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

[DesiGuy]

dude.. your signature says it all.. 0 is the basis of all products that u mentioned above....

0 was invented thousands of years ago by India and tell me did India bother to invent 1 after that ??

 

[desiman]

Dude,

Intel, Microsoft, java all were made by American and tell me if India made something that can compete with any of them?

USA made fighter jets, missiles, guns and now tell me if India made something on it's own which can compete with American products?

Desiguy as much as i appreciate your allegiance to the United States, this is not a ..... measuring contest. No one here is doubting the United States but your diluting the main issue here. India has enough innovations under its belt also. Just inventing something isn’t good enough, innovating on its is crucial also. For example Palm initially introduced the concept of the smart phone but today its almost no where to be seen. Why ? because it forgot to do something basic, innovate. Intel chips might be made by the united states but its innovations now happens in India.

 

[desiman]

0 was invented thousands of years ago by India and tell me did India bother to invent 1 after that ??

 

[Awesome]

And being a patriot is good but one need not to go on extent of irrational. "Pakistani companies delivers a better product"?????

thanks

It may sound that way, but I'm just talking from my experience. Back in the day there was a lot of Pakistani big names heading towards Indian IT firms for solutions, however the trend has rolled back now since Indian implementations have remained buggy and customer support (and I mean high end technical support) is lacking.

 

[Awesome]

Dude,

Intel, Microsoft, java all were made by American and tell me if India made something that can compete with any of them?

USA made fighter jets, missiles, guns and now tell me if India made something on it's own which can compete with American products?

This is sort of my argument as well.

If we develop something that addresses a business need, using the Microsoft's .net platform, using Visual Studio n all, that's pretty good as a solution, however what would be considered good computer science is to develop the technology necessary for developing business applications.

 

[Awesome]

@TL

I have been reading your posts wherein you have mentioned about "product" innovation in IT companies. But then what is a "product" for an IT company. if you feel google, MS, Yahoo are product companies and Infosys, TCS, Wipro is not, then i must refute.

When you compare Infosys and MS don't compare MS Office and Finnacle, compare Visual Studio, .net. When you talk about Google, talk about Android OS, the versatile little OS that is running more and more hardware these days. When we say innovation of companies like Sun (Now Oracle), we talk about the Java Virtual Machine which can give you a Java Runtime environment on any piece of hardware.

You also mentioned china has billion of $$ product companies, and i take it in IT as the thread is about IT, i am sorry you are wrong. in IT field, by any standard, china is way behind india. Perhaps you are using the word product for industrial product. in that case china is way ahead of us, but then this is the difference in our growth models. Industrial base vs service industry.

The Chinese are way ahead of us, in computer science. They are working closely with American companies and now actually producing all their hardware. Initially it was just Taiwan and now its spread all over China.

Coming to the topic i feel the innovation should be in riding up the value chain. and in the last 5-6 years there have been signs that it has also started to happen. i do agree we took a lot of time in the transformation, but now it has started, it will not take long to happen because there has been increase in the competition at the lower end service level from many countries, and in order to maintain the competency and lead, the indian IT companies will have to move up the value chain. its the most logical process.

The idea in facilitating innovation is to push research in universities. This is something Pakistan is doing poorly. IT is taught in every university, but there is no research being done on it. Students need good research equipment, funds, labs and mentors. Can't say much about India, but in Pakistan research students are sort of duking it out on their own with minimal university assistance. Raw talent brings them up most of time, luckily. However thats not a good plan.

Also good computer science serves other sciences. You want to use computers to research genetics, neuroscience, quantum mechanics, cryogenics, protoscience - you know the stuff that's really out there.

Again I'll comment only about Pakistan, but it seems like we have a limited number of careers:

1) IT 2) Business 3) Doctor 4) Engineer (electrical, aerospace(few), architects)

We need to drag in more sciences. To reiterate, we're serving somebody else's needs in a way that everybody knows it can be done or worse it has been done before but we're just delivering a product thats more value for money.

 

[mrwarrior006]

0 was invented thousands of years ago by India and tell me did India bother to invent 1 after that ??

this 0 to 10 number system was developed by INDIA

 

[Awesome]

Btw, just to point out that Finnacle is not good innovation - I've been part of a 4 member team that has developed, deployed and maintained a Core Banking Solution to a bank with thousands of branches.

