"As Bangalore moves further up the technology ladder, this four centuries-old city of nearly 6 million citizens has ambitions to challenge places like Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle at Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, as a world center for innovation."
I am Indian, live and work in Bangalore and have lived a few years in the United States. This is just a rhetorical flourish on the part of the writer. There are no such "ambitions" visible on the ground.
Of course the writer has conveniently made the subject of statement "the city", and has given no supporting evidence.
There are many MNC research labs, but nothing like what the article implies. And very often these Indian research labs don't produce high quality research. Just ask someone in Microsoft or Yahoo Research how good the Indian "labs" are.
Intel seems to have a more succesful offshore lab, but it is the exception, not the rule.
It looks like the journalist took a couple of weeks tour of the city, swallowed whatever Nandan Nilekani and other corporate CEO types told him (Infosys Labs is a joke within Infosys. "Innovations" often have to do with "process improvement" and so on, hardly cutting edge CS research) and wrote a sloppy article, thin on logic and facts.
Being a native of Bengaluru and a current resident of US, I could not agree more with plinkplonk.
These are fluff pieces written by visiting western journalists after visiting the shiny campuses of SWITCH (satyam, wipro, infy, ..).
This piece is nothing different than the ones that gets printed often in local english media (esp. ToI). It is tiring to listen to the "phoren" returnees living in their gated communities, complaining daily about the traffic and power-outages. Bah!
After having studied in what is arguably the best undergraduate tech campus in Bangalore, I know what goes around for "research" and "high tech" in computer science departments.
All the undergraduate schools are solely focussed on getting you into one of the SWITCH companies. Woe be you if you had an independent mind and tried to join a more hacker friendly company like Google/Thoughtworks etc.. The immediate family will start distressing over you not making it to the holy shrines of Infy, Wipro etc.,
Of course all is not doom and gloom. The hacker scene is quite vibrant with Python/Ruby/FOSS communities being as active as anywhere in the world. Quite a few youngsters are getting into the startup mode. Even if a lot of them are testing the waters by attending startup events, reading and blogging about it, being on HN and boot strapping their ideas while living with their parents (not many basements in Bangalore, I'm afraid :).
Going forward, I strongly believe that these independent hackers will do more for the startup scene than the "bill-by-the-hour" Goliaths.
Thanks for the link. To me, this is a very interesting topic area. You, the linked post & the many follow up articles seem to rely on two quite different reasons for this issue.
The big outsource companies making up such a large section of the IT market have ugly business models. They get the kind of work where quality & innovation are not actually real competitive advantages & the bill by the hour on a cost+ basis. They're poisoning the industry everywhere from Universities to corporate culture.
Indian culture is creating problems. I've heard variations on this theme. Mostly they centre around family expectations & such pushing young individuals towards being risk averse.
The former, I think might not really be a 'problem' as it seems. The availability of secure jobs (especially places where parents have a memory of this not being the case) will bring in employees. They would have been Accountants or hairdressers if that is where good solid careers lay.
But, maybe they also make this career path accessible to those that otherwise would have been accountants or whatever.
Sure, these companies may not be the best possible for creating a thriving startup/innovation city. Maybe a Lenova or a Google would have been better. But that doesn't mean that these companies are a net loss.
I can relate to what you are saying but let's be a little more charitable to the author. He mentioned the city having "ambitions" to be a "world center for innovation", and not exactly that it already is a one.
The key message of the article though is correct. A lot of immigrants (working in the IT domain) are coming back, surely not because they see Bangalore as a hub for innovation, but rather it gives them a good opportunity to settle back in their motherland without compromising too much on the other things in life. Not every tech worker is doing high-end research in US, and those who aren't in to it, can very well get a similar job back here.
I am not exactly sure about quality of work done in 'labs' of the big software companies, but as you said things are coming up well in the hardware companies. (I worked in Intel Bangalore for a couple of years)
Overall. at least at this stage, if one is coming back in hope of finding the same entrepreneurial spirit as in the Silicon Valley or be a part of super skilled staff in a research lab trying to cut out a next generation chip-set, the person might be in for some disappointment. (But heck, if you can settle in for lesser financial incentives, there always is ISRO/DRDO for the cutting edge technical work.)
"... The key message of the article though is correct. A lot of immigrants (working in the IT domain) are coming back, surely not because they see Bangalore as a hub for innovation, but rather it gives them a good opportunity to settle back in their motherland without compromising too much on the other things in life ..."
Then again I bet the US Hardware industry didn't see Taiwan as a real threat as smart Taiwanese, graduates of US Universities who spent time working in the US Hardware industry came home and started companies?
This kind of article is often bought outright by one of the companies referred in the article. Let's try to spot who - in the very last line of the article (so after finishing the article you will go check out the company mentioned):
"There is raw talent in India," says Sridhar Ranganathan, a managing director of Blue Vector India in Bangalore. "But how to polish that talent is India's dilemma and my challenge."
Sure, its no silicon valley but to say that there is no startup/research happening in Banglore is plain wrong.
I dont care about research, but I do about startups, and just a few of the startup conferences happening within one month in Banglore
1. www.proto.in
2. http://www.tiesummit.org/
3. Watblog VC mixer. (Cant find the link offhand)
4. Almost every weekend there is either of OCC/Startup Sat/Barcamp etc.
Just because you dont know where to look does not meen there is no startup activity in Banglore.
"Sure, its no silicon valley but to say that there is no startup/research happening in Banglore is plain wrong"
I never said there aren't startups happening in Bangalore. Please feel free to point out any sentences in my post which imply as much. In other words you are reacting to something I (or anyone else as far as I can see) never said.
"As Bangalore moves further up the technology ladder, this four centuries-old city of nearly 6 million citizens has ambitions to challenge places like Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle at Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, as a world center for innovation."
I am Indian, live and work in Bangalore and have lived a few years in the United States. This is just a rhetorical flourish on the part of the writer. There are no such "ambitions" visible on the ground.
Of course the writer has conveniently made the subject of statement "the city", and has given no supporting evidence.
There are many MNC research labs, but nothing like what the article implies. And very often these Indian research labs don't produce high quality research. Just ask someone in Microsoft or Yahoo Research how good the Indian "labs" are.
Intel seems to have a more succesful offshore lab, but it is the exception, not the rule.
It looks like the journalist took a couple of weeks tour of the city, swallowed whatever Nandan Nilekani and other corporate CEO types told him (Infosys Labs is a joke within Infosys. "Innovations" often have to do with "process improvement" and so on, hardly cutting edge CS research) and wrote a sloppy article, thin on logic and facts.