A fair bit of software development has been moving over to India over
the last 4 years. I know that computer hardware design is starting,
although not in a big way yet. I can't comment on other industries,
mostly because I don't know them like the computer business, as well as
they didn't have the pressure that the computer business in general went
through with the .Com bust and the post-Y2K spending bust.
As to the infrastructure, I think if you compare it to China, you'll
find that India is doing distinctly better. Both have their challenges,
and the situation really does resemble what it was like over here
between 1900 and 1930 (When North America saw much of it's change from a
rural agrarian society to an industrial one).
-Adam
Gaurav Aggarwal wrote:
Adam,
I just moved from India to the US (an intra-company transfer for 2 years).
I beg to differ here. I don't think that India is doing a reasonable job with
infrastructure. Infact, it is falling apart. Electricity is still not
available to
manufacturing industry, most software companies (where outsourcing
and design happens) deploy their own diesel generator sets. The public
transport system in most cities is crumbling given high growth of
migration of people from rural/semi-urban areas to cities looking for
jobs.
The farmers are getting poorer. The government is hardly improving the
infrastructure in any ways -- airports are one of the worst, come winter and
50% of all flights from/to Delhi will get delayed by 10-16 hours. High-speed
internet at home is still a dream, try getting >256kbps. There is no
cable-internet really. DSL is mostly regulated.
More importantly, I haven't seen any serious design work happening there.
Do you have specific examples? Most of it is outsourcing and few, if any,
companies are moving up the value chain. Call-center is hardly a white-collar
job. I do not know of a single company doing design for export. Except for
pharma companies which are innovating (and sometimes just replicating)
and exporting medicines for 1/10th the cost.
There is one thing though -- Indian economy is mostly domestic which isolates
it well from boom/busts in other economies, like south-east asian crisis etc.
Gaurav
On 11/6/05, Adam Maas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[..]
India on the other hand has steadily been building the necessary
infrastructure, and while they haven't seen the growth China has
(Because they've been building infrastructure instead of just
production), they are in a far better position to take advantage of
things in the future.
[..]
still production stuff, not design. India on the other hand is getting
White Collar jobs and building the necessary experience in Engineering
and Design to actually take over the portion of the work that stays
onshore when outsourcing to China happens. India in other words is doing
what Japan did in the 1950's and 1960's. With likely the same results in
the future as Indian companies start to design and produce their own
