Dated October 29, 2002
Business Standard

After establishing a place for themselves in the global outsourcing market, infotech firms, domestic as well as multinational, operating in the country are attempting product development.

A handful of IT companies are either test marketing or making prototypes of cost-effective IT products developed indigenously.

They include: the country's top two InfoTech firms, Wipro and Infosys, TVS Electronics, C-DAC and multinationals such as SCO, Adobe and Microsoft, among others.

TVS Electronics, for instance is currently test-marketing an indigenously developed point-of-sales terminals in Chennai. According to sources, the terminal costs less than half the price of products made by international companies such as IBM.

TVS Electronics product comprises a 14-inch monitor, a built-in UPS and a printer. It is rugged enough to withstand the grime and dust in a typical Indian kirana store.

Infosys, which already has banking software solution called 'Finacle', is now looking at developing new products and getting into new markets.

"In the product (development) business, we are continuously looking at enriching our offering to our customers - it is an on-going process and we are committed to it." Said Girish Vaidya, Infosys' Senior Vice-President and Head of the Banking Business Unit.

Wipro is also working on various technologies, which can be developed, into products.

The company is manufacturing cost-effective printer heads, which are developed in India but produced abroad. It is also working on home-networking technologies.

"Indian companies too have realized that product development offers a great potential not only in the domestic market," says Naresh Gupta, Managing Director, Adobe India, a publishing software multinational.

SCO, a multinational company, has introduced a software product, which is completely developed by its software development team in India, for the global market. The product, named Small Foot, is software for handheld devices and special-purpose hardware.

"This shows that India is not just a destination for software services, but can develop products completely out of India. We are also looking at developing more products out of India," said Srikant Acharya, Country Director, India and South Asia, SCO.

These apart, a bunch of companies are developing local language software targeted at the domestic market. These include: Microsoft, Adobe, and Indian firm Web dunia.