NYT says India’s pace of IT innovation slow. How is Pakistan doing?

[TechLahore]

This is more than to prove our talent.

Justin, no one is asking you to prove your talent. Please don't be defensive and take this the wrong way. The point being made here is about an overall culture that can leverage bright minds to create product-focused business innovation... a culture that encourages risk-taking, new ideas, unique solutions to real-world needs etc.

 

[blueoval79]

Here are few links that highlight India's innovation initiatives and their impact :

http://www.nasscom.in/upload/11912/it_innovation_booklet.pdf

State of Innovation in India: 2009

 

[Pride]

Here I add my points being a techie and worked across the globe:-
1) India's IT/BPO industry is service industry and we have to compete whole world to get projects ( implementations/ maintenance etc) hence there is "Big Talk" ( I say marketing strategy) always..
2) Most of the people are comfortable with being on service/maintenance project which leaves less scope for innovation.
3) People who are interested in R&D/innovation they go to foreign university for more facilities.. Hence when they do any innovations they are named as their university/resident country's product.
4) As there is not a big Indian product company in this arena hence all small innovative companies are generally taken over by MNCs example is iflex with great Financial products is taken over by Oracle.
5) India is still very good and competitive in IT edge as they have large service industry as well as "Few" great innovative people. For e.g I am in service industry but in that area I have created something new which is totally new industry solution..

 

[HariSeldon]

@TL,AA

Can you be more specific what you mean by IT innovation? Does it mean doing something realted to CS or any innovation by company operating in the field of IT?

Therein lies the issue, and that's probably why India hasn't been able to produce product companies. HP, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Dell were not created by large companies that waited to build up cash reserves to mitigate risk. They were founded by daring entrepreneurs with almost no money. The NYT is making the point that the classic entrepreneurial culture of embracing risk to create compelling *new* products is not taking root in India due to underlying societal issues.

Last I checked MS has done zilch for IT innovation. All they are is big marketing m/c. We have yet to see a stable OS from them after 30odd yrs of being in business.
More or less same goes for Apple and most of other companies. There innovation poweress is marketing, product designing etc not CS.
Google was different. But looking at last 5 years, they have to go out and buy other companies to keep the momentm going.

On this yeard stick when you include other non-CS work in the innovation ambit, India IT companies are innovative. 10 years back, there was no outsourcing. All India IT was about Y2K and even the die-hard supporter of Indian IT was wondering how industry will survive post 31121999 world.
And here we are with Indian IT growing bigger everyday. Having came out strong in last 2 recession in west. If you think they have not evolved there business models then you are wrong. They are innovating in there business which is service outsourcing. They are trying there hands at Products and has limited success. But they have there priority and thats outsourcing. And there is nothing wrong in that. They are growing at the double digit growth rate on the balance sheet of 4B$.

If we look at innovation in CS, then MIT might be doing more in year than whole IT industry put together.

Herein lies the catch. And this is where India lack considerably. For all the song's and dances we don't have any institute with strong research gene. This is the area we need to work upon and improve.

 

[TechLahore]

@TL,AA

Can you be more specific what you mean by IT innovation? Does it mean doing something realted to CS or any innovation by company operating in the field of IT?

As I have clarified several times in this thread, the context of this discussion is product innovation which is relevant in a business context. We are not talking about advancements in the science of computing ala Edsger Dijkstra or Alan Turing.

 

[sonicboom]

In USA anyone can start a new company with LLC. If you have good idea you will get loan and funding very easily. If any failure you can just walk away.

You live in India, so you have no clue how the startup works in USA. You think US investors are so stupid that they are willing to waste their money for any stupid idea that comes along. Those .com days are gone when all that happened. Nowadays, the investors are very selective and know where and when to invest.

 

[A.R.]

The thing about both countries is that our IT "innovations" are limited to customized software for corporations to serve a political need.

We lack any true Computer Scientific work. Our hardware based innovations have been things like shotgunning 50 computers together to make a super computer or perhaps how India keeps coming out with "cheapest" laptops.

Nothing truly scientific.

I personally haven't had the experience of working with any of the Pakistani IT firms you've mentioned, but I'm speaking from experience with others (some top names). They are all good, professional and delivery good products. I've worked with top names from India and I feel the Pakistanis deliver a better product. But Indians talk big, they are always busy counting down their "implementations" (which are always over exaggerated). Can't take names of companies while I'm criticizing them for obvious reasons.

However from my experience, both countries focus upon being solution providers rather than innovators.

sir
please give us the example of those indian companies which are always busy counting down their "implementations" (which are always over exaggerated)

let us too know who r these companies??

thank you.

 

[KillBill]

Well a great thread, Thanks to TL for starting it...

Without going to zingoism and nationalism let me point out something

This is an excellent article and I myself am too disturbed at the current trend in the Indian IT industry. Most of the companies are happy in getting the low end work and providing the services at a cheaper cost. The only selling point is "COST".

