Come out with 'Nano' of IT, Modi tells software industry

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today exhorted the Indian IT industry to emerge from the "comfort zone" of providing low-end services and challeged it to come out with a 'Nano' of IT for the masses.      

Majority of the revenue for the Indian IT industry continues to come from low value addition jobs like manpower provisioning and low-end support services, Modi said here at the ICT event Bangalore IT.Biz.       

"The industry should come out of this comfort zone and engage itself in creating value for the company and also adding value to the manpower which is working for it", he said,  inaugurating the exhibition of the three-day event, in which Gujarat is the partner State.       

Modi, stressed that the IT industry has to reinvent itself, must focus on innovations, and on systems rather than being comfortable with services.        

"It must invest in R & D. It must develop sustainable products.

While services may offer marginal advantage over costs, the payoffs against the product development are huge", he said, adding, "it was understandable till the industry was trying to stand on its feet, but now having grown healthy, it must show foresight."        

"Why cannot we develop MS Windows in India, or a Google or a Yahoo ? If an Indian can develop Hotmail and given that 30% of Windows developers may well be Indians in any case, the task does not look all that difficult. What is required is a leap of faith, a paradigm shift", he said.