arun@cwruecmp.UUCP (Arun Lakhotia) (12/21/85)
I received a specific query on marketing s/w
for PC-compatibles India.
Unfortunately, i don't have anything encouraging to say
about it.
Software doesn't have a very good reputation in India, presently.
Reasons : Most of the high-priced (in US) s/w is available
for throw away prices or for free in India.
People involved in marketing PC-compatibles give off
the s/w free (to sell their hardware). They don't loose much
because they (of course) by only one copy (if at all) and
just copy it and so on.
There have been stories of competing companies
pooling in software bought from abroad.
Because most people get the s/w free there is a general
tendency in the market to expect s/w free. That goes
to the extent of indegeniously developed product.
People still can't appreciate why they should pay a phenomenol
amount for a 'floppy'. It doen't justify their reasoning.
(like the doctor's fee for just feeling the pulse).
Result:
There is a whole breed of young chaps who are
experts in installing any software (with or without) documentation
on any machine/OS. Experts in breaking s/w locks.
And there is a 'sort of a pride' in this expertise too.
---
arun
PS: I have no intention in initiating (or participating) in
discussions regarding ethical issues. I am simply stating
facts in their barest form.
These are just my views and not remarks on what is happening
anywhere. I don't stand by it, One may do his/her own survey sankar@Shasta.ARPA (12/22/85)
> Software doesn't have a very good reputation in India, presently. I disagree. > Reasons : Most of the high-priced (in US) s/w is available > for throw away prices or for free in India. You may be true to a certain extent, but give some examples. > People involved in marketing PC-compatibles give off > the s/w free (to sell their hardware). They don't loose much > because they (of course) by only one copy (if at all) and > just copy it and so on. > There have been stories of competing companies > pooling in software bought from abroad. Refer to the part on sueing below. > Because most people get the s/w free there is a general > tendency in the market to expect s/w free. That goes > to the extent of indegeniously developed product. NO WAY. See my message below!! > People still can't appreciate why they should pay a phenomenol > amount for a 'floppy'. It doen't justify their reasoning. > (like the doctor's fee for just feeling the pulse). Please elaborate with examples. > Result: > There is a whole breed of young chaps who are > experts in installing any software (with or without) documentation > on any machine/OS. Experts in breaking s/w locks. > And there is a 'sort of a pride' in this expertise too. Yes, but you will find this sort of pride in any type of criminal in any part of the world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not aware of software piracy to this extent. I am aware of companies being sued for piracy and the result being that the company suffered a lot simply because of the slow manner in which the Indian courts settle cases. I am also aware that my father who has recently being buying software has had to pay exorbitant prices for it just because it is a seller's market in India now. (He was buying software for hardware purchased from the same Indian company). It is quite possible that what Arun Lakhotia says is true, but the scene is not as bad as he depicts it. I will be happy if you can elaborate on what exactly you mean by software piracy in India. Sriram.
arun@cwruecmp.UUCP (Arun Lakhotia) (12/23/85)
Refer to 'Srirams' reply to "Marketing S/W on Micro" Unfortunately i did not make the context pretty clear. My article was in response to an email i received quering about this specific subject from one of the netters. PLEASE NOTE : I was NOT making a statement on "SOFTWARE PIRACY IN INDIA" but was giving my views on "MARKETING S/W ON MICROS IN INDIA". It so happens that whatever picture i projected also implied piracy. (I am sorry if it was harsh, it still remains true). ------ TALKING ABOUT EXAMPLES Pick up any machine (a micro) in the market. It would either be CP/M or MS-DOS based, with the whole range of software like the Word Star, Dbase II/III, SuperCalc, all compilers (and what have you) available on it. Whether any royalty (or whatever) is paid to anyone for the O/S, OR the s/w, OR the manuals is anybody's guess. In some cases you may find the indeginous (??sp) work of renaming PIP to COPY and removing the prompt. I am talking from my experience of working in an organization managing software in such ways and doing exactly such work. NOTE: I don't imply that ALL micro manufacturers are doing it. But it would be interesting to know that initially some companies did stick to starting their own s/w groups to produce stuff like spreadsheet, wordprocessors or database. They didn't do too well while facing competition with the pirated stuff, and winded up the moving the pirated s/w to their machines to meet the competition. (Sorry NO names here) If one does have a chance, i would suggest that one visits the Annual Convention of the Computer Society of India and see the exhibits to his/her own satisfaction. I think it would be held in