However, despite all these advantages and despite thousands of developers in India creating value for Western companies, where is India's killer app? Where is the Microsoft or Google from India? Or being slightly less ambitious where is the Salesforce.com or YouTube from India?
The fundamental issue in India is the risk/reward equation. It is simply too easy for a young developer in India to get paid a lot by an outsourcing firm; then enjoy being headhunted every year for more money. Those of us old enough to see a cycle or two, can see the parallels between Silicon Valley 1999 and Bangalore 2007, when just being able to spell the words of a popular programming language on a Resume meant fame and fortune.
This has been the story for some time but it is changing fast right now and we maybe reaching a tipping point related to innovation in India. Three factors are rapidly narrowing the labor cost arbitrage – weaker dollar, rampant salary inflation in India and new technology that significantly reduces the amount of code that needs to be written.
At the same time, VCs are looking entrepreneurs in the eye and telling them that capital is not a constraint but that you had better find a way to get sustainable advantage and scalability that is not tied to linear growth in headcount.
Innovation is happening today in India. You won't see a lot of it as yet as the interesting ventures are still fairly small and below the radar. But it is happening.
Amazing Write up !!! Very well analysed ... MUST READ ...
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