I know I will be attacked by a few, who will start rubbing some stat from my own country, saying that Infy, Wipro etc are huge companies and R&D partners etc. But the ground reality is that all are stupid ERP service providers.

In India, hardly anyone used to think about starting up, 5/10 yrs back, but tell you what, the trend is fast changing.

1. Many of my old friends have started many small small companies who are creating products.

2. I along with 2 more guys have done one end to end product and going for demos these days, The sooner we get funding/order I will kick this job and formally float my company.

3. The VCs, which was the major concern in India, are also flooding the Indian market, especially in Bangalore. Sudha Narayan Murthy ( one of the founding member of Infosys), has started a funding firm in Bangalore.

I see a clear trend in India too, where people are moving towards product based innovations.

Last but not least, if people are boasting that India is the IT superpower, then I would ask them to wake up and smell the coffee. We are not yet and we will not be till people think India as a R&D hub.

 

[HariSeldon]

As I have clarified several times in this thread, the context of this discussion is product innovation which is relevant in a business context. We are not talking about advancements in the science of computing ala Edsger Dijkstra or Alan Turing.

Fair call. My mistake. Just 2points
2) As you have listed MS in your list of innovative companies, can you share what they have done for this? Or for that matter Google? (There success in search has more to do with technology rather than product which we are discussing here.)
1) The writer has set the reference for discussion. He is right India IT comp are not very innovative in Product field. But I find it ammusing that you are taking them to task on what you think is right. Why not include other functions in business to see if they are innovative. They find that there is lot of juice remaining in Service side and they are focused on that.

 

[karan.1970]

Well a great thread, Thanks to TL for starting it...

Without going to zingoism and nationalism let me point out something

This is an excellent article and I myself am too disturbed at the current trend in the Indian IT industry. Most of the companies are happy in getting the low end work and providing the services at a cheaper cost. The only selling point is "COST".

I know I will be attacked by a few, who will start rubbing some stat from my own country, saying that Infy, Wipro etc are huge companies and R&D partners etc. But the ground reality is that all are stupid ERP service providers.

In India, hardly anyone used to think about starting up, 5/10 yrs back, but tell you what, the trend is fast changing.

1. Many of my old friends have started many small small companies who are creating products.

2. I along with 2 more guys have done one end to end product and going for demos these days, The sooner we get funding/order I will kick this job and formally float my company.

3. The VCs, which was the major concern in India, are also flooding the Indian market, especially in Bangalore. Sudha Narayan Murthy ( one of the founding member of Infosys), has started a funding firm in Bangalore.

I see a clear trend in India too, where people are moving towards product based innovations.

Last but not least, if people are boasting that India is the IT superpower, then I would ask them to wake up and smell the coffee. We are not yet and we will not be till people think India as a R&D hub.

I agree.. Great topic for discussion.. I hope we are able to prevent it from becoming another India VS. Pakistan discussion.. I have my hands full on that front in 2 other threads...

I believe this is the trend in most of India and China where cost has been the driver for outsourcing for a large part of last 2 decades. Specially since this outsourcing was a big part of the package that kickstarted the 2 economies..

Having said that, there is a significant trend towards specialization and innovation in India though its only 3-4 years old at max.. And that too has been a result of increased competition that lead key players to look beyond cost to differentiate.

Going beyond IT (TL hope you dont mind since the thread talks of IT innovation), I find the innovation on the Business Process side and Analytics is significantly higher and this is the area some of the IT majors like Infosys, TCS and Wipro are also moving towards..

As an example, I read somewhere that when a CXO level corporate Finance guy joins one of the largest conglomerate in the US , he is sent to INdia to spend a month in Genpact (a BPO provider) as an induction because most of the high end corporate Finance work for that company including Balance sheet analysis and preparation of Analyst briefs is done from Genpact in India..

Similarly, one of the Analytics firm in Bangalore (cant mention the name due to my Non Disclosure Agreement with them) is responsible for designing(not coding) adapting algorithms for identifying fraudulant transactions in healthcare claims for the biggest Healthcare insurance provider in the US.

SO while these are not pure IT plays, this definitely is a trend in the right direction from a movement up the value chain perspective..

 

[ramu]

As I have clarified several times in this thread, the context of this discussion is product innovation which is relevant in a business context. We are not talking about advancements in the science of computing ala Edsger Dijkstra or Alan Turing.

OK , here is the figure on patents

India : 0.5 utility patents per million population
Pakistan 0.0 utility patents per million population

About Product Innovation :

Here is an article from Nascom


Building Product Innovation Ecosystem in India
================================
‘If Technology is the vehicle that drives economies, innovation fuels it’
Innovation is the driving force for sustainable economic growth and better quality of life. In today’s context and in the light of what the future holds for us, Innovation has become more of a common sense; it’s no longer an oft-used buzzword for business strategy or product strategy.