Calcutta around March. I am not sure of the dates. (I have been thru the last three conventions) ------ TALKING ABOUT LEGALITIES As of last CSI convention held in Delhi (Mar 85) there were still talks about legislation regarding software, mind it there were none till then. And i didn't hear of one till 21 Aug. 85. BELEIVE IT OR NOT Software manufacture has been "recognized" as an industry only with the recent computer policy. (I have the text of the policy, If any one is interested). ------ SO MUCH FOR RESPECT TO SOFTWARE I have seen people selling DRI's (i think) F-80 (a Fortran IV Compiler) "as FORTRAN-80 an improvement over Fortran-77", and my impressions that s/w is not much respected has come from what i have seen. If at all people are making money in s/w in India it is mostly from dp-"related" work or teaching programming, or just fooling the computer-un-(or-little)-educated. (see my next article for some interesting stuff) --------- DISCLAIMER I am NOT INTERESTED IN PROVING MYSELF by engaging into discussions reeling out names, figures, elaborating instances explicitly or talking about ethical/legal/political issues in this matter. It is a sensitive issue in many ways. Further, That may just end up in a mess (as has happened with lot of net discussion in the past). -------- SOFTWARE ACTIVITY IN INDIA I would rather call upon people to talk about the actual "POSITIVE" S/W ACTIVITIES HAPPENING IN INDIA, that they may be aware of. NOTE again that i have been talking about "marketing" s/w in India and not "S/W ACTIVITY IN INDIA". There is a lot to talk about there too. Like the DOE has projected to boost s/w export returns to Rs. 200 (or is it 500) Crores by 1990 as against the last years (83-84) returns of Rs. 60 Crores (of which 60% share is of TCS/TBL), and (82-83) returns of Rs. 40 Crores. There are very very few organizations active in developing software for the indian market, (I am not talking about TBL, TCS kinds). The only "decent" products I have heard of are a "devanagari WP" of TCS (announced in CSI Meet Delhi), Indo-GKS of CMC, An integrated dp package of SOFTEK (Delhi), BOSS O/S of Atlaz(Bombay), COBOL/FORTRAN and PL/S compiler of SOFTEK, COBOGEN of Software Research Group (B'lore), a devanagari system by DCM. (a couple more, may be). There are a LOT of people active in the dp related area. Most of them do not sell s/w as a product BUT instead develop it on contract. This is where the difference comes in about price, and attitude. There are big teams in companies like Telco, Escorts, Lucas-TVS etc. But that does not interest the subject of "Marketing s/w for micros in India". ------ arun Disclaimer: The views presented above are my own.
arun@cwruecmp.UUCP (Arun Lakhotia) (12/23/85)
I would like to bring forward some very interesting happenings in the Indian Micro-industry with a generalized story Refer Sriram's reply to "Marketing s/w on ....." SOME CLARIFICATIONS I should have used the word "respect' rather than "reputation" of sofware. > I will be happy if you can elaborate on what exactly you mean by software > piracy in India. I never said "piracy" THE STORY Sriram has mentioned something that is very "typical" of the present market scenario for selling computers in India. Srirams father is not the first (and the last) who have been trapped by the manufacturers. > > I am also aware that my father who has recently being buying software has > had to pay exorbitant prices for it just because it is a seller's market in > India now. (He was buying software for hardware purchased from the same > Indian company). > The following is a generalization of events in which I was present in person (not a hearsay). This is how things happen. You think of computerizing your department/company or whatever. Before long you will have a hoarde of marketing chaps swarming around you. They would be from companies selling Sinclair ZX/?? compatibles to ICL 2904 (mainframe). Each trying to convince that his machine is more than sufficient for your needs. You get a lot of brochures. And the catch phrases like field upgradable, upward compatible, flexible, user-friendly, multi-processor, relational dbms, ??? Mips, 8MHz, 6Mhz, ADA, C, COBOL (The list is unending). (Invariably the person making the decision is not really aware of anything beyond CPU or memory). You start enjoying the game. You throw what cliche you learn from X at Y, and vice versa. Then you ask for a quotation. People quote. Every one offers N number of configurations and some software which goes free with it. They come back and say they can offer you better. You give out X's quote to Y and Y's quote to X. They keep cutting their prices and adding software. Invariably the deciding factor is the cost of the machine. And the chap with the minimum (after 3-4 changes to its original quote) gets the order. You get your computer. You get to know each other. You realize that this machine needs some more software to work, in addition to "just a mere touch of a key" as claimed by the company rep. And that the specific software you need has to be got from the manufacture. Why from the manufacturer alone? Because you don't know what base O/S it is. It has been tampered so much (the prompts