Poor telecommunications and an unreliable power supply may yet hamper India's efforts to move into the fast lane of the information highway. Still, in Bangalore they are trying. In many ways, companies like Tejas belong to a different world than the exporters of software services for which Bangalore is best known. The move into products is a further sign of an industry attempting to create intellectual property rather than merely executing contracts. TriVium India Software, another firm with one leg in America and the other in India, has created a software package that helps small businesses handle customer requests received by fax, phone and the Internet.
Products spell potentially higher profits from a single investment.
A software-service firm, by contrast, has to commit fresh people to every new project. The greatest value is in something scalable, and that means product. A number of changes are powering the charge into products. A tidal wave of foreign and domestic venture capital has followed. A small portion is channelled into funding products.