Bangalore the epicentre of Friedman's flat world

Bangalore the epicentre of Friedman's flat world

The Pioneer

Infrastructure in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, may be in a mess, but the hi-tech city is entering a mature new phase as a technology center by starting to produce its own hi-tech products, says Thomas L Friedman, influential columnist of The New York Times in his latest column.

Chief Minister N Dharam Singh was ticked off by Rahul Gandhi, the heir-apparent of the Congress first family, when the latter visited Bangalore a few months ago for not doing enough to tackle the deteriorating infrastructure.

But the harried Chief Minister, who has often faced pinpricks from the city's information technology czars for the chaotic infrastructure, can afford to breathe easy for a while, if he listens to what the renowned American columnist has got to say on Bangalore.

Mr Friedman writes: "At first blush, coming back to Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, that smoother road seems like a mirage.The infrastructure here is still a total mess. But looks can be quite deceiving. Beneath the mess, Bangalore is entering a mature new phase as a technology center by starting to produce its own hi-tech products, venture capital firms and start-ups, and carrying out its own research."

Bangalore has come a long way from being a centre generating "techno coolies" for overcoming the Y2K problems of the West. From taking up low-end jobs, Bangalore software companies have graduated to being a center of high-end research and development.

Ever since Texas Instrument set up shop in Bangalore two decades ago, the city has been making steady progress as one of the international technology hot spots.

Bangalore even figured in the American Presidential debate with the Democratic Presidential nominee accusing the incumbent Bush administration of permitting "outsourcing" of jobs to Bangalore at the expense of its own citizens.

Bangalore's research and development centres are engaged in evolving cutting-edge technologies. The geeks at the Texas Instruments put together the world's first 'modem-on-a-chip'. Mistral Software, an Indian embedded systems company, produced a 'smart' hand-held reference design with multiple applications.

Commenting on Bangalore's entry into a new phase as a technology center, Mr Friedman notes: "Even more interesting is how Indian firms are taking the skills they learned from outsourcing and using them to develop low-cost products for the low-wage Indian market."

According to the columnist, the best indication that Bangalore is becoming hot is how many foreign techies - non-Indians are now coming to work in the southern Indian city. "I asked one of these interns, Vicki Chen, a Chinese-American business student from the Claremont College (out of the 100 applicants selected by Infosys from 9,600 foreign applications received by the company last year) why she came here?"

"All the business is coming to India, and I don't see why I shouldn't follow the business," Chen was quoted as saying. Bangalore may be getting all the attention, but it is time the business spread to other Indian cities as Bangalore infrastructure cannot cope any more with the growing software boom.