Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site cwruecmp.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!cwruecmp!arun From: arun@cwruecmp.UUCP (Arun Lakhotia) Newsgroups: net.nlang.india Subject: Re: Marketing s/w on micro in India Message-ID: <1360@cwruecmp.UUCP> Date: Mon, 23-Dec-85 01:11:14 EST Article-I.D.: cwruecmp.1360 Posted: Mon Dec 23 01:11:14 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 01:00:29 EST References: <1357@cwruecmp.UUCP> <1601@Shasta.ARPA> Organization: CWRU Dept. Computer Eng., Cleveland, OH Lines: 108 Refer to 'Srirams' reply to "Marketing S/W on Micro" Unfortunately i did not make the context pretty clear. My article was in response to an email i received quering about this specific subject from one of the netters. PLEASE NOTE : I was NOT making a statement on "SOFTWARE PIRACY IN INDIA" but was giving my views on "MARKETING S/W ON MICROS IN INDIA". It so happens that whatever picture i projected also implied piracy. (I am sorry if it was harsh, it still remains true). ------ TALKING ABOUT EXAMPLES Pick up any machine (a micro) in the market. It would either be CP/M or MS-DOS based, with the whole range of software like the Word Star, Dbase II/III, SuperCalc, all compilers (and what have you) available on it. Whether any royalty (or whatever) is paid to anyone for the O/S, OR the s/w, OR the manuals is anybody's guess. In some cases you may find the indeginous (??sp) work of renaming PIP to COPY and removing the prompt. I am talking from my experience of working in an organization managing software in such ways and doing exactly such work. NOTE: I don't imply that ALL micro manufacturers are doing it. But it would be interesting to know that initially some companies did stick to starting their own s/w groups to produce stuff like spreadsheet, wordprocessors or database. They didn't do too well while facing competition with the pirated stuff, and winded up the moving the pirated s/w to their machines to meet the competition. (Sorry NO names here) If one does have a chance, i would suggest that one visits the Annual Convention of the Computer Society of India and see the exhibits to his/her own satisfaction. I think it would be held in Calcutta around March. I am not sure of the dates. (I have been thru the last three conventions) ------ TALKING ABOUT LEGALITIES As of last CSI convention held in Delhi (Mar 85) there were still talks about legislation regarding software, mind it there were none till then. And i didn't hear of one till 21 Aug. 85. BELEIVE IT OR NOT Software manufacture has been "recognized" as an industry only with the recent computer policy. (I have the text of the policy, If any one is interested). ------ SO MUCH FOR RESPECT TO SOFTWARE I have seen people selling DRI's (i think) F-80 (a Fortran IV Compiler) "as FORTRAN-80 an improvement over Fortran-77", and my impressions that s/w is not much respected has come from what i have seen. If at all people are making money in s/w in India it is mostly from dp-"related" work or teaching programming, or just fooling the computer-un-(or-little)-educated. (see my next article for some interesting stuff) --------- DISCLAIMER I am NOT INTERESTED IN PROVING MYSELF by engaging into discussions reeling out names, figures, elaborating instances explicitly or talking about ethical/legal/political issues in this matter. It is a sensitive issue in many ways. Further, That may just end up in a mess (as has happened with lot of net discussion in the past). -------- SOFTWARE ACTIVITY IN INDIA I would rather call upon people to talk about the actual "POSITIVE" S/W ACTIVITIES HAPPENING IN INDIA, that they may be aware of. NOTE again that i have been talking about "marketing" s/w in India and not "S/W ACTIVITY IN INDIA". There is a lot to talk about there too. Like the DOE has projected to boost s/w export returns to Rs. 200 (or is it 500) Crores by 1990 as against the last years (83-84) returns of Rs. 60 Crores (of which 60% share is of TCS/TBL), and (82-83) returns of Rs. 40 Crores. There are very very few organizations active in developing software for the indian market, (I am not talking about TBL, TCS kinds). The only "decent" products I have heard of are a "devanagari WP" of TCS (announced in CSI Meet Delhi), Indo-GKS of CMC, An integrated dp package of SOFTEK (Delhi), BOSS O/S of Atlaz(Bombay), COBOL/FORTRAN and PL/S compiler of SOFTEK, COBOGEN of Software Research Group (B'lore), a devanagari system by DCM. (a couple more, may be). There are a LOT of people active in the dp related area. Most of them do not sell s/w as a product BUT instead develop it on contract. This is where the difference comes in about price, and attitude. There are big teams in companies like Telco, Escorts, Lucas-TVS etc. But that does not interest the subject of "Marketing s/w for micros in India". ------ arun Disclaimer: The views presented above are my own.