Plan To Make Bangalore World'S Computer Capital

The premier association of Indian software industry stated in a study that if Karnataka can put its act together, then it would easily overtake California, both in terms of number of software companies and revenues by 2020.

Quoting Tom Peters who predicted that Bangalore would become the software design hotbed and would emerge as the software capital in the next 30 years, Nasscom said if these measures were taken, Bangalore would have a software export revenue of $ one billion in 2000.

Nasscom said business as usual alone could earn Rs 2,300 crore of software exports for Karnataka in 2000. And if government, industry and companies coordinated well, they can push the state to achieve this target out of an estimated Rs 10,000 crore Indian software exports by then, it said. By 2000, the global software market is estimated to be $ 580 billion.

 

Out of this cross-country customised software business, specially OEM professional services, is expected to be worth $ 20 billion. Therefore, the total foreign opportunity for software companies in Karnataka in OEM professional services would be $ 20 billion. However, the opportunities in the product business can be as high as $ 100 billion, said Nasscom.

Among its various recommendations, Nasscom has called for forming a high-powered committee comprising industry and government to coordinate strategy and actions and run business that are not usually taken care by other bodies.

To monitor and reduce procedural delays in datacommunications, a high-powered communication committee should be formed by VSNL, STPI (Software Technology Park, India), Bangalore Telephones, Nasscom and senior state government officials.

Major recommendations hover around improving the existing infrastructure, specially, power, communications, transport and containing the uncontainable real-estate prices.

The government must frame `software friendly policies' and ensure quick response time from government agencies.

Nasscom, which has estimated a requirement of $400 million finance for software industry in Karnataka during 1996-2000, has urged the state government to establish a venture capital funding to enable adequate equity and debt financing and incentives.

The action plan calls for a focus on target markets like the US, Europe and Japan and attracting further foreign investment into development and service centres and joint ventures.

In order to implement this plan, Nasscom has listed several recommendations to the state government.