The book, China and India: Opportunities and Threats for the Global Software Industry by John, McManus, Li, Mingzhi, Deependra, Moitra offers some interesting conclusions. India and China will compete only at the edges; both will gain market share in the global software industry. Also, India IT Services domination will not be seriously threatened by China. Read on…
Archive for the 'software industry' Category
China and India: Opportunities and Threats for the Global Software Industry
Published by May 3rd, 2007 in software industry and book review. 3 CommentsProduct Ecosystem in India: Progress But More Needs to be Done
Published by May 1st, 2007 in innovation, software industry and entrepreneurship. 5 CommentsSlowly but surely the product ecosystem in India is getting better. I looked at it six months back and since then it has get more fleshed out. Yet much work remains to be done. Read on…
YEGA IS Rising!
Published by April 11th, 2007 in software industry and adaptable infrastucture. 2 CommentsI like Vinnie Mirchandani because he doesn’t beat around the bush. He responds to Paul Graham’s article “Microsoft is Dead” by simply stating that its not just Microsoft but also IBM, SAP and Oracle (see his post “MISO is dead”). In a way he is right. They are all part of the fading edge. What’s rising in place of MISO is YEGA. The yahoo, eBay, Google and Amazon are part of the leading edge. But if truth be told, my respect goes to GET-IN, a slight twist on letters that represents GE, TI and Nokia…
First Series Roundup on India R&D Centers
Published by March 30th, 2007 in offshoring, software industry and roundups. 2 CommentsI like to believe that I was at the starting point of software product offshoring to India way back in early 90s when we setup the AT&T Bell Lab’s R&D operations in India. Now most technology companies have large R&D centers in India. While there has been a lot of headcount growth, I feel that the maturity hasn’t grown as much as should have. This series of 7 articles, written over a period of three months, tackles some of the issues that need more attention. Check them out if you have missed any.
5 Sacred Cows of Product Offshoring
Published by March 28th, 2007 in offshoring and software industry. 1 CommentSacred cows are ideas that are exempt from criticism or questioning. Here are 5 common sacred cows that get in the way of product offshoring…
Managing the Tension between Product Offshoring and Incubation
Published by March 25th, 2007 in offshoring and software industry. 2 CommentsThere is strong business case for India-based product offshoring and product incubation. Doing both surfaces the inherent tension between them. Good performance with one of them doesn’t automatically result in good performance with the other. If anything, the odds are that doing one of them will weaken the other. So what’s the way out?
Indian SMB Sector Ripe for New Breed of IT Solutions
Published by March 23rd, 2007 in software industry, bottom-of-the-pyramid and SaaS. 0 CommentsAMI’s study further validates that Indian SMB sector is ripe for targeted SaaS solutions…
It’s the Season of Merger Speculations
Published by March 20th, 2007 in investing and software industry. 3 CommentsMany merger ideas are doing the rounds. Take your pick: Google buys Intuit, Microsoft acquires Yahoo, Apple swallows Adobe. Ironically, all this is at a time when there is talk about a PE buyout of Symantec. It’s so easy to forget that big mergers often don’t work out in the long run!
India R&D Footprint: Time to Evaluate and Fix the Portfolio
Published by March 19th, 2007 in offshoring and software industry. 0 CommentsTwo basic questions that underpin long-term success in moving product development to India have been ignored. These questions are: (a) Which sub-products or components to move? (b) How to move them? In place of careful consideration, the focus has been on momentum. The result is that the India R&D footprint of every MNC has uneven quality. What’s more there are significant variations across MNC captives. These variations didn’t matter when the times were good and growth was easy to come by. But now times are changing… it’s time to evaluate the portfolio. This is how it can be done…
A Practical Framework for Successful Product Offshoring
Published by March 16th, 2007 in offshoring and software industry. 5 CommentsThe product offshoring failures don’t get discussed publicly and the same mistakes are made again and again. This article discusses a practical framework for success.
Microsoft in Russia and Netherland’s Eighty Years’ War
Published by March 2nd, 2007 in software industry and inter-cultural issues. 1 CommentThis argues that the controversial Windows XP piracy case against the Russian school Principal is a big cultural error of judgment on part of Microsoft.
