Premji Sees China As Big Software Threat

The chairman of Wipro, Azim Premji, foresees serious competition coming from China in the software sector in the next 2 to 3 years time as the communist regime there has set its eyes on the global software export market.

"China will pose a serious threat for us in software exports in the next 2 to 3 years time and we see China as threat No. 1. The Chinese central leadership wants to bring Chinese information technology at a global scale," Premji pointed out at the Chinese government's aggressive role in enabling its IT firms to corner a substantial part of the global IT business.

In Japan, Premji said Chinese IT firms have already started competing with the Indian software exports. However on the quality front, Premji was of the view that China was 4 years behind India.

Premji said that the Chinese government has been disbursing significant funds to its universities to train engineers for the software sector.

Besides, the Chinese government has launched its national programme for English teaching.

China has 2 lakh engineers that pass out from its own universities besides some learning from overseas institutions, particularly from the US. While in the case of India, 1.85 lakh engineers annually pass out of various educational institutions.

Premji was in the city on Friday to speak on "Leadership " at a programme organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Pune.

While most IT industry captains are looking at more and more funding for India's engineering institutions, Premji has decided to look at the root of the problem for the high illiteracy rate. Premji has now taken up the task of tackling at the most burning and neglected issue- primary education where over 5.5 crore children who are out of school in India mainly due to economic reasons.

Premji has floated a foundation which is solely dedicated towards primary education to work jointly with the State Government machinery to get students back to school and upgrade the quality of teachers in India.

According to Premji, there are enough funds going into the Indian engineering and IIT colleges, but primary education remains completely neglected.

Over the next 1 to 2 years time, Premji Foundation expects to bring back to school half a million to one million school children drop outs. And for this, he plans to utilise IT to meet the needs of the poor children.

"We understand the technology and we can utilise this to educate children and bring them back to school," Premji elaborated on his new social mission.

Success is to good luck:

Premji believes that success comes due to good luck, but says that success has to be built on a foundation of values and not just wealth.

"Luck does give success and in my case success is due to good luck. We went into computer manufacturing in 1980 when nothing was allowed from imports and therefore had to start from scratch through R&D and with help from universities," Premji explained on Wipro's diversion into IT industry.

When computers manufacturing became an assembling game, Wipro decided to get into software business. In spite of the US slowdown and if lucky enough, in the current year Wipro will be doing Rs 3,000 software exports!