"No," says Sudip Banerjee, president of Wipro Technologies. "It can never be India only". The Philippines, Vietnam and Russia are catching up, he said. "India needs to continue to keep the cost down. Quality is eventually going to be the differentiator. Indian IT services companies need to push the bar constantly and go in for all the quality certification to stay ahead of the race. That will go towards ensuring sustainable advantage for India in the sector," he added.
Subroto Bagchi, COO of Mindtree Consulting, said infrastructure, health, terrorism and politics are closely linked to the future of indian IT industry.
A health epidemic in Bangalore - similar to the kind witnessed in Surat many years ago - can easily destabilise the industry in the city, the hub of software activities, Bagchi said.
"A water epidemic is waiting to happen in Bangalore", he added. While industry will do its job, what the country's political leaders do relating to the sector would certainly have a bearing, he added.
Sridhar Mitta, MD and chief technology officer of E4E Labs, sought to underscore the advantage of replicating the Taiwanese model of manufacturing by IT companies.
Taiwan has adopted a cluster approach, which allows each player to concentrate on one area, avoid players doing a similar job and doing "volumes" for the globe.
"It makes sense for Indian IT vendors doing the same kind of development work to join hands, avoid doing the same thing and concentrate on different specialised areas. That will have a synergising cluster effect and also lower overhead costs," he said.