Wonderful work by itihaasa.com to capture some aspects of Indian I.T. history from I.T. leaders' viewpoints; My views on some videos & articles

Draft version: 5th Jan. 2021

Minor update on 1st Sep. 2021

As a former Indian software industry guy (from 1984 to 2002), I was very happy to see https://itihaasa.com/listing/timeline having video interviews of top people of Information Technology / Computer Science field of India over the decades giving their views about history of Indian I.T. They have also shared some interesting articles and other artifacts (e.g. brochure).

Congratulations to itihaasa.com for this great work! They are doing a wonderful service to record some aspects of Indian I.T. history over the decades from the viewpoints of its leaders.

In this post I have shared some of the video and other artifact links from the above timeline webpage that I found to be of interest. Note that my interest is limited to mainly the exposure I had in Indian software industry, and some historical background to that.

I plan to update this page with more information about the links that I have given below. [10th March 2021 update: As I have some other activities placing demands on my time, I have decided to do further updates to this page only if there is some interest from readers, expressed through public comments on this post, for these further updates. Note that as this blog has moderated comments, comments made on this post will not be shown right away on the blog. I will be informed of such comments and after I choose that they should be accepted, these comments will get shown on the post.]

As a first step, I have just put down the various links that I found to be of interest with minimal information about some of them, with one exception. I have commented on one article in some depth - that is Dr. Mathai Joseph's 1970 article - Export of Software. Note that my perspective is that of a former software developer/project leader/project manager/software development manager and so different from most of the views in the above timeline webpage which largely capture views of top leaders of Indian I.T. from industry, academia, research institutions and Tech. media.

1963 - Computer Culture in MIT in the 1960s, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0978 , 4 min. 42 secs.

1965 - Internship with Tata Electric Company, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0979 , 6 min. 8 secs. Initially, if I recall correctly, it has some personal life info. about Dr. Kanodia -  he got married and how marriage needed him to stay back in India for 6 months or so. It has references to Mr. Agarwala Tata Electric head and also TIFR and Dr. Narasimhan as Dr. Kanodia used computer time there,

1968 - Tata Computer Centre in the Mid-1960s, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0980 , 3 min. 26 secs.

1968 - Dr. Lalit Kanodia - TCS Brochure: 1, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_1051

1968 - Dr. Lalit Kanodia - TCS Brochure: 2, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_1052

1968 - Dr. Lalit Kanodia - TCS Brochure: 3, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_1054 (this one has pics with names of staff of TCS then).

I think the above brochures are really a great set of artifacts about early TCS history. The 3rd brochure has mention of TCS staff including Dr. Kanodia. I spotted a pic of (young) Ms. Usha Rao. I believe she quit TCS and joined Dr. Kanodia later in Datamatics after he had founded it. Ms. Usha Rao was a senior person in Datamatics SEEPZ when I joined it in 1984. In late 1980s she became the Datamatics SEEPZ centre boss - I was reporting to her then.  

1970 - Becoming an Independent Consultant, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0981 , 3 min. 13 secs. This one is about Dr. Kanodia leaving Tatas.

1970 - Times of India- COBOL Ad, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0783

1970 - Times of India- Export of Software, article by Dr. Mathai Joseph, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0782 . The article is on top right hand side of the newspaper image, and so some scrolling may need to be done to bring it into view.

The article is about the policy then introduced by the Indian government to provide liberal foreign exchange for import of computers for purposes of export of software but with a requirement that software worth twice the cost of the computer must be exported within two years. Dr. Joseph critically examines the policy given the high cost of computers then (Rs. 25 Lakhs for IBM System 360 Model 44 as medium sized computer though smaller computer systems seem to have been in range of Rs.12 to Rs.13 Lakhs) and other factors. It was a very interesting read for me as it captures the issues of those times for software export. Some of the issues Dr. Joseph raised were still somewhat relevant when I started my software career in 1984 as computer time was precious then for us (on Wang minicomputers) and investment in software export required big bucks to import the computers, maintain it, and have the staff! But the big change in situation in 1984 was that SEEPZ duty free zone was well established in Bombay/Mumbai with many software export companies operating from it, as compared to 1970 when such duty free zone accessible to software companies seems to have not been there. Note that SEEPZ, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEEPZ, was created in 1973, and if I recall correctly, initially the focus was on electronics and computer hardware export. Software export seems to have become an important factor in SEEPZ in later years - surely in the mid-1980s as there were quite a few software export companies in SEEPZ then.

Dr. Joseph discusses the challenges involved in software development business giving the example of U.S. software houses. He then makes a very interesting statement, "If we are able to compete internationally, it will be because of the quality of our software and not because of lower salaries here." He argues that Indian software quality will be good only when we (Indian software industry) gets experience through developing software for local requirements.

