Techies, we have a problem

Lets analyse Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie's observations

'India produces a lot of engineers. But the production of computer science engineers is low, pro rata'
True, but thats legacy effect. Comp Science is a relatively new field. Instead of looking at the overall ratio, look at the trends. The new engineering colleges do not have disciplines like Civil or Mechanical. They primarily train Comp Science engineers. Also, in old established colleges Comp Science seats are going up. It will take time for the equation to change.

'India did not have enough software companies nor are enough companies developing India-specific applications.' The reason, Mundie argued, was the poor quality of the country's software engineers'
The observation is only partly right, and the reason is completely wrong. In the recent years, Indian cos have started investing in IT infrastructure. As expected their IT applications are built by Indian Vendors. Look at Banks and Insurance cos or new Airline cos. In terms of functionality they offer pretty much whatever best international names offer. There is a fair amount of application development. Lets acknowledge that.

If the allegation is that engineers' quality to quantity ratio is low I'd agree whole heartedly. But if the accusation is simply about quality at all levels I'd strongly disagree.

Lets understand the IT industry categorization
There are 2 kinds of IT companies in India
1. Services
2. Product

My take is that the ratio of work coming to India in these 2 areas is heavily in favor of Services. Products are decidedly more risky than services. More so in Indian mkt where IPRs are not well protected and the mkt is not as developed as US. Also, it requires huge upfront investment and then excellent marketing to sell it. Services is different. Its much lower in Risk.

Within services, the bulk of the work is production support and maintenence. Maintenance and Production Support projects are as good as Annuities. Just like insurance premium, safe and predictable. Even for fixed bid projects, client pays for the efforts and IPR. I don't think that a regualr IITan or REC Com Sci grad would be too happy working on maintenance projects. In other words there is a need for ppl who would take up these jobs and the same is reflected in the quality to quantity ratio of engineers being produced. Honestly, given that India produces 350,000 engineers a year compared to 100,000 for entire europe, I'm fine with the current Quality / Quantity ratio of engineers. Indian IT industry is driven by cost arbitrage and at present I dont see anything wrong with it.

'The problem with the engineers can be attributed to policy issues?Universities in India, did not get proper funding for research and were not directed towards software development.'

Lets not lament lack of Govt funds in higher education. Ppl have money to pay for their engineering education, or we would not have seen so many pvt engineering colleges nor would hundreds of tutors earn a fortune preparing students for engineering exams. In India engineering degree is not about touching lives or changing the world around us, its about changing our own world and improving our lives. To that end our educational institutes are going a darn good job. Ask the engineering passouts from Mangalore's pvt engineering colleges sitting in the US on production support assignments.

China is also driven by the same principle. They do not do original R&D. They are manufacturing hub of the world and quite happy to play their cost advantage. Why do we feel inferior living off similar advantage in IT. Yes, we are cyber coolies. Yes, we do tonnes of donkeywork and its far better than no work at all.