India should try and contribute 8-10 % of the global software market

Right now India constitutes only 1.6 percent of the world's software market. It should try and contribute at least 8-10 percent in the next few years. But for that India needs to focus on developing more complex software that requires knowledge of system engineering and system dynamics. Software should grow from a programming discipline to an engineering discipline, said FC Kohli, Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services, regarded as the Father of IT in India, at the conference held at Connect 2001. He was speaking on the topic Information Technology and India Tomorrow.

India has not come up with software products, as it did not have resources to build domain knowledge. But now it is well equipped to develop products such as software engineering tools that increase productivity, system-engineering tools, components, knowledge based products etc. It also needs to enhance re-use of components to increase productivity and reliability.

Meanwhile it has to focus on the domestic requirements and increase PC penetration and IT penetration. Currently, about two thirds of its domestic software revenue come from the sale of Windows kind of software and not from software produced indigenously for use in India. Extensive computerization in India would see demand for new varieties of software in the domestic industry in the next five years which will in turn drive its software exports, a situation different from today, said Dr
Kohli.

Speaking on the IT Enabled Services sector, Kohli said that within two years medical transcription would lose all its scope with the wide spread of voice recognition. But call centers presented immense opportunities for India.

The domestic hardware industry also needed to grow to a stature where it could manufacture 5-10 million PCs a year. For that, India would have to market itself to the major PC manufacturers and invite them to set up manufacturing units in India, which would have a multiplier effect in the country. Another drawback India had was that it did not produce enough micro electronic engineers. We need to develop engineers at least in the first two digital components such as design software and embedded software. If we focus on our shortcomings and overcome them, he said India would have a promising future in software as well as hardware.