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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology is defined as the "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware."

I.T deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve information, securely.

A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include:

• Data management
• Computer networking
• Database systems design
• Software design
• Management information systems
• Systems management

In India, NASSCOM is an association of Indian IT companies.India has built up valuable brand equity in the global markets. In IT-enabled services (ITES), India has emerged as the most preferred destination for business process outsourcing (BPO), a key driver of growth for the software industry and the services sector.

India's most prized resource in today's knowledge economy is its readily available technical work force. India has the second largest English-speaking scientific professionals in the world, second only to the U.S.

The software industry in India gained recognition in the early eighties, as companies took up export of trained software manpower, especially to USA. Very soon, instead of just exporting persons, several companies started taking up software projects at customer sites, and sent their professionals to carry out this task. Starting with routine jobs, most companies graduated to more and more sophisticated tasks and India started getting recognised as having special talent for software development and management of software projects.

It was only in the early nineties, after the Indian software industry got sufficient recognition, that Indian companies were able to win contracts in a large way to carry out software projects off-shore (in India). From then on, projects have gotten more sophisticated and bigger. Today, even though the software tasks carried out by India for the West may amount to a small portion of the worldwide IT industry, Indian companies and professionals are regarded as amongst the best in the world.

However, having achieved considerable success, most front-running software companies are dissatisfied with their performance. They recognise that they have come up with very few products that they own. Although they may have made significant contributions to many products on the shelves, hardly any carry their brand names. They are eager to make and own products, but they have little experience in marketing products worldwide. The home market is still too small to allow these products a trial site as well as a little protection, before they could handle fierce competition.

Product ownership is imperative if the Indian software industry is to take a major leap forward. Certain parts of the IT task force report aim to address this need by proposing liberalisation. However, the task force report does not address how to enable Indian companies to handle market their products worldwide. Maybe this is best left to the innovativeness of the industry itself.

Another problem that Indian software houses face is the large-scale migration of software manpower. With the dollar continually appreciating vis-a-vis rupee, the continued large-scale shortage of software professionals in the West, and the large income difference for these professionals in India and the West, a large section of Indian software personnel stay in India only until they get trained and an opportunity to move abroad. Most software companies have unsuccessfully tried restrictions such as bonds to stem this outflow, but have slowly come to live with this phenomenon. Making the work here more challenging, providing better remuneration, and more recently awarding them a part of the company's stock, to give a sense of ownership, are what the companies are offering. The IT task force moves in the right direction by calling for liberalising of the stock ownership rules for employees. The task force is however silent on the larger issues such as the impact that the increasing earnings for professionals in the software sector, and the growing difference between incomes in this sector and other sectors of the Indian economy, will have on Indian polity and society.