Traditionally, Indians have been more Innovation users, than contributors. With the advent of IT, the scenario is slowly, but steadily changing. India has now gained the reputation of having one of the largest pool of technically trained professionals.

India's contribution to the knowledge economy of the world has been substantial with her millions of knowledge workers offering megawatts of brain power. It is also not an over statement if we say that India has a role in every exciting thing happening in the world today. It is only natural that there is an anticipation and curiosity in the world on how India is going to assimilate, foster and lead the Innovation wave.


Building Product Innovation Ecosystem in India
[Please read the full article in the link above]



As described in the article, we have miles to go but we are on the highway...

 

[KillBill]

As described in the article, we have miles to go but we are on the highway...

Nope, we have miles to go and we have just getting into the highway, would be the correct words

 

[TechLahore]

OK , here is the figure on patents

India : 0.5 utility patents per million population
Pakistan 0.0 utility patents per million population

About Product Innovation :

Here is an article from Nascom


Building Product Innovation Ecosystem in India
================================
‘If Technology is the vehicle that drives economies, innovation fuels it’
Innovation is the driving force for sustainable economic growth and better quality of life. In today’s context and in the light of what the future holds for us, Innovation has become more of a common sense; it’s no longer an oft-used buzzword for business strategy or product strategy.

Traditionally, Indians have been more Innovation users, than contributors. With the advent of IT, the scenario is slowly, but steadily changing. India has now gained the reputation of having one of the largest pool of technically trained professionals.

India's contribution to the knowledge economy of the world has been substantial with her millions of knowledge workers offering megawatts of brain power. It is also not an over statement if we say that India has a role in every exciting thing happening in the world today. It is only natural that there is an anticipation and curiosity in the world on how India is going to assimilate, foster and lead the Innovation wave.


Building Product Innovation Ecosystem in India
[Please read the full article in the link above]



As described in the article, we have miles to go but we are on the highway...

Extremely pathetic... there was no reason to convert this into a Pakistan vs. India thread, but you just couldn't resist, could you?

These patent figures are bull$hit. We've had this India vs. Pakistan patent discussion on this forum in the past and I am not going to go down that path all over again...

I am not going to waste my time reading Nasscom's official line on why things are so great... I can see with my own eyes what the reality is re product companies.

 

[ramu]

Extremely pathetic... there was no reason to convert this into a Pakistan vs. India thread, but you just couldn't resist, could you?

These patent figures are bull$hit. We've had this India vs. Pakistan patent discussion on this forum in the past and I am not going to go down that path all over again...

I am not going to waste my time reading Nasscom's official line on why things are so great... I can see with my own eyes what the reality is re product companies.

Let us read the heading of the thread
"NYT says India’s pace of IT innovation slow. How is Pakistan doing? "

The header is pathetic to start with... why bring Pakistan in the first place ?

 

[TechLahore]

I agree.. Great topic for discussion.. I hope we are able to prevent it from becoming another India VS. Pakistan discussion.. I have my hands full on that front in 2 other threads...

I believe this is the trend in most of India and China where cost has been the driver for outsourcing for a large part of last 2 decades.

China has multi-billion $ product companies. That's the difference.

Going beyond IT (TL hope you dont mind since the thread talks of IT innovation), I find the innovation on the Business Process side and Analytics is significantly higher and this is the area some of the IT majors like Infosys, TCS and Wipro are also moving towards..

As an example, I read somewhere that when a CXO level corporate Finance guy joins one of the largest conglomerate in the US , he is sent to INdia to spend a month in Genpact (a BPO provider) as an induction because most of the high end corporate Finance work for that company including Balance sheet analysis and preparation of Analyst briefs is done from Genpact in India..

Not sure this fits the bill... moving up the services chain is not the same as building product companies. One scales with labour, the other scales independent of it. Software product margins are tremendously larger and corporate valuations of product companies are consequently also higher.

Similarly, one of the Analytics firm in Bangalore (cant mention the name due to my Non Disclosure Agreement with them) is responsible for designing(not coding) adapting algorithms for identifying fraudulant transactions in healthcare claims for the biggest Healthcare insurance provider in the US.

SO while these are not pure IT plays, this definitely is a trend in the right direction from a movement up the value chain perspective..

It appears that the analytics firm you are talking about is doing contract development for a US firm. Solving engineering problems is a small percentage of the overall business innovation and execution involved in building and growing a software product company. A sophisticated virtualization app that won Gold at VMWORLD, backed by a large number of patents with numerous Pakistani inventors was developed in Lahore by a Pakistani software firm for a US customer. The product is still owned by the US customer though. All the product marketing, sales positioning, competitive positioning, channel strategies, end-customer input cycles for refinement etc. are still being done by the US company. And most importantly, it was the US company that picked the space, it is the US company that is taking the innovation risk and paying the services provider to develop the solution. Yes, the service provider obviously has brilliant engineers who can come up with patentable algorithms and sophisticated solutions, but this alone does not a product company make.