Sujai Karampuri analyses why there are no product companies in India. He also has an interesting thought on how product companies can help India grow. It is quite true that India is heading towards a more service-oriented industry. And admittedly some of the blame can go to the service-orientation because of the software industry.
I in fact feel that we need more product companies even within the software industry. Why? A product is where we actually interact with the end user, where we can realize the ROI. Most of the Indian software companies today are busy in serving to other product companies. I believe that the knowledge of the end user behavior and thinking about his/her benefit is something that powers creativity and engineering in the design. And this thinking does not come easy when you work on someone else’s products. It comes natural when you come up with a product to solve the user’s problems. The difference is that coming up with a product is not only about developing the software, it is working out the economics, the dynamics and the deadlines. And each of these can affect software development, which gets hidden when you do just software for some other product company.
Secondly, India, as a market, is booming, its online population growth has exploded. This can be used efficiently to solve local problems, by developing indigenous products for the Indian market. We are seeing slow developments here, but the money, and hence a lot of effort is still in the direction of serving other product companies. A very good example is the way mobiles have been adopted in India indicates towards using mobile as the next PC. Neither desktops nor laptops can match the ease, portability and economics that mobiles offer to Indian customers today. There is a need to look within India for markets and create products specifically for that.
I am not an expert on this topic, and I have had experience only in the software industry. However, a part of this opinion is also as an Indian user who feels that not enough attention is being given to solve local problems.
