Everyone knows that while software services can rake in the moolah, the business model is very susceptible to economic vagaries and that the entry barriers are also quite low, with countries like China emerging as powerful competitors. Everyone also talks about products, but most of the passion exhibited remains just that—talk, with no action. Srikanth R P and Stanley Glancy tell you about some firms and an institution that has spawned them, that could turn the tide for India

KReSIT is the brainchild of Dr D B Phatak who wanted to create exceptional companies right out of India

What’s the common thread that runs between companies like Juniper Networks, Sycamore Networks, Brocade Communications, Cobalt Networks and Intellinet Technologies? Other than the fact that they are highly successful companies and have market capitalisation running into billions of dollars—another important fact is that all of them are founded by Indians. In the US, dozens of Indians head key units of top networking and telecom companies like AT&T, Cisco, Bell, Lucent and Qualcomm. There have also been countless instances of Indian founders who have sold their companies to giant conglomerates for revenues in excess of $500 million. Not surprisingly, when one hears of an Indian making a splash in the New Economy not many eyebrows are raised. But come back to India and you would be hard pressed to count even two or three companies who have made their mark by virtue of a path-breaking technology or product. This is why the Kanwal Rekhi School
of Information Technology (KReSIT) is so important to the Indian IT industry, and the nation at large.

Set up in late 1999, the Business Incubator was operational even before the construction on the new school of information technology, funded by IIT Bombay alumnus Kanwal Rekhi, began. The school is the brainchild of Dr D B Phatak, who wanted to give India a school based on the MIT model and create exceptional companies right out of India. If you take a walk in the lush green environs of IIT-Bombay campus, which most IITians describe as ‘nirvana’—you would find just that. Not even one company in the incubation centre can be described or compared to any other company in totality. Each company is following the Israeli approach—create a disruptive technology and occupy a space in which there is no competition or very little competition.

None of the start-ups here talk about turnover like our software services guys; they only talk about being Number One or Two in the space they are in and aiming at revenues in excess of billions of dollars.

The most distinguishing fact that separates the start-ups from run-of-the-mill software companies is the fact that most of these companies have no experience. While having no experience is not exactly the best way to ensure you succeed, the important thing to note is that they all have the power to bring disruptive technology to the market as they have no experience and don’t have to unlearn anything.

And as you read on the profiles of the individual companies you would be forced to agree that despite familiar obstacles like infrastructure and funding problems, all of them have a collective will and passion that could change the course of the Indian IT industry.