only) that you would hardly know it is CP/M. The programmers you have has had 6 months crash course from some XYZ Institute of Computer Science, they can't help much. You realize that you want a way to print your datafiles straight from the disk. You have been using 'TYPE' with a ^P to print and it is too cumbersome. You call the company who sold you the machine. Its his chance. "My god" he says, "thats a big work. But of course he would contact his R & D to get your problem solved. You've got to pay for that." "How much?" "Rs. 5000/-" And the story goes on ----- Sriram, it would be interesting to know more about the deal your father made. Like what machine, O/S, What all software that came free? (I bet there were at least 2 compilers if it is a micro). A complete detail could prove the point. Weren't the manuals photo-copies of some US firm? And of course, the s/w for which he had to pay so much. Isn't it one of the standard packages available in the US market. (Most likely it is). If it isn't how about some idea of its functionality. More important, Why was it necessary to go back to the manufacturer for the software? Any specific reasons (or constraints). ----- arun
sankar@Shasta.ARPA (12/26/85)
> THE STORY > Sriram has mentioned something that is very "typical" of the > present market scenario for selling computers in India. Srirams father > is not the first (and the last) who have been trapped by the > manufacturers. I don't think your conclusions are correct at all. Yes it is possible for him to have been trapped by a manufacturer, but it would be a bit difficult for a manufacturer to do that. My father has a PhD in computer science and has had about 25 years experience in the field. His son is doing a PhD in computer science at Stanford University which is at the heart of Silicon Valley. The father and son do talk to each other a lot. So its quite far-fetched to think that he was trapped. I do NOT want to discuss this anymore, I am only trying to point out that you make your conclusions quite hastily. However, yes, a lot of laymen do get trapped in the way you mentioned in your message, only that is not at all typical of India, it happens in the U.S. also. Heres some more of that message to which I am replying to, yes, I AGREE that your generalisation is okay, but not in this particular case. And once again, let me emphasize that such things happen in the U.S. also. > You think of computerizing your department/company or .... > > You get a lot of brochures. And the catch phrases like field .... > > You start enjoying the game. You throw what cliche you learn .... > > Then you ask for a quotation. People quote. Every one offers N .... > > Invariably the deciding factor is the cost of the machine. And .... > > You get your computer. You get to know each other. You realize .... > > The programmers you have has had 6 months crash course from some XYZ > Institute of Computer Science, they can't help much. .... My only objection to your previous message is that you gave a very lop-sided view of the whole picture. I do not think that there is anyone who doubts your claims that hardware is copied, software is copied, manuals are photo-copied, etc. etc., AND APART FROM A FEW PLACES, MOST OF YOUR MESSAGE IS CORRECT, only it shows only one side of the whole thing. Another mistake you are making is trying to compare situations in India with situations here. My friends in India who have also attended all these CSI conferences (or seminar or whatever) have been quite impressed at the rate of progress in the field of Computer Science in India. Rather than compare India with the U.S., I think you should compare India with what it was a few years ago, and try and project what it will be like in a few years from now. The general feeling is optimistic. Yes, a lot of software is copied, but there is loads of opportunity in India to write software, and write good software at that. Even if all software experts who read this message go back to India and take up software projects, there will still be a demand for more software experts, especially in a few more years. I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH YOU WHEN YOU SAY THAT SOFTWARE EXPERTS ARE NOT A RESPECTED GROUP IN INDIA AND THAT MOST PEOPLE EXPECT SOFTWARE FOR FREE. THIS IS THE REASON FOR MY RESPONSE TO YOUR MESSAGE. It is possible that I am talking about software at a different level from that which Arun is talking about. Arun talks about compilers and editors, printing programs, copying programs, etc. which in a way are essential pieces of software without which the computer cannot be used. I include in software many other more complex entities like PCB layout design software, various special purpose advanced software like CAD/CAM, simulation software, etc. Indian defence also has undergone extensive computerisation, and there is a LOT of demand for defence software too. Once again, I just want to mention that I do not disagree with Arun's messages except at a few places, many of the things he says is correct, but he has presented only the dark side of the picture. I personally feel that there is going to be a lot of progress in the computing field in India in the next ten years. Sriram.