Cloud computing, mobility, big data and analytics are new entrepreneurship models for India to pursue, says Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Co-Chairman, Infosys.
(‘Big data' refers to datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools.)
INDIA IT SUMMIT
He said this while delivering a special address on the first day of the India IT Summit being organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Kerala Region.
Indian IT is now at the cross-roads after blazing a trail in the Global Delivery Model-led business that it had pioneered over the past decade or two.
But ‘disruptive technologies' led by the mobile phone, cloud computing and the social media have scorched the IT landscape since then, pushing the personal computer of 1981 vintage out of the reckoning. Dramatic changes in technological evolution since then have culminated in the explosion in mobile phone connections to 700 million and counting.
Next phase
PCs have numbered to no more than 20 million till now, despite enjoying an early-bird advantage of 12 years. In between, the industry saw introduction of Internet in 1993 and the browser in1994.
In the virtual world, social media and cloud computing have entrenched their presence to spearhead the next phase of IT revolution.
Big data and analytics are natural corollaries getting thrown up, and with huge business opportunities.
From being a viable model for providing IT services, the Global Delivery Model had evolved as the only standardised mainstream model of such engagement.
SINGULAR SUCCESS
Mr Gopalakrishnan said the industry's singular success lay in having devised a framework for ‘generating workforce needed for growing the industry from within the industry.'
The exponential growth in employment from 1 lakh in the 1990s to 25 lakh now has been matched only by the sweep of the beneficial impact on the society, especially on the lower and middle classes.
The ripple effects of a ‘silent revolution' have also worked to the advantage of a range of allied services including logistics, transport, construction and real estate.