newsbytes@clarinet.com (02/04/90)
NEW DELHI, INDIA, 1990 JAN 31 (NB) -- India's budding information technology industry is experiencing the same kind of shake-up and reorganization that has afflicted other nations rushing to enter the information age. Like others in the region, India's businessmen have embraced with open arms the advantages offered by automation, but this in turn has led to complications. Many new companies were set up during the eighties to make full use of the opportunities created by the demand for equipment and software. Fly-by-night operations became common and a thriving industry of assemblers, as opposed to genuine original manufacturers sprang up. Now things are changing. Many of the older companies have gone to