Software industry in India : product and intellectual property focus

Abstract

India has established itself well as a powerhouse of talent in Information Technology (IT)/Software services, indicated by its exports of USD 54.33 Billion in 2010. Established in 1980s by the late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India at that time, the focus on education and IT has paid rich dividends for the next generation. While a lot has been achieved by Indian entrepreneurs when it comes to software services, the same cannot be said about the Software Product segment which has remained out of focus so far. This is evident from the fact that Software Product based exports have remained less than 2% of the overall IT/Software industry exports so far. Many reasons are obvious and have been well studied in the past, while some are not very obvious and are less well explored. Using this thesis as an opportunity, an attempt has been made to explore these reasons, and some recommendations have been shared for architecting an ecosystem that can help foster Software Product and Intellectual Property (IP) focus.