourcing keep-the-lights type of IT( at times you have to explain why it cannot be India )... So good for India - but the innovation and new products requires. My personal experience after 25 years working in IT is if you have a team of 25 Indian IT experts, 1-2 know what they are doing and you would hire them in the west and the rest are along for the ride or only good for procedural IT, and low key development and maintenance capabilities.

Even products that Wipro, Infosys "sell" were first developed under direction from western IT companies for one client, only for Indian IT companies to sell them to other companies, etc..

 

[jamahir]

Making a new OS may not be very difficult, but making it world class so that it is preferred by a significant number of people is tough. If very few people use it, then it dies a natural death due to losses. For creating world class stuff, we need talent from around the world. Silicon Valley leads as it recruits top talent from all nationalities.

I agree that the trick is to enable a wider audience to use it and make it useful for them, whether the common audience or a spacecraft or a nuclear reactor. So something like the familiar usability of Windows or MacOS combined with the reliability, stability and efficiency of QNX Neutrino. This will make it world class. Also, provide a application software ecosystem. For example a virtual machine / emulator to run Windows or Linux PC programs like PowerPoint or web browsers.

 

[magra]

I agree that the trick is to enable a wider audience to use it and make it useful for them, whether the common audience or a spacecraft or a nuclear reactor. So something like the familiar usability of Windows or MacOS combined with the reliability, stability and efficiency of QNX Neutrino. This will make it world class. Also, provide a application software ecosystem. For example a virtual machine / emulator to run Windows or Linux PC programs like PowerPoint or web browsers.

For adoption, it has to be superior to existing products. Example, Chrome trumped Explorer, Facebook trumped Orkut. After Chrome, many other home grown browsers were developed, but none could hold on and perished.

 

[Turingsage]

Electronics hardware is the next phase and is more difficult as it requires a lot of investment and govt support, and not just the ingenuity and drive of one company.

Its not just investment that is large, it is also risks associated with fast changing niches that would have to be exploited in order to sustain profitable production.

It is a very hard nut to crack that requires vast financial resources and vast requirement of power water and sites close to talent.

We are late but a serious attempt must be mounted soon.

Hopefully

 

[salute]

I agree - and if you have spent anytime working with Indian IT professionals allbeit as consultants in the UK on ICTs or managed IT teams based out of India (of which I unfortunately have to manage multiple ones concurrently) you quickly come to the conclusion that the resource quality that India is producing for its IT is not going to generate the level intelletual capital to generate the next Google or Microsoft or the next high tech startup to take over the world.

All of the core intellectual property, architecture, strategy and "innovative development" is still done in the west and most companies have realised that India is not the core location for innovation. Companies create "innvoation" centres - but they are mostly working under direction to perform specific tasks with core R&D and innovation done in the west.

Most of what has been outsourced to India is "procedural IT", ie looking after a Database, Servers, running IT patching upgrades or maintaining legacy IT systems where all of the innovation is complete and you need to it keep-the-lights on type of IT to keep it running with minor functional upgrades and where the new innovation work will still be done in the West.


Even companies like Intel, Microsoft are outsourcing "procedural IT" to lower there costs and using those IT savings to develop high end innovation centres in their home countries where they keep secure their intellectual property.

Dont get me wrong - the "procedural IT" has done wonders for India's econonmy and India is now in the advantageous position of getting "first look" at outsourcing keep-the-lights type of IT( at times you have to explain why it cannot be India )... So good for India - but the innovation and new products requires. My personal experience after 25 years working in IT is if you have a team of 25 Indian IT experts, 1-2 know what they are doing and you would hire them in the west and the rest are along for the ride or only good for procedural IT, and low key development and maintenance capabilities.

Even products that Wipro, Infosys "sell" were first developed under direction from western IT companies for one client, only for Indian IT companies to sell them to other companies, etc..

For the most part what you said is true. However I would say that in a team of 10 about 2-3 know and handle majority of the work and rest are just take part in the ride. They would do the repetitive and grunt work with no understanding of overall project. Indian staffing firm just charge the client on the basis of number of resources added to the account. Indian IT companies are having a blast in my opinion.

All the cream that come out of our colleges would find themselves at the client site abroad in 5 years. So that's the story of Indian IT.

 

[American Pakistani]

Yes, so much so that about 30% of world IT manpower are Indian. Pakistan is also trying to scam the world lately with conducive policies for such scamming.

I know how Indians accounts for 30% world IT manpower. More like scam power. That's true some Indians in America studied hard and took top posts or gained experience and established a startup. But most Indians coming to united states with h1b visa were due to Indian startups across United States who hired these Indians who had almost zero advance working knowledge. These startups did not had to pay a higher wages to local American candidates and instead paid cheap to Indian workers and trained them. Once trained they used the knowledge with bigger local companies who were into h1b visa thing and hired these folks as they were cheaper. Plus one or 2 in management were Indian origin who influenced these decisions. Those who failed to get into other companies eventually had to leave for India but had advance knowledge and utilized that in India by establishing their own startups in collaboration with Indian American startups or started scam centers.

Indians are very good at scamming as most of the scam calls that we receive in America are from India. Looking at EU disinfo lab reports and arnab and gen bakri we can easily see the scamming nature of Indians.