IT Roadmap for India

1
IT Roadmap for India

• Dr Deepak B Phatak
• Subrao Nilekani Chair Professor
• Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology
• IIT Bombay
• Department of Information Technology
• New Delhi, 17 July 2003

2
Overview

• The Pervasive nature of IT
• Indian Expectations
• A Teachers Dream
• Some Thoughts on Open Source
• Key Drivers for IT Penetration
• Efforts at KReSIT, IIT Bombay
• A Roadmap for Government
• Concluding Remarks

3
Information Technology

• Technology that helps one or more of the
  information handling activities to be carried out
  conveniently and efficiently
• Data capture, validation, storage, retrieval,
  computations, analysis, consolidation, reporting,
  dissemination, and archival

4
Criticality

• Information management is critical
• Not technology!
• Efficient information systems are important
• Effectiveness and competitiveness depends upon
  these
• Modern ICT (Information and communication
  technologies) must be exploited to the hilt

5
Components of IT Deployment

• Hardware
• Servers, PCs, Printers, PDA,
• System Software
• OS, RDBMS, Utilities, RAD Tools,
• Application Software
• Packaged, Turnkey Development
• The only component that actually implements
  desired functionality

6
Components

• Network
• Switches, Routers, Modems,
• Bandwidth
• Availability, Reliability, Affordability
• Infrastructure
• Power, Furniture, DR Sites
• People and Processes

7
Indian Expectations

• Use ICT effectively to
• Provide comfortable life
• Increase competitiveness
• generate wealth and strength
• Ensure IT usage by every Indian (1000 Million
  People)

8
IT Penetration

• Common measures of usage
• Extent of deployment
• Number of activities for which IT is used and
  Level of IT usage
• Extent of deployment often measured by number of
  Access Points to useful applications

9
IT Penetration

• Number of (connected) PCs
• First 500 M users from West
• Numbers are saturating
• Next 500 M users will be from Asia, Africa, South
  America
• Rajesh Jain (emergic.org)

10
IT Penetration

• Indian usage levels
• 5.8 PCs per 1000
• 7 Million Internet users
• Chinese usage levels
• 19 PCs per 1000
• 37 Million Internet users

11
A Teachers Dream

• Next 100 Million IT Users Should be from India in
  five years
• In 2001, 1.6 M Desktops (only) sold at Average
  (H/W) Price of Rs. 30000
• In 2002, 2.2 M (only)
• We need to deploy 20 M per year
• Quadruple the Investment
• Reduce TCO to One Fourth
• From Rs 40000 to Rs 10000

12
Server Centric Computing

• Deployment of applications happens around
  database servers connected to clients
• Client-server paradigm evolved originally to uses
  power of PC
• Server Rs2000000, PC Rs 65000
• (Now server 200000, PC 40000)
• Thin Clients must be deployed

13
Use Open Source Software (OSS)

• Operating System (Linux)
• Databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL)
• J2EE (JBOSS)
• Middleware (Open source MQ)
• Established products and Apps. available on Open
  Source

14
Some Thoughts on OSS

• The IPR Spectrum
• Software will always exist across this entire
  spectrum

Free Open Semi-Open
Protected Software Source APIs
Products
Commercial Companies
Richard Stallman
15
Some More Thoughts

• Developers Do Not Generally Develop Applications
  on OSS
• Fear of Unacceptability
• Lack of Trained Staff
• Users Not Enthusiastic
• Fear of Non-Support
• Scalability and Performance Issues

16
Key Drivers for IT Penetration

• (Think Tank Meeting in Delhi - Skoch)
• Affordable Solutions
• Thin Client Model, Special Devices
• Increased use of Open Source
• Strengthening Indian Players
• Indian Hardware Story
• (Rational Expectations in BS by Sunil Jain)

17
Key Drivers

• Educating the Users
• For affordable and greater usage
• IT in academics
• IT education
• IT in education
• F C Kohlis initiative
• School usage Dileep Lanjekar
• Local Support, Entrepreneurship

18
Key Drivers

• Government Initiatives
• Policies
• Duty / Tax structures
• Internal usage
• Replicable e-governance projects
• Anti Piracy Drive
• Lax Indian standards on IPR theft

19
ABOUT KReSIT

• Established In October 1998
• Funding Support From Kanwal Rekhi And Nandan
  Nilekani
• New Building, State-of-art Labs
• Programs From July 1999
• M Tech And Ph D Programs, PGDIIT
• Committed to Applied Research

20
NEW INITIATIVES

• IT Business Incubator
• To Promote Indian Start-Ups
• New Technologies And Products
• Distance Education
• High Quality IT Education To Large Number Of
  Working Professionals, Teachers and Students

21
The Affordable Solutions Lab

• Build Solution Prototypes with Minimum TCO
• Focus on Server Centric Solutions
• Browser Based Front-End
• Heavy Usage of OSS
• Hopes to Set up All India Forum
• Cathedral for the Bazzar!

22
Affordable Lab

• Supported by TCS
• Number of Partners
• Rajesh Jains Emergic Solutions
• Started Using Old PCs
• Via Technologies for Clients
• Intel For Servers
• More in offingHCL, IBM, Oracle,

23
Some Experiments

• Proof of Concept for
• Maharashtra Police
• LIC, SBI
• Cooperative bank software
• Affordable Web
• for Schools and Colleges
• Cache the Free Knowledge on Web and Distribute
  Through CDs
• (Gutenberg Project)

24
Emerging Price Points

• 160 GB IDE Disk Rs 6000
• Mother board 4500
• Flash chip Rs 75 fro 32MB
• Person-month varies from Rs 35000 to Rs 150000
• Software Licenses costlier

25
IT Projects in Government

• Greater Movement to Adopt Modern IT
• Several Successful Projects
• Major Stumbling Blocks
• Limited Funds for IT
• Slow Project Implementation

26
Roadmap for Government

• Reduce duties to bring the price point below
  Psychic-threshold
• Excise, CVD,
• Promote Indian Brands
• Indian MNC
• Open up Specifications
• Specify product features, not brand names (Intel
  Pentium, Microsoft Windows, )

27
Roadmap for Government

• Avoid confusion
• The CAS imbroglio
• Use PKI/Smart cards for security
• Release IPR on base technology
• Indian Language Fonts (CDAC)
• E-learning platforms and tools

28
AN UNSOLICITED ADVICE

• Get Out of Colonial Mindset,
• The World is ours to make a Mark on.
• In our move towards a developed nation, to
  provide an honorable and comfortable life to
  Indian citizens, and to live in the world as
  equals,
• Help IT Penetration