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August/September Contents 

Sufis - wisdom against
 violence

 Sufi poet saints

 50 years of mountain
 climbing


 Interviews with:
 Ajaz Anwar
 
Iqbal Hussain
 
Kamil Mumtaz

 Heritage cities:
 Taxila
 Taxila Dharmrajika
 Harappa
 Bhera - Part I
 
Bhera - Part II
 Gujranwala

 
 

Cotton - the fibre of
 civilisation


 
Cotton textiles of
 South Asia

 Handlooms & Dyes

 Hiran Minar

 Basant

 Lahore Gymkhana

 
 
Business/Technology
 B2B - Part I

 
B2B - Part II

 
Optical Networks I
 
Optical Networks II

 
Role of Internet in
 S Asian development


 
Technology and
 investment in US
 stock markets


 
Security & Trust in
 Internet banking


 Telecom & software
 - trends & future in
 South Asia


 
China & India - major
 players by 2025


 
Pakistan - IT Markets
 
Part I
 
Part II
 
Part III
 
Part IV
 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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 Page  1  of  10

Telecom & Software - Trends & Future in South Asia

 by

Salman Minhas

 First published in December 2001
Copyright the-south-asian.com

Software Seeds are sown

In 1975 ,  India and Pakistan started the introduction of Computers , with IBM Mainframes [ 360 DOS and card based data entry ] making their appearance in Banks [ in Pakistan Habib Bank, United Bank, and Pakistan Airlines - PIA ] and Universities [ Islamabad ]. Indian Institutes of Technology [ I IT] at Kanpur Kharagpur , Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta installed Digital Equipment Corporation
 [ DEC] PDP mini-computers  [with UNIX operating system and C- language] basing themselves on the U.S. Universities model.

The I IT computers and networks were to become the germinating grounds . The seeds were  Indian Software engineers who later on were to go primarily to the U.S. [ Silicon Valley - California ] overseas and within India and create what is today the  major Software power houses of the the U.S. and Indian Information Technology Industry.

Names of entrepreneurs such as Narayana Murthy [Infosys Technologies] , Aziz Premji [ WIPRO] , Vinod Khosla [Sun ; Kleiner Perkins & Caufield Byers] , Kanwal Rekhi [Novell] , Gururaj Deshpande [Ascend, Sycamore Networks],  Atiq Raza [Nexgen, AMD, Raza Foundries] , Safi Qureshy[AST Computers] are an inspiration to an entire generation of young South Asians engineers in the Information Technology Industry. The Chinese and the Pakistanis entrepreneurs are visiting Bangalore these days to understand the business model that has resulted in India’s growth as a major Software power with annual exports at  US $ 5 Billion .  

In 1975, in Pakistan,  a bureaucratic decision was taken to stop the import of Computers as they used up valuable Foreign Exchange. At the same time, in India, IBM pulled out of operations when the Indian Government demanded a transfer of technology. This early withdrawal led WIPRO to start the manufacture of PC’s with Tata taking up the servicing of the existing IBM customer base in India .The Pakistani system and software engineers went to the Oil booming markets in the Middle -East and the Indian engineers continued to grow in numbers, spreading into U.S. and India.

It can be said that the lack of understanding of Software by the Indian government bureaucrats helped in the development of the software industry in India. In Pakistan, a lack of vision in education investment in general and specifically software and computer sciences was responsible for the slow growth of the software industry.

There are many stories which will be chronicled in this rise of India [and the belated waking up of Pakistan , Sri Lanka and other south Asian countries] as a small but increasingly important player in the world Information technology industry. India & Ireland with $ 5 billion in software exports each comprise 2 % of the world software market. Ireland  with a much smaller population and India with about a billion people.

Yet the stories of Indian entrepreneurs have one thing in common - super-human pioneering work by individuals struggling against the cultural bias of western countries and surmounting immense financial and bureaucratic and industry competitive challenges. Below  are a few stories of the heavy weights  from India and Pakistan. More stories will be be added in  later issues of The South -Asian. But before we begin a few words on the Sad Saga of Telecoms in South Asia.    

 
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