Now I don't claim it to be as good as infosys's product, which probably has undergone better Quality Assurance practices, but just to point out the difference between innovation and providing solutions.

 

[Chiru]

Pakistan IT industry is in its early stage. You can say no IT industry if you compare with india.

Looks like most of MNS have business or marketing offices in pakistan to get pakistan business.
After knowing Netsol is biggest company in pakistan whose revenue is few million, It has negligible SW industry.

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

Pakistan might not have a big IT industry but many Ex Pakistanis in west are doing very well in IT field.

 

[desiman]

It may sound that way, but I'm just talking from my experience. Back in the day there was a lot of Pakistani big names heading towards Indian IT firms for solutions, however the trend has rolled back now since Indian implementations have remained buggy and customer support (and I mean high end technical support) is lacking.

High end tech support lacking ?????? Proof please.

 

[RPK]

Enter Adam, the 'iPad killer' made in India - India Business - Biz - The Times of India

 

[TechLahore]

Pakistan IT industry is in its early stage. You can say no IT industry if you compare with india.

Looks like most of MNS have business or marketing offices in pakistan to get pakistan business.
After knowing Netsol is biggest company in pakistan whose revenue is few million, It has negligible SW industry.

Netsol is not the largest software company in Pakistan. Systems Ltd. is.

 

[Mohan]

0 was invented thousands of years ago by India and tell me did India bother to invent 1 after that ??

yah, you are bang on.. indians forgot to invent 1 after that, tho they knew they will be pulled up by desiguy 1000 yrs later....they invented 0 to 9 but missed 1...

 

[HariSeldon]

Plenty. I really don't want to get into a Microsoft is Stupid and Evil discussion here. Please just google Microsoft Research and look at the number of patents Microsoft has filed in recent years. Also look at the innovations in speech and handwriting recognition through the use of bayesian networks, or the photosynth project which involves image stitching algorithms and construction of 3D structures from flat 2D photos, or the motion and gesture sensing technology showcased in Project Natal, or the new Microsoft Robotics toolkit, or innovations in some of the best development tools available etc.

Again you are shifting goal post and this is not taking us anywhere. You said Product and I asked abt Product and you talked abt patents which is again bring us back to CS which not in term-of-reference for this discussion. And Patents? You said ur not intrested in "Microsoft is Stupid and Evil discussion " I am not either. But spare me this patents stuff. We know what is the innovation in 90% of patents they are defensive rather than some innovation. Give me the products where innovation has earned them kudos.

I will ask again what are the innovation of Big companies. (And leave Apple out. We have yet to see Apple post SJ. Even OS that SJ was working (I think its name was NeXT) was supposed to be ground breaking. Whatever happened to that.)

Biggest innovation in OS is of GUI and mouse. 99.99% of crowd does not even the name who innovated this. (Nope not Apple)

Because you can be as innovative as you want in services and you still won't achieve the natural advantages a product company has. Look at the ability of a product company to scale independent of workforce, the higher margins, the bigger valuations, the occupation of central positions in the IT landscape around which services companies build their practices... Product companies are the heart of the information technology industry, not service companies. Is there a contract software firm that evokes emotions as strong as those exhibited for Apple or Google?

And again why you want to measure somebody on your scale. We all have 24hrs in a day. Any management has limited bandwidth. These companies are growing @ 10-15% per annum. By this time next year top 3 will be adding 1bil/Q. These comp are not on auto pilot. This growth has to be managed. (BTW these companies do have products. But they address the niche market so not many are aware about them.)

And central position, emotions??? whoa....wait right there...this is abt money sire.... keep emotion out of this. I am not sure if they still trade the shares of Netscape or if new licenses are getting issued for Lotus notes. Apple OS is more respected but Windows earns the buck. Business is business.

Product earns big bucks but you can become obsolete overnight. Product is not about innovation only. Specially IT products. What you will call Youtube. Google has to buy it and shut its own video service. After doing everything MS is still not able to make dent in search market.

Frankly you are getting confused between having Product and being innovative. These are 2 different things. Indian IT comps are innovative in what they are doing and they donn't have any big-hit-top-of-mind-recall product.