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Leading a Nasscom delegation to the US is always fun and an
enriching experiencedelegates get different perspectives from domain experts
widely ranging from large software companies to younger successful niche players
to entrepreneurial startups. The exhibition and conference titled "Software
2007", which was organized by the exuberant techie-turned organizer and
host MR Rangaswami, attracted thousands of geeks, analysts, and a veritable whos
who of keynote speakersSteve Ballmer, and Hasso Plattner Eric Zander to name
a few. And, their words of wisdom and insights into the future were truly worth
traveling all those miles.
While the average Indian techie may be superior in capability to
the average American, the thought leaders of the American software industry are
so advanced in their thinking that there is still much to learn at the
fountainhead of new technology knowledge. And, this does not happen by accidentthere
is a carefully cultivated and well-nurtured industry eco-system that facilitates
the development of symbiotic relationships between angels and venture
capitalists, academic institutions, entrepreneurial firms, and larger
corporations. The Software Development Forum in San Jose is a true role model
worth emulating by the Indian Innovation community!
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makes Google such a great company is the belief that they are truly
redefining the frontiers of human knowledge and capability |
A living example of this is young Nividita Ojha, a young woman
from my home state, Bihar, who has bootstrapped an exciting company in the
wireless space with technical support from a couple of youngsters in IIT Bombay.
And, possibly in a different league today, but very much a similar story of a
few years ago, is todays stock market darling, Google.
The day our delegation visited Google was also the day the
campus had rolled out the red carpet for its shareholder community. Co-founder
Larry Page said that the goal of the company is to produce a search engine that
understands what you want before you type it. No wonder then that Googles
share of the search market grew to a staggering 65% in the US in the month of
April, and no wonder too that CEO Eric Schmidt said, commenting on the buzz
around the potential Microsoft-Yahoo merger, "It would change the
competitive dynamic, but it wouldnt cause us to do anything different."
Quite true, if one sees the decline in market share of Hotmail, post Sabeer
Bhatia, and the rather knowing look that some of the Google management gave us
when asked about the possibility of a Google OS and Google Web browser hitting
the market in the not so distant future!
The Nasscom delegation had an opportunity to see the best of
breed new developments: SAP, Microsoft, and Intel, and the four-day agenda was
truly rewarding for the group. Innovation truly flourishes in India, not just at
the top, but also throughout the length and depth of the industry pyramid, and
the associations efforts through the years to nurture new ideas and companies
have paid rich dividends. The next step is to unleash the power of individuals
and build a truly collaborative workspace for the developer community.
To end this column with an anecdote, our bus lost its way a
little on the way to Google, leading to a wisecrack"everybody knows how
to google for search, but how do we search for Google?" No shortage of wit
in this industry!
The author is deputy chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies
and the vice chairman of Nasscom.
He can be reached at ganesh@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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