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Hyderabad Turns Infotech Hub
After Bangalore became India’s "Silicon
Valley", it is now Hyderabad’s turn to lure international infotech
giants. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu’s bid to turn
Hyderabad
into "Cyberabad" has paid off. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
signed between the state Government and Microsoft in October 1997 was the
turning point and now a host infotech companies are making a beeline for setting
up centers in Hyderabad.
IBM set up its School for Enterprise Wide
Computing, the only one in the country, followed by Metamor Global Solutions Ltd
of the US which signed the agreement for a school of excellence in software
development methodologies. Satyam Computers Ltd, a domestic software exporter,
joined the list a little later and the latest entrant is the software database
giant, Oracle Corporation.
Louis Selincourt, vice-president of Industry and
Front Office Applications Divisions of Oracle Corporation, who was in Hyderabad, said that Oracle’s move to decentralize is part of the company’s
strategy to take advantage of the "exceptional technical resources
available in Andhra Pradesh." According to Randeep Sudan, joint secretary
to the Chief Minister, who is the link between Naidu and the information
technology (IT) industry, it was the political will of Naidu that turned Andhra
into a knowledge hub. "We have cut down red-tapism and are instead offering
a red-carpet welcome to the companies," says Sudan.
The
Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy (Hi-Tec) city was
completed well ahead of schedule by Larsen & Toubro.
Developed on 158 acres on the outskirts of the city, Hi-Tec city will
provide 550,000 sq ft of floor area with un-interrupted power supply, high
band-width communication facilities and other basic needs for software industry.
Manpower, that is the single most important factor for
development of this sector, is ample in Andhra Pradesh. Almost 23 per cent of
the software professionals in India are from this state.
Growth of the software industry
The rapidly growing IT industry in Hyderabad has it's roots
in the boost that came from small companies involved in data processing systems in early 80s. The
post-liberalization period in the early 90s witnessed a surge which led to
setting up a Software Technology Park (STP) in Hyderabad.
The resulting IT wave was extended by the efforts of the first generation
entrepreneurs like Info-Tech and Sriven, Frontier, SQL Star etc. This drew the
interest of NRIs, who began to consider Hyderabad as a
potential area for the software industry. With multi-nationals joining
the fray in 96-97, Hyderabad really hit big time.
The IT industry in the state has grown at a
staggering pace in just the past twelve months.
The Software Technology Park at
Hyderabad continues to maintain the highest growth rate in the country, with the cumulative annual growth rate of
139 per cent for the last five years. In addition, the various IT companies
here are also witnessing a spurt in business. The hottest areas today are in offshore
development, e-commerce, GIS, Euro money conversion, and ERP
solutions. The rise in IT training has also been phenomenal.
A direct indicator of the growth that is happening today is the fact that while 29 new IT companies were registered with the STPH during 1997-98, that
same number was
achieved within the first six months of 1998-99. Today the city presents an assorted picture -
global players like Microsoft and Intergraph and local blue chip companies like Satyam, InfoTech,
Visual Soft etc.
Hyderabad has several benefits on it's side
that makes it the
nerve centre for IT. The city puts at the entrepreneurs' disposal readily
available space combined with the advantage of good communication networks.
Floating a high band
width of 2 mega bytes per second, Hyderabad is future-ready when it comes to
built-in infrastructure. Top that with excellent human resources and you have the
perfect combination for success in IT.
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