Software intrigues India: pools of programmers winning U.S. business

Software Magazine, Jan, 1989 by Hal Glatzer

Software Intrigues India

"India is poised to become to software in the 1990s what other Asian countries are to hardware today."

That's how Kamini Ramani described her country's future, at a recent Software India conference which she moderated in San Francisco.

At a time when many countries are competing to attract American high technology firms, the Indian government is expecting to sign up a lion's share with its pool of scientists.

"Software development requires people with problem-solving capabilities, analytical training, and an understanding of systems," said K.P.P. Nambiar, secretary of the India Department of Electronics.

"India has suitable manpower," he continued. "We produce the third-largest pool of scientists in the world. We are the largest democracy in the world, and we have the largest body of English-speaking software professionals outside the U.S."

Nambiar said software exports from India passed $100 million in 1988, up from $54 million in 1987.

The government encourages overseas software firms to locate off-shore enterprises in India, but does not encourage its citizens to buy U.S. packaged software. "Source code should be made available where it is needed, but we do not encourage the importation of software," Nambiar said.

While Indian citizens may pay up to 20% tax on royalty income, foreign corporations are permitted to repatriate dividends and royalties.

When questioned on the consequences of his country's close political ties to the USSR, Nambiar cited a 1984 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and India which addresses transfers of technology.

S. Ramadori, deputy general manager of Tata Consultancy Services, a software subsidiary of one of India's industrial giants, said the MOU, together with India's enforcement of international copyright laws, "provides legal protection conforming to international standards. Corporations can get more protection by having their Indian customers and partners sign additional legal agreements, but no case has ever been filed over violations."

The following success stories illustrate the potential of Indians in software.

Unisys CAD/CAM, Inc., in partnership with Tata Unisys of Bombay, created software to run plastic molding machinery. (Unisys CAD/CAM Inc. was known as Graftek prior to its purchase by Unisys Corp. Tata Unisys specializes in writing for Unisys platforms.)

The joint project produced approximately one million lines of Fortran and Pascal code in 9,000 modules.

Unisys sought a partner because the project "needed 14 man-years on a short-term basis, which we were not able to meet," said Unisys CAD/CAM Vice President Lee Cole.

"Tata Unisys identified people who could meet our short-term needs," Cole said. "Now, for the long term, we have a pool of people who can come in quickly and help us. Every one has at least a masters degree, three years experience, and skills in math, mechanical engineering, programming in a variety of operating systems and experience with graphics.

"With 60,000 lines per developer to maintain, believe me, morale went up when we brought in Tata people to lighten the load," Cole said.

Increasing staff levels by 30%, "with people from another culture," makes assimilation an issue, he noted, "but all the Tata staff report to one Tata manager who reports to our vice president of research and development."

JOINT PROJECT

Another success story was related by Gary Cole (no relation to Lee Cole), president and chief executive of InstaPlan Inc., a Mill Valley, Calif.-based maker of PC project management software.

"We entered a joint venture with Wipro Systems, Ltd., Bangalore, India, a much larger company than ours, which develops and markets packaged software in India under the Softpro label," Cole said.

"For the InstaPlan project, we did the external design, and they did internal design and implementation; we tested and finished it together," he explained.

Communications was done by telephone and telex, mail shipment of software, and personal visits for design and debugging. "The Indian phone system is getting better," said Cole. In the 20 months from concept to shipping, InstaPlan did 35 person-years of coding, or 6Mb of code in 600 modules, Cole said.

Nambiar said that there are currently some 250 joint participations by U.S. and Indian software companies, and that software should account for about $1 billion to India's economy by 1990.

"It not only occupies a prominent position in our forecasts, it is already a commercial reality," he said.