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Feeling real good about Indian infotech
As the country prepares to go to the polls—and Express Computer celebrates
its fourteenth anniversary—it’s quite clear that regardless of which
political party triumphs, infotech will remain a top priority for India on all
fronts. After all, if India’s shining as intensely as the BJP would have
you believe, that’s not in small measure due to exports of software services
and ITeS/BPO; and, if the Congress “hand” truly wishes to reach down
and uplift the common man, then the domestic hardware and software industry
has a major role to play.
Among all the bombastic statistics of the Indian IT industry and the Indian
economy that’re being bandied around, one figure that’s most tangible—and
that makes me feel really good—is the projection by hardware industry association
MAIT that PC sales will cross 3 million units for 2003-04. That’s a growth
of 30 percent over the previous year, and there’s every indication that
the coming fiscal is going to witness even more explosive increments, for desktops
as well as notebooks. This will have a positive cascading effect on all other
areas of domestic IT, and, as we have repeatedly emphasised, that’s when
the true potential of information and communications technologies to transform
the country will actually be realised.
Meanwhile, it sure feels good too to note the steady progress of exports of
software services and BPO. The harsh media glare on the so-called BPO backlash
and resentment over job losses in the US have indirectly proved to be a boon,
as they have brought the true facts of outsourcing and offshoring right out
into the open. That the economic recovery in the US has been a jobless one,
is far less due to offshoring, and more directly linked to cumulative productivity
gains brought about by huge investments in automation and technology in the
previous decade—almost 90 percent of the job losses can be attributed to
this latter factor, says Forrester Research.
Yet some US politicians and activists are quick to brand the convenient scapegoat
of offshoring as the villain of the piece, to further their short-term, self-serving
ends. Opinion leaders of the stature of Tom Peters and Alan Greenspan have since
spoken out on the positive impact of offshoring and the potential negative fallout
of protectionism, thus putting the whole issue into more realistic perspective.
Americans are understandably rankled that the comfortable and opulent lifestyle
that they’ve been so used to all these years suddenly seems under threat—however
tiny—from the teeming millions of the Third World. Be that as it may, it’s
becoming increasingly clear that the emergence of a New World Order is inevitable—a
World Order that proudly enables and supports a more equitable distribution
of wealth and opportunity than the lopsided reality of the present. In this
context, economist Jagdish Bhagwati is right on the ball in his latest book,
In Defense of Globalization, providing convincing arguments in support of free
trade, which he believes, if handled correctly and honestly, is our most powerful
weapon in the fight against poverty.
Intel’s CEO Craig Barrett too was well aware of the new patterns emerging
on the global tapestry when he recently stated: “The world has arrived
at a rare strategic inflection point where nearly half its population—living
in China, India, Russia—have been integrated into the global market economy,
many of them highly educated workers, who can do just about any job in the world.”
It feels real good to know that it’s mainly the Indian infotech industry
that’s prompted all this attention, taken the country to the world stage
and given us our best chance yet.
To date then, this definitely is Express Computer’s happiest anniversary!
Val Souza - Editor
valsouza@expresscomputeronline.com
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