Indian Software Industry

LurkerBaba

Super Mod
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
7,882
Likes
8,125
Country flag
Thirty Indian software companies have decided to splinter from the dominant IT industry body, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), as they look to promote the growth of domestic software sector.


The association, called the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table, or iSpirt, has been formed with the vision that India now has the basic building blocks to develop a powerful software product industry that can help transform India, as also deliver invaluable solutions to the rest of the world.
All of the founding members individually have strong customer bases in India or around the world. The objective now is to share expertise and experiences, and create a larger awareness in society and government about the critical role the industry can play — something they believe they cannot effectively do under the larger Nasscom umbrella.

30 software companies break away from Nasscom - The Economic Times
 

spikey360

Crusader
Senior Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2011
Messages
3,453
Likes
6,382
Country flag
This is a good news. We keep boasting of India as an 'IT powerhouse'. But we see no Google, no Amazon, no Microsoft, no Firefox coming out from the stables of an Indian Company. IMHO, product software is the way to go. This is a fortunate turn of events.
Excellent article.
 
Last edited:

nrj

Ambassador
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
9,658
Likes
3,911
Country flag
Here is the reason for that -

A wake-up call for Nasscom

The parallel organization set up by a few technology product firms is a challenge to the principal lobby group for the Indian technology sector

A debate is raging in the $100 billion Indian information technology sector over whether Nasscom—founded in 1988—should split itself to serve the growing aspirations of smaller, software product entrepreneurs who have been living in the shadow of much bigger software services firms for over two decades now.

If Nasscom has to stay relevant, it must collapse its "large-format", five-star conferencing programmes, used successfully over the years with bigger member firms, and listen better to a small, but growing community of software product entrepreneurs who are dreaming to create India's Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

These software product firms are led by a mix of veteran and newer maverick CEOs such as Sridhar Vembu of online office software maker Zoho Corp., who just don't relate with anything Nasscom. Vembu spends time shuttling between his Silicon Valley office and Zoho's development centre in Chennai all year. Unlike the software services business that's used to multi-million dollar projects and large payrolls, software products require deeper engagements with fewer customers. And instead of broad-based industry lobbying, these firms need discussions around intellectual property apart from establishing links with potential customers in India and overseas.

So it was no surprise when last week that some 30 software product firms, including homegrown accounting software maker Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd, along with several product veterans such as former head of Yahoo Inc.'s R&D facility Sharad Sharma and InMobi founder Naveen Tewari, formed a separate forum called the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table, or iSpirt. While dwarfed in size by the $70 billion software export sector, Indian product start-ups have been growing. From $113 million in revenue during 1999-2000, the Indian software product industry is now worth $1.81 billion (2011-2012).
The real issue behind this growing alienation is the mindset of working with larger services firms. Even when Nasscom organizes a conference for start-ups or product firms, it tends to follow the same format of five-star conferencing where grey-suited executives sit on a dais to give their versions of Indian IT's future.

Later this month during February 13-15, Nasscom will hold its flagship annual event for the software services sector in a posh five-star hotel in Mumbai where top executives, analysts, investors and media will gather to be part of several sessions on the future of the industry. These sessions have a bunch of speakers from member firms, their customers, and sponsors on the dais and everybody else inside the room has to sit and listen.

In what appears to be a mid-life crisis for Nasscom, software product firms are not the only community looking beyond the trade association founded in 1988. Now with iSpirt already formed, it will inspire other groups including start-ups to explore a platform of their own as they seek more of "unconferencing" and informal weekend get-togethers to seek the next big ideas, potential co-founders and investors.

In Bangalore, the city considered to be India's Silicon Valley and clearly a hotbed for the country's most promising start-ups, Mobile Mondays, Startup Weekends, and several other informal but focused group discussions are much more popular than any other industry event.

Last year, Nasscom realized it needs to do a rethink and it appointed a seven-member committee led by Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy to recommend ways to structure itself for 2020. Google's India head Rajan Anandan, MindTree Ltd co-founder Krishnakumar Natarajan, Genpact Ltd vice-chairman Pramod Bhasin, head of Dell Inc.'s customer services operations in India Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, Ashank Desai of Mastek Ltd and the current Nasscom president Som Mittal are other members of this panel.
Unfortunately, this committee still lacks a real maverick product entrepreneur who could help the industry see ways to re-engineer itself and learn from the world's best-known start-up and product ecosystems including those in Israel and the Silicon Valley. Six of the seven members are from IT services and BPO backgrounds.

