Small IT product cos need sops: Nasscom

By agencies   |   Wednesday, 14 June 2006, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
PUNE: Though India is a well-known destination for IT services, it is not so popular on the product front. Is it lack of funding, or lack of knowledge about the markets, and why companies not looking at the combination of services and products, these questions were posed to the IT intellectuals who attended the Nasscom Product Forum. The forum “Prospering in the new product ecosystem — Strategies to become a successful product company" was chaired by Nasscom’s President Kiran Karnik, Deepak Ghaisas, Chief Executive Officer, - India Operations and Chief Financial Officer, iflex Solutions; and Dr Deepak Phatak, Chair Professor, School of IT, IIT – Mumbai. A report submitted by IIM – Bangalore’s faculty — ‘Indian Software Product Sector: Challenges and Roadmap,’ states that software products as a business in India have a potential to generate revenues of about $7 billion and can create one million jobs by 2010. Karnik said that there were about 175 companies in the product development space, of which Bangalore has 38, the National Capital Region - 35, Pune - 25, Mumbai - 25, Hyderabad - 19, and Chennai - 12. He said, “This was only the tip of an iceberg as there were many companies who have not listed themselves with Nasscom. We have already initiated talks with the Ministry of Commerce and the CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) to provide incentives.” Nasscom President said that the companies who develop products are more concerned about getting their product on to the market and earning revenue rather than sitting and signing legal forms for their products. This situation should change and the best resort is to have a corpus fund for the legal patenting and a consulting group to help the companies.