Based on my experience in later decades, I think what happened was that some expertise in software development in Indian software industry came through developing software for local requirements. But tie-ups with foreign computer manufacturers (like Wang in Datamatics' case), may have brought in some level of initial training help from foreign (USA typically) computer companies in software development on their platforms, along with export orders for software development from customers of those computer companies (like Datamatics got Wang customers' orders). The low salaries of Indian programmers then made the price paid for such (custom-built) software export projects a competitive one, attracting these foreign customers. While I am not sure about it, I think there would have been some initial training help from these foreign computer companies which seems to have been enough to have a set of trained persons in the Indian partner companies who in turn trained other Indian programmers thereby becoming independent of the foreign computer company experts in that particular technology area (e.g. COBOL programming on Wang VS platform which was a key software development platform for Datamatics in 1980s). Note that COBOL would have been known to Datamatics programmers but Wang VS platform and COBOL on Wang VS specifics including file system (e.g. ISAM files) would have had to be learned by the first set of Datamatics programmers who did such work. By the time I joined Datamatics in March 1984 as a trainee programmer, Datamatics had lot of COBOL on Wang VS experts, with some of them teaching us trainee programmers that technology.

Another angle was that the foreign computer companies were willing to explore using Indian programmers from their Indian partner company as contractors on foreign computer company sites, in projects in technology areas which were rather new to the Indian partner company. This was due to a combination of low costs of Indian programmers and quick learning ability demonstrated by Indian programmers. After the first of such projects in a new technology area (new for the Indian partner company) was done by Indian programmers on foreign sites, these Indian programmers on coming back to the Indian company office, would train other Indian programmers in those areas, if there was such a need. I personally have been one of such Indian programmers learning a variety of technologies (e.g. 'C'  programming, Videotex, Banyan VINES network in 1980s) which were new to me, mainly by going to Wang Laboratories development centres in USA and Europe. Yes, in some cases, I did do some self-learning for a few weeks in India prior to going onsite (like 2 colleagues and me, self-learned basic aspects of 'C' programming using Kernighan & Ritchie book and a Wang PC with a 'C' compiler, for a few weeks before flying out to a Wang software development centre in Brussels, Belgium in 1985). But that was only the initial learning. The main learning came from working on the on-site project.

So foreign computer company tie-ups where the foreign computer company was willing to take in hard working and low-cost Indian programmers on projects where they were not very knowledgeable about the related technology to start with, I think, has played a significant role in growth of Indian software industry expertise over the years. I should mention that eventually in late 1980s, I was able to successfully lead an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) email gateway project done for Wang Laboratories, USA in Datamatics SEEPZ, Mumbai, India involving technologies of Unix, X.400, X.500, Sendmail, TCP/IP, OPEN/OFFICE and C. It was prior contracting work onsite at Wang Labs. development centres in USA & Europe that equipped me with the skills and the confidence to successfully lead that project work in India. 

[My industry work experience info.: https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/raviiyerindustryworkexperience.pdf .]

1970 - Times of India- Computer Courses, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0784

1975 - Genesis of Datamatics, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0982, 1 min. 46 secs.

1978 - IBM leaving India and its Impact, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia,  https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0983, 2 min. 5 secs

1980 - Challenges in running an IT Export Business in the 1980s, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia,  https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0988, 2 mins.

1984 - Dataquest- A Look at SEEPZ Companies, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0540

1985 - Datamatics and Wang Laboratories, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia,  https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0985, 2 min. 51 secs.

1985 - PCs Launched in India, video clip of Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Dataquest,  https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0205, 1 min. 38 secs.

1987 - Role of SEEPZ, video clip of Mr. Ashank Desai, Mastek, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0006

1989 - Direct datalink between Datamatics, India and AT&T Bell Labs, USA, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0987, 2 min. 21 secs.

1989 - Dr. Lalit Kanodia - Inauguration of Datamatics Satellite Link, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_1055

1989 - Times of India - Software Unit Datamatics, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0847

1990 - Dataquest- Satellite use could boost Software Export, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0559

1991 - Times of India - Software Exports- Hurdles and Opportunities, article by Dr. Lalit Kanodia,  https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0851

1995 - Datamatics 1990s and 2000s, video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0984, 2 min. 24 secs.

2040 (projection) - Where do you see Indian IT Industry in 2040? , video clip of Dr. Lalit Kanodia, https://itihaasa.com/describe/dartefact/001_001_0986 , 2 min. 59 secs.

-----------------------------

Readers may want to see my posts about Wang Laboratories and its computers listed below:

*) Chinese-American computer pioneer An Wang (1920-1990) and Wang Laboratories founded by him: some aspects of their history of interest to me - Part 1,  https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/04/chinese-american-computer-pioneer-wang.html , 1st April 2021 (next part link is provided in the post).

*) Some general quotations of An Wang from his book: Lessons: An Autobiography,  https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/06/some-general-quotations-of-wang-from.html , 30th June 2021.

*) My Wang VS computers software development work including over 30 months of assignments at Wang US & Europe centres in 1980s, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/03/my-wang-vs-computers-software.html , 11th March 2021.

*) Some info. on John Chambers and his association with Wang Laboratories, based on Web articles, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2019/01/some-info-on-john-chambers-and-his.html , 30th Jan. 2019