Serious developer

ICE PEOPLE: Diwakar Nigam

Diwakar Nigam

He used to draw an 'enviable salary' while at HCL Technologies even in 1976. Yet Diwakar Nigam left the cushy job to pursue his one passion in life "� software product development."This is what I love doing the most in life," he says. He was one of the founder members of Nasscom and a part of Anti-Piracy Task Group of Nasscom.

In I978, Nigam "� along with five other partners "� laid the foundation of a product development company Softeck Limited. "We did very well in the beginning. HCL, TCL, Wipro, Zenith all used to sell our compilers, operating systems, office productivity tools," he recalls, "but in 80s when PCs came to India, the system shifted towards standardised products." But pursuing his dream to "sell products that could not be copied" got tougher. By 1992, Nigam had to sell off his stake in Softek.

The entreprenuer in him urged him to pursue on his own and led to the launch of Newgen Software Technologies in 1992. "I had taken a conscious decision not to step into software services area, which is a better growth market to be in, and thus I had a very focussed market to look at," says Nigam. The MD of Newgen claims to have built the first Hindi word processor, which was later "copied by every magazine publication".

Newgen decided to build infrastructure software that will be mission critical to organisations using them. "The idea was to make them realise that pirated stuff could damage their infrastructure and that they would need our help to do better," he says.

Nigam, an M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT, Madras, knows what he is talking about. He should, since he has dabbled with document management and business process management tools all his life. Result "� Newgen has maintained a growth rate of 40 per cent and bagged clients like Deutshe Bank, Max New York Life and Citibank.

The company intends to tap markets like the Middle East, South Africa, Tanzania, Lutavia before entering European shores and US. "It was and still is an uphill task to sell a product that's made in India," concludes Nigam.