D. Murali
These are days when any link with Satyam merits a second look, and a closer one. But this is a positive story, about how the first commercial dedicated satellite link of VSNL to be used by an Indian software company was of Satyam, as Dinesh C. Sharma recounts in ‘The Long Revolution: The birth and growth of India’s IT industry’ ( www.harpercollins.co.in).
In 1992, just a handful of 64 kbps (kilobits per second, a measure of bandwidth) circuits were in use, Sharma writes. A Hyderabad-based start-up, Satyam Computer Services, which had signed up its first major offshore customer in June 1991, applied to VSNL for a dedicated satellite link in August that year, he adds.
“Using this link, Satyam wanted to execute a re-engineering contract, worth $1 million, for John Deere Corporation by remotely working on Deere’s IBM mainframes located in Chicago.”
Read more at: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/01/17/stories/2009011750761800.htm
From the era of Nehru and Bhabha
... to the age of outsourcing
Saturday, January 17, 2009
"Engaging account" - The Hindu BusinessLine
Software Sops
By D Murali
The Hindu BusinessLine, January 17, 2009
The Department of Electronics (DoE) Secretary, Nagarajan Vittal, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, K. Roy Paul, and Economic Advisor, Pronab Sen, were the three individuals who changed the outlook of the DoE, writes Dinesh C. Sharma in The Long Revolution: The birth and growth of India’s IT industry (http://www.harpercollins.co.in/). “With similar wavelength and energy,” says Sharma, “the trio ensured that the DoE shed its image of being a scientific department to become an industry- and business-oriented ministry.”
He recounts how, within a week in office, Vittal met representatives of MAIT (Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology) and Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies). “The industry wanted high-speed data communication links to facilitate software exports… Extending export concessions and tax holidays to the software sector was the other demand.”....
Read more at: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/01/17/stories/2009011750080900.htm
By D Murali
The Hindu BusinessLine, January 17, 2009
The Department of Electronics (DoE) Secretary, Nagarajan Vittal, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, K. Roy Paul, and Economic Advisor, Pronab Sen, were the three individuals who changed the outlook of the DoE, writes Dinesh C. Sharma in The Long Revolution: The birth and growth of India’s IT industry (http://www.harpercollins.co.in/). “With similar wavelength and energy,” says Sharma, “the trio ensured that the DoE shed its image of being a scientific department to become an industry- and business-oriented ministry.”
He recounts how, within a week in office, Vittal met representatives of MAIT (Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology) and Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies). “The industry wanted high-speed data communication links to facilitate software exports… Extending export concessions and tax holidays to the software sector was the other demand.”....
Read more at: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/01/17/stories/2009011750080900.htm
Authorspeak: Why I wrote this book?
"Today we find computers being used everywhere. This was not so some thirty years back. I became aware of the use of computers in our lives when I got a computerised marks sheet for my tenth grade examination in June 1976.A few years later, I was formally introduced to computer science during the undergraduate course in science at Nizam College, Hyderabad. An introductory course in FORTRAN IV – a computer language released by IBM in 1962 – made students learn basic programming without seeing or touching a computer. .....Over the next two decades I was exposed to computers and had a chance to report on the so-called 'computer era' in the 1980s..... In 2000s, while reporting for American technology news network, Cnet.com, I realised that interest about the Indian industry was growing in America and yet there were a lot of misconceptions. The same was the case with new generation of Indians who were introduced to the sector in the past one decade or so. This prompted me to do a full book on this sector.
When I decided to write a book, the first thought that came to my mind was the story of IBM and Coca-Cola being ‘thrown out of India’ during the Janata Party regime in 1977. Somehow this story had remained ingrained in my mind since my adolescent days. Then as a reporter, I kept hearing different versions of this story. So, I thought here is my story line – from IBM leaving India in 1977 to IBM’s comeback in early 1990s. To the journalist inside me, this appeared to me a killer plot. Barring the IBM’s exit and the period of early growth of the industry till 1984, I was a witness as well a recorder of all major events in this period. But when I started researching into IBM episode, I realized the story actually begins when early computing machines came to India in the pre-independence days. That’s how the plot got extended. Much of research and writing for this book took place between 2005 and 2007. I made multiple trips to Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad, besides work done in my place of residence – New Delhi. This is the journey of this book, in brief."
-From author's preface to "The Long Revolution: The Birth and Growth of India's IT Industry"
When I decided to write a book, the first thought that came to my mind was the story of IBM and Coca-Cola being ‘thrown out of India’ during the Janata Party regime in 1977. Somehow this story had remained ingrained in my mind since my adolescent days. Then as a reporter, I kept hearing different versions of this story. So, I thought here is my story line – from IBM leaving India in 1977 to IBM’s comeback in early 1990s. To the journalist inside me, this appeared to me a killer plot. Barring the IBM’s exit and the period of early growth of the industry till 1984, I was a witness as well a recorder of all major events in this period. But when I started researching into IBM episode, I realized the story actually begins when early computing machines came to India in the pre-independence days. That’s how the plot got extended. Much of research and writing for this book took place between 2005 and 2007. I made multiple trips to Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad, besides work done in my place of residence – New Delhi. This is the journey of this book, in brief."
-From author's preface to "The Long Revolution: The Birth and Growth of India's IT Industry"
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