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Computer Associates to invest $100 million in India

Vijay Shankar at Pragati Maidan

The theme for the IT India '97/Comdex is 'Towards India In the Intelligent Network'. And delivering the keynote address was Sanjay Kumar, president and chief operating officer of Computer Associates, USA, a Fortune 500 company.

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Speaking on 'IT in the new millennium', he struck an optimistic note about the future of the IT industry in India and its growing role in global markets. Calling for a thrust towards a digitised economy in India, he felt the greatest impact of IT in the world would be in India. The US and Europe have already experienced the impact, he said.

According to Kumar, India has a major advantage in its brain power, represented by qualified and innovative software personnel in the country. Indians are known for their business sense, he said, adding that he would like to see the Indian entrepreneurial spirit to grow manifold.

Such an attitude was important, he felt, since finance would be a key determiner for the growth of the IT industry in India.

Propagating the idea of the 'software incubator', he suggested that a consortium of powerful organisations in the IT industry and some financial institutions get together to assist bright and young IT companies that come up with new products/technologies to commercialise their operations.

Kumar felt the government needed to step up its IT involvement through higher budgetary outlays. Citing the high turnover of the IT industry as a percentage of GDP (2% in Singapore 1.5 to 2% in South East Asian countries, 1.6% in China), he pointed out that India, at a modest 0.6%, still had a long way to go.

He dwelt on the immense possibilities of the Internet for India, and expressed confidence that increased penetration of the Internet and networking of institutions would have a tremendous positive impact on the economy. He even hazarded a prediction that IT would be a major factor for change in the Indian economy, citing the example of the US, where the top five or six companies are in the IT business and that the industry is the single largest contributor to US economic growth.

Kumar said he was putting his money where his mouth was, with his company investing about $ 100 million in India over the next few years. He also envisaged a venture capital fund to identify and support innovative young IT companies in India.

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