'Indian firm will overtake MS by 2020'

SOFTWARE

You need to be an audacious visionary like Hatim Tyabji with a sound grasp of technology to be able to make such a forecast.

"Just as Toyota is going to overtake General Motors, by 2020 an Indian company run by Indians and funded by Indians will overtake Microsoft. The next Windows, whatever it is called or the one after that, will come out of India. And it won't be out of a Microsoft's development centre either."

You need to be an audacious visionary with a complete grasp of the unfolding technology frontier plus an intimate knowledge of what is happening in Indian IT to be able to make such a forecast. Hatim Tyabji fits the bill. He built up VeriFone and sold it to HP in 1997 when VeriFone had a topline of $600 million in a one-to-one share deal. VeriFone was a global pioneer in automating transactions and enabling the use of plastic money anywhere anytime.

VeriFone became a virtual company long before the internet came and established operations in India way back in 1989 before such a practice became the trend. Tyabji is known for his visionary innovation and executive leadership qualities, and his organisational concepts have been the subject of two Harvard Business School case studies. He currently has a leadership role in two firms (executive chairman of Bytemobile and chairman of Datacard group) which are at the cutting edge of technology and have a strong market share in the fields of wireless data networks and smart cards. He also is a keen participant in the world of venture capital funds through Benchmark Capital.

This is how he sees the evolution of India. "It was in economic strangulation till the mid-nineties. Now the yoke in terms of the economic engine has been thrown off. We are at the absolutely embryonic stage of India's economic evolution. Today Indian IT is looked at as superb in back office work "� call centre or upto BPO. In India the largest focus in the development area is in customer applications. But by 2020 operating systems in utilisation worldwide will be coming out of India. And people will be saying, you know this is what happened to Japan in the sixties."

So who will create these operating systems? "Most of the major players 10 years from now will be people we don't even know today. The new companies will be run by young men and women with an aggressive mindset." He recalls that "earlier the mindset in India was subservient. You needed to have a collaboration with foreign companies in order to be able to grow," says Tyabi. What is needed is "to be strong enough and have that kind of an aggressive mindset that says, I'm not going to collaborate with anybody, a lot of people will want to collaborate with me."

He has no doubt that "if a young many today has a bright idea and knows how to execute it, I would tell him, don't worry, not having deep pockets will not be an issue. You will find the money. I have absolutely proven that. Capital for the right person who is able to present his or her idea, sell his idea in a compelling fashion, will simply not be an issue."

So where does the front end of the technology curve reside right now? "There is a very clear convergence between wireless telecom technology and the transfer of data. But this has been a long time coming. Three-four years backs, the heads of carriers like Vodafone and Sprint said in the next three-four years 20-25 per cent of revenues and 30 per cent of their profits would come from the transmission of data wirelessly as opposed to voice. I passionately believe this is going to occur. So several of my companies are involved in it but I am also extremely frustrated that it is taking a heck of a lot longer than anyone thought it would."