I was in Bangalore earlier this week to attend the (I3) ‘India is Innovation’ summit organized by Microsoft India to galvanise the innovation movement in the Indian technology industry. This was an extremely high profile event and had a host of prominent industry speakers as well as participants from the different constituents of the Microsoft ecosystem. The event was held over two days; day one had a VC panel discussion, apart from a dedicated showcase that featured ten selected tech startups making pitches to the VCs. Day Two was what I attended, and it featured a series of talks, panel discussions and a live televised talk show hosted by CNBC (snaps below vis slideshare).
Something that struck me during the event was the role organisations like Microsoft can play in being a catalyst for innovation in this country. Its customer base is diverse- it includes end consumers, technology companies, govt departments, academic institutions, corporate organisations et al., and hence the company can prove to be a natural unifier of sorts.
The session that left the deepest impression on me was the talk by Rediff’s founder Ajit Balakrishnan, with his narrative of how some of pathbreaking innovations have been positioned as “little less of something popular that already exists” (think of a motor vehicle as a horseless carriage or a news blog as a editorless website). A similar perspective on this issue came from Microsoft’s Dan’l Lewin, who remarked that most of the killer applications on the web today are simply “new ways of doing old things“.
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This is great to hear Amit. It was really nice to have you there. To your question, I think companies like Microsoft must play this role.. it’s not enough for each big business to go off in silo to build out their own innovation agenda.
I’m looking forward to keeping the dialog open with you.
I think thats true…while google & yahoo probably have greater momentum right now that MS. in a country like India, MS has a much stronger role to play as an institutional player…their reach is unmatched…and their role of a big software bully is irrelevant to third world and developing countries…
although it remains to be seen whether the anti-trust lawsuits that have been filed against microsoft in Europe start happening in Asia as well…till that happens, MS has everything going for it
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That’s all well and good, but what do you think about this article detailing the loss of India’s face on the outsourcing globe? Please put some light on this as well.
Thanks.
Rinjhit
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