Enterprise Computer Marketing Sucks
Published by February 28th, 2007 in software industry. 0 CommentsLook at this video to see how enterprise computer product marketing appears to customers. Although a technology-push mindset is customer unfriendly, it has worked for the enterprise products industry so far.
IT Services: More on Convergence and Competitive Strategy
Published by February 23rd, 2007 in software industry. 5 CommentsThis is the time for the big SI firms to start thinking about the new competitive strategy. The old fast-follower strategy will not work for either the India 5 or the Old 4 set of firms once the slack offered by the mid-tier firm disappears.
Vinnie and Sadagopan Are Missing the Point
Published by February 22nd, 2007 in software industry. 3 CommentsVinnie and Sadagopan debate about India’s SIs future is incomplete as it doesn’t acknowledge the change in the nature of competition itself. New competitive factors will come into play soon. Open questions are: What will the new competitive factors be? And who among the India 5 and Old 4 will move faster to adjust to the new competitive landscape?
5 Reasons Why R&D Offshoring is Maturing So Slowly
Published by February 16th, 2007 in offshoring and software industry. 4 CommentsEffective R&D offshoring remains a black art. While individual success stories exist, they haven’t yet become repeatable. This article talks about the 5 reasons why India-shoring of R&D is maturing so slowly.
Some Quick Notes From NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum
Published by February 9th, 2007 in software industry. 0 CommentsSome Quick Notes From NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum
Accenture’s Two Inflection Points This Year (Involving Employees and Profits)
Published by January 31st, 2007 in offshoring and software industry. 5 CommentsAccenture’s decision to add another 8,000 headcount (HC) in India is making news. This will make their India HC larger than US. For me a more significant inflection point will come in a few months. It’s almost certain that Infosys will report a higher profit than Accenture this quarter…
Looking at Orbit Change in Three Industries
Published by January 30th, 2007 in software industry, biotech/pharma industry and mobile industry. 0 CommentsWhat happened with Lucent is relevant to the changes that Big Pharma and Enterprise Software industry are facing today. Firms like Pfizer seem to have finally embraced the orbit change that’s needed. But others need to get started as well. Time is ticking away. Is history about to repeat itself?
Tepid Embrace of Open Source in India
Published by January 29th, 2007 in software industry. 10 CommentsThere has been a lot of optimism about the growth of Open Source community in India. Somehow this hasn’t happened. What are the reasons behind this?
Here is a fascinating map illustrating the “epic struggle of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) against the Empire of Microsoft”. Steven Hilton has updated this recently.
I like the way it depicts…
the old SCO attack as a FUD attack, now stalled
the recent Novell-MS deal as a flanking attack, a win by MS
Firefox advance and […]
Why CIOs Have a Shot at Becoming Chief Innovation Officers
Published by January 25th, 2007 in offshoring, organizational design, software industry and adaptable infrastucture. 0 CommentsUtility infrastructure model is coming. There is no escaping this trend. This trend will reshape CIOs job significantly. CIOs will either become practically redundant or will become Chief Innovation Officers. I think it will be the latter and here is why…
No, Entrepreneurship in IT Services is Not Over!
Published by January 19th, 2007 in software industry and entrepreneurship. 2 CommentsIt’s wrong to suggest that the game is over in IT services in India and no new startups are needed.
Lack of Breakthrough Innovation by Big Companies
Published by January 18th, 2007 in innovation and software industry. 1 CommentBig companies can do breakthrough innovation in one of two ways. They can either emulate an entrepreneurial company much like what Apple has done in recent years. Or it can leverage its size to follow the Toyota and Honda’s Kaizen method of breakthrough innovation. Right now, unfortunately, most IT companies are doing neither.
Resurgence of the Indian SMB Sector
Published by January 16th, 2007 in software industry, bottom-of-the-pyramid and SaaS. 2 CommentsBusiness World’s cover story says that the Indian SMB sector is now booming.
Oracle and SAP Results: Evidence of a Fading-Edge
Published by January 15th, 2007 in software industry. 1 CommentOracle and SAP quarterly results show that the large-enterprise market is saturated. A price war is breaking out and a wave of market-expansion acquisitions is likely to be unleashed soon. Unfortunately, most of these new deals will be value-destroying. It’s best that next-gen ERP players focused on the SMB better stay away from the embrace of Oracle and SAP.