Among recommendations, the Murthy committee is evaluating to propose that Nasscom become an organization with different councils representing interests of domestic IT, product firms, start-ups and large software exporters among others. This committee plans to announce its recommendations in the first week of March.
But a lot depends on whether Nasscom is bold enough to reinvigorate and transition from owner to a curator of ideas, especially when it comes to smaller product firms.

Nasscom needs to find a way to curate these ideas and informal events and not just impose a larger association framework. Nasscom needs to allow some of these breakaway units to evolve on their own through initial handholding, just the way any mature parent do.
And in doing all this, hopefully Nasscom will also find its old, start-up self that its energetic past president, Dewang Mehta, so passionately built during 1991-2001.
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/jEk...eakawaya-wake-up-call-for-Nasscom.html?ref=mr


The change is good but it's going to create big daddies & strong lobby.

Sent from Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
 
  • Like
Reactions: KS

LurkerBaba

Super Mod
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
7,882
Likes
8,125
Country flag
For those wondering if there's an Indian alternative to MS Office, Google docs, drive etc., its ZOHO Office. its Chennai based company, their office products are quite good (and free too). To add icing on the cake, the founder of the company was in controversy in past for supporting RSS 😍..you know what to do bois!
Zoho is great. Indian software industry is under a transformation right now. Going up in value chain from low-skill Services to solid SaaS product companies.

Freshworks, inMobi, Browserstack etc are some other examples. Software Industry was spared from labor laws and crazy compliance. It's proof that Indians can compete with the best once red tape and bureaucracy is removed. The much maligned Flipkart is another great example. It sold off to Walmart but created a huge ecosystem of high skill engineers and VCs.
 

sorcerer

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2013
Messages
26,920
Likes
98,472
Country flag
Zoho is great. Indian software industry is under a transformation right now. Going up in value chain from low-skill Services to solid SaaS product companies.

Freshworks, inMobi, Browserstack etc are some other examples. Software Industry was spared from labor laws and crazy compliance. It's proof that Indians can compete with the best once red tape and bureaucracy is removed. The much maligned Flipkart is another great example. It sold off to Walmart but created a huge ecosystem of high skill engineers and VCs.
absolutely right.
Zoho been around for a while.. hope they go really strong and go global.
 

LurkerBaba

Super Mod
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
7,882
Likes
8,125
Country flag
That's according to the score on the quizz but my answers are coloured by my personal experience in desi software companies and videshi software companies. Everyone and his dog know that employees (the engineers) in desi s/w companies are treated like dogs by the dalals who rule these companies. These dalals are what i call "Indian Capitalists". Naturally i have much against those dalals and since software engineers in desi software companies get no protection from the corrupt and dishonest management of desi software companies, I am inclined to left while answering the quizz questions. (My experience with videshi software companies is much better.)
So you're for labour laws and unions in IT industry ? Basically the very thing which prevented it from becoming a shitshow like most of Indian industry.

Nice
 

Hijibiji

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
879
Likes
1,152
Country flag
So you're for labour laws and unions in IT industry ? Basically the very thing which prevented it from becoming a shitshow like most of Indian industry.

Nice

I am indeed nice. That's why I am not spilling the beans of "Indian IT industry". My views are not theoretical, they are based on working in/with deshi and videshi software companies.

I don't want "union" in IT industry but i believe some kind of "protections" must be given in Indian IT industry against the desi IT mafia. Let me give two examples:
1) If John worked for a videshi IT company in india for 6 years and then his entire business unit was laid off due to business reasons, his videshi IT daddy would give him "compensation" (ie at least 6 months of salary) before saying "hey John. we are sorry. you were good but you know this is capitalism".

Now let's say that same John worked for a desi IT company for 6 years and his entire business unit had to be laid off (because a big client closed business with the deshi IT company), his deshi IT daddy would tell him "Hey John, why the hell are you still here.. Get lost. I have my illegitimate children in this comapny you see? I have to feed them. Now get lost. HR will explain things to you" ;)

That's why being a pro-indian guy, i still have much more respect for my videshi IT uncles.

2) The deshi IT mafia control and use the "media" to spell doom and gloom for IT industry every 3-5 years. And that's how they prepare the ground to give no salary hike and prepare the ground for lay-off. Since i am an enlightened guy thanks to great DFI, i can see these "media" plays by desi IT mafia.

Should i say more?
 

LurkerBaba

Super Mod
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
7,882
Likes
8,125
Country flag
I am indeed nice. That's why I am not spilling the beans of "Indian IT industry". My views are not theoretical, they are based on working in/with deshi and videshi software companies.

I don't want "union" in IT industry but i believe some kind of "protections" must be given in Indian IT industry against the desi IT mafia. Let me give two examples:
1) If John worked for a videshi IT company in india for 6 years and then his entire business unit was laid off due to business reasons, his videshi IT daddy would give him "compensation" (ie at least 6 months of salary) before saying "hey John. we are sorry. you were good but you know this is capitalism".

Now let's say that same John worked for a desi IT company for 6 years and his entire business unit had to be laid off (because a big client closed business with the deshi IT company), his deshi IT daddy would tell him "Hey John, why the hell are you still here.. Get lost. I have my illegitimate children in this comapny you see? I have to feed them. Now get lost. HR will explain things to you" ;)

That's why being a pro-indian guy, i still have much more respect for my videshi IT uncles.

2) The deshi IT mafia control and use the "media" to spell doom and gloom for IT industry every 3-5 years. And that's how they prepare the ground to give no salary hike and prepare the ground for lay-off. Since i am an enlightened guy thanks to great DFI, i can see these "media" plays by desi IT mafia.

Should i say more?
I belong to the same yeevil software industry. But I've not had the same experience. In fact salaries have grown to astronomical levels for ICs (individual contributors)

Just to be clear are you talking about IT Services or Software Engineering (Product) companies ?

Since you're talking about clients your experience seems to be with Services. In services the Engineer isn't that important vs Management.

In any case the services industry is well past its glory days. Hikes are determined by market forces vs some grand conspiracy by the IT mafia. A simple metric is the ridiculous 3lpa starting salary which remained unchanged for 10-20 years (they've been increased a bit in recent times I heard).
 
Last edited:

Hijibiji

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
879
Likes
1,152
Country flag
I belong to the same yeevil software industry. But I've not had the same experience. In fact salaries have grown to astronomical levels for ICs (individual contributors)

Just to be clear are you talking about IT Services or Software Engineering (Product) companies ?

Since you're talking about clients your experience seems to be with Services. In services the Engineer isn't that important vs Management.

In any case the services industry is well past its glory days. Hikes are determined by market forces vs some grand conspiracy by the IT mafia. A simple metric is the ridiculous 3lpa starting salaries which remained unchanged for 10-20 years (they've been increased a bit in recent times I heard).

I am talking about both deshi software companies (ie the likes of tata, mahindra, murthy, reddy etc. So yes, when i say "deshi sw companies", i tend to mean Deshi Service based companis) and when i say "videshi sw companies", i mean the true product based MNCs founded by my american and european godfathers who run their Indian offices in true MNC style and i have experience working on the direct payroll of both the types of companies.

I can also spill the beans on our desi product based companies like Ola? But let us not go there.

Dear babaji, i am much more hardened than what you can well-intentionally say on "services vs product, salary determined by market forces". I know all that not from theories but from work-experience. I have seen Naru-da in building 9 from 9 ft distance. I have interacted with Indian CEOs of Indian IT companies in lifts accidentally. I have nothing against them. But i do think govt washed its hands-off and did not give essential "protections" to fellows who work in deshi service based and product based companies. I have already given examples of what kind of "protection" i mean already.

On the product based companies of American and european origin, I have lot of respect for them. They are my true godfathers (the ethnically american and european) in this industry. The indian IT uncles are just dalals in my experience.

(The product based MNCs from Korea are not that desirable. And product based companies from China should be avoided. Just for clarification.)
 

LurkerBaba

Super Mod
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
7,882
Likes
8,125
Country flag
I am talking about both deshi software companies (ie the likes of tata, mahindra, murthy, reddy etc. So yes, when i say "deshi sw companies", i tend to mean Deshi Service based companis) and when i say "videshi sw companies", i mean the true product based MNCs founded by my american and european godfathers who run their Indian offices in true MNC style and i have experience working on the direct payroll of both the types of companies.

I can also spill the beans on our desi product based companies like Ola? But let us not go there.

Dear babaji, i am much more hardened than what you can well-intentionally say on "services vs product, salary determined by market forces". I know all that not from theories but from work-experience. I have seen Naru-da in building 9 from 9 ft distance. I have interacted with Indian CEOs of Indian IT companies in lifts accidentally. I have nothing against them. But i do think govt washed its hands-off and did not give essential "protections" to fellows who work in deshi service based and product based companies. I have already given examples of what kind of "protection" i mean already.

On the product based companies of American and european origin, I have lot of respect for them. They are my true godfathers (the ethnically american and european) in this industry. The indian IT uncles are just dalals in my experience.
Sure mate. You're entitled to your opinions.

I for one would never want any kind of worker protections in the Software Industry. If a company is really that bad, the individual has the option to choose something better provided he/she has the right skills. Possibly move to your "true blue american origin" MNC.
 
Last edited:

Hijibiji

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
879
Likes
1,152
Country flag
Sure mate. You're entitled to your opinions.

I for one would never wan't any kind of worker protections in the Software Industry. If a company is really that bad, the individual has the option to choose something better provided he/she has the right skills. Possibly move to your "true blue american origin" MNC.
That's my whole point. Protections and culture that i appreciate are already there when it comes to MNCs founded by my Japanese, American, European godfathers.
 

nrj

Ambassador
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
9,658
Likes
3,911
Country flag
Silicon valley companies over-valued by filthy rich investors paying compensation for graceful exit is hardly noble. Most of it comes from HR research on how talent exiting on bad terms may affect the reputation of company & influence new talent to be sourced. They do, because have resources that are planned well.

Areas where talent supply is abundant & easily replaceable will have displeasing compensation policies. Also business-model matters alot. I recall giant effort by Indian IT/ITes provider to end dependence on Dell, as it contributed most of the revenue.
 

ezsasa

Designated Cynic
Mod
Joined
Jul 12, 2014
Messages
31,715
Likes
146,981
Country flag
Silicon valley companies over-valued by filthy rich investors paying compensation for graceful exit is hardly noble. Most of it comes from HR research on how talent exiting on bad terms may affect the reputation of company & influence new talent to be sourced. They do, because have resources that are planned well.

Areas where talent supply is abundant & easily replaceable will have displeasing compensation policies. Also business-model matters alot. I recall giant effort by Indian IT/ITes provider to end dependence on Dell, as it contributed most of the revenue.
curious about the last line... little more info please...
 

Hijibiji

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
879
Likes
1,152
Country flag
Silicon valley companies over-valued by filthy rich investors paying compensation for graceful exit is hardly noble. Most of it comes from HR research on how talent exiting on bad terms may affect the reputation of company & influence new talent to be sourced. They do, because have resources that are planned well.

Areas where talent supply is abundant & easily replaceable will have displeasing compensation policies. Also business-model matters alot. I recall giant effort by Indian IT/ITes provider to end dependence on Dell, as it contributed most of the revenue.

Just to clarify, when my japanese, american and european godfathers gave "compensation" for graceful exit, they were neither overvalued nor filthy rich. They were themselves struggling financially and making losses. That's why in the first place an entire business unit had to go.

Compared to my japanese, american and european godfthers, my Indian IT Uncles were sitting on large borahs of cash and they did not know how to spend that or invest that. In India, doing dalali has been a very profitable business and made many uncles filthy rich.

Another aspect is "culture" on which the less said is better. Those who have diverse work experience in "Indian IT industry" already know that.
 

nrj

Ambassador
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
9,658
Likes
3,911
Country flag
curious about the last line... little more info please...
Bound by NDA :yo:

Without disclosing the name, this company was handling practically all of Dell's backend processing, provision & maintenance of required software for JIT configuration of unit orders of computer systems etc. It even replaced other Chinese vendor employed by Dell (which did involve layoffs in chinese company as a result), and also convinced Dell to shed some its owned processes to outsourcing due to its good record. This is about 10-12yrs ago. Today company has successfully diversified its clients and fairly climbed value chain.
 
Last edited:

nrj

Ambassador
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
9,658
Likes
3,911
Country flag
curious about the last line... little more info please...
Bound by NDA :yo:

Without disclosing the name, this company was handling practically all of Dell's backend processing, provision & maintenance of required software for JIT configuration of unit orders of computer systems etc. It even replaced other Chinese vendor employed by Dell (which did involve layoffs in chinese company as a result), and also convinced Dell to shed some its owned processes to outsourcing due to its good record. This is about 10-12yrs ago. Today company has successfully diversified its clients and fairly climbed value chain.
 
Last edited:

here2where

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
7,208
Likes
29,817
Desi IT cos -> hire and fire in mass. employees = cattle = billable resource. Jhatka-type exits involving a quick meeting and security escort.
MNCs - hire and fire selectively. employees = long term assets. Halal-type exits with compensation paid and
"be on rolls for a few months till you find a job". Its all about maintaining a reputation and requirement for WARN notifications.
 

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top