Somebody in India thinks they'll "Wrest Leadership in Open-Source Computing"

From the "in your dreams" department: This newswire item relates to India becoming the leader in Open Source. Frankly, I'm laughing at them. That's correct, rolling on the floor laughing. As a society, you have to get a huge chuckle out of people who have over-estimated their ability. They don't even realize that their success relates totally to cheap labor. India has the second largest population in the world. The vast majority of peolpe in India live in the depths of poverty while a small, elite class flourishes on $8 an hour wages. Those that come here like to send their money home. The successful make sure they get paid in India to avoid US taxes. I had a major fight with an outsourcer in Banglore in 1999, when I pushed to get a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project established. This was India's introduction to open source.The elite didn't want anything to do with free software. I remember six years ago sending boxes of CD's to India so that the poor could have software. I can also attest to the fact that if you want to do business in India, then get ready to make payoffs. Mid-level officials want you to take them to a resort and pay them a large sum of money, in cash, to allow you to do business there. I also recall the first recruiting trip Oracle made to India. They interviewed a few thousand people with years of experience in Oracle. When the team came back to the US, they looked and discovered that they had sold two licenses in India. That's right: two. I recently read that India has 14 million PCs in use, the vast majority of programmers, outsourcers and call centers specialize in Microsoft Windows. Their big event, LinuxAsia, drew 2500 people. Like I said: in your dreams. If you wonder why many Indians have become executives in firms around the country, the explanation should be simple. I'll put it the way a Palestian in Jordan put it to me: cheap hands. Link to the press release.

India Set to Wrest Leadership in Open-Source Computing

Sharp rise in affordable desktops and widespread availability of regional language applications will drive market

New Delhi, February 7: India is emerging as the hottest Asian market for Open Source (OS) with rapid strides being made in OS adoption in many sectors of industry, education, enterprise and government, as well as in the development of Open Source applications.

The Rs 600 crore market of open source software is now growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 35-40 percent and presents an exciting scenario for all important stakeholders. According to Robert Adkins, co-founder of Technetra, the Silicon Valley based technology consulting company that develops and promotes open source software and solutions for government, education, IT, telecom, banking and finance, and the organising force behing LinuxAsia 2006 that opens in New Delhi on February 8 says, “Indian business enterprises are expected to spend $25.12 billion on information technology in 2006, that is more than 23.7 percent over the past year. And of this, the Open Source market can look for at least a 40-50 per cent share as the opportunity.”

The three major paradigms of future growth of Open Source in India are expected to be -
1. A sharp rise in enter-prise wide adoption of Linux or Open Source
2. Widespread availability and adoption of regional language computing


3. A sharp rise in deployment of Open Source based platforms and applications on desktops as the movement for “Affordable Computing” gathers force

The Open Source movement made its breakthrough felt by demonstrating the scope and power of local language computing in India, taking away the elitist sheen associated with computing through English, used by just 5 percent of the population.

The main drivers spearheading adoption of OS are industry, enterprises and large verticals and educational institutes who are enamoured by the tremendous cost savings and hassle free environment in the Open Source platforms. The benefits flowing to the OS customers are lower costs, stability and user comfort vis-à-vis proprietary software. For a country like India, where less than 5% population are comfortable with English, open source has made a breakthrough by demonstrating the scope and power of local language computing as enabler for percolation of benefits of IT to the grassroots

The growth in India is as much indicative of the global growth now recognized by the entry of once sceptical venture capitalists in Open Source space. In year 2005, there were $400 million worth of investments committed in open source startups- of which the majority was in application and service companies.

Technology research firm Gartner Inc. forecasts that OS computing holds great promise in India. Gartner notes that India’s technology adoption is gaining super momentum and expects a growth of 20.8 percent for the next four years in business spending on computer hardware, software and communication products. Trade associations including NASSCOM and MAIT believe that Linux and Open Source products can play an important role in spreading e-governance in India, with low-cost local-language applications. Deployment of OS is also considered critical in IT education at school level where low cost software is to be the real impetus.

According to Adkins of Technetra, “Among the more visible OS planks, desktops are emerging as a core area of adoption. Organisations are expected to make large scale switch over to adopt Linux on desktops to drastically reduce their costs with out compromising on user productivity. For verticals, OS or Linux provides strategic advantages for adoption across the segment. Government, IT & ITeS, Education, Banking & Finance are appear to be more active in Linux adoption in the coming years.”

According to Gartner, by 2008, 95 percent of Global 2000 organizations will have formal open-source acquisition and management strategies. By then, Open Source applications will directly compete with closed-source products in every software infrastructure market, and by 2010, Global 2000 IT organizations will have to consider open-source products in 80 percent of their infrastructure-focused software investments and 25 percent of business software investments.

The LinuxAsia 2006 convention beginning in Delhi aims to bring the issues, opportunities and areas of concern to the fore. Global luminaries and leading lights from government and academic institutions are expected at the conference. They will meet to deliberate on the imperatives for India in adoption of Open Source computing in an “IT for all” scenario. Speakers from Telecom, Government, Education, Small and Medium Enterprise, Financial Services, IT & ITES, and media will form the various discussion panels at the different sessions. IT products and services majors like Oracle, Dell, Intel, HP, IBM, RedHat, CDAC and several others will be showing their Linux-based solutions and service platforms.

About LinuxAsia 2006

Being held for the third consecutive year, LinuxAsia is the premier open source conference and expo in the region. It attracts the Linux community, serious users, government policy makers and industry across the board. The last edition of the event attracted over 2500 visitors.