Software companies join hands to form new 'think tank'

In what could give a boost to the fledging software industry in India, a few veterans, investors and software product companies have joined hands to form a think tank.

The group, to be known as Indian Software Product Industry Round Table, or iSpirt, will take steps to expand the software product development ecosystem in India and work closely with trade bodies, including Nasscom, in providing policy prescriptions.

iSpirt has around 30 product start-up companies and individuals, including Nasscom product forum chair and former Yahoo! India research and development head Sharad Sharma, Tally Solutions' co-founder and managing director Bharat Goenka and InMobi's co-founder and chief executive Naveen Tewari, as its members.

“In India, there are not many think tanks. Through this initiative, we are trying to help and create an ecosystem working with product companies," said Sharad Sharma, one of the founding members of iSpirt.

He said around a dozen of the founding members of iSpirt were members of Nasscom and they would continue to be associated with the industry body. “The new initiative is not for competing with Nasscom; this will be complimentary to what Nasscom is doing,” Sharma added.

iSpirit will be supported primarily by grants and contributions from its member companies. Earlier, there were media reports that the group had split from Nasscom and was forming a separate association for the software product industry. In a statement issued on Monday, Nasscom said the reports were factually incorrect.

"Nasscom is a member-led association and has over 1,400 members, including over 300 software product companies. Nasscom has a defined focus and initiative for the software product sector, and will continue to grow and contribute to build this sector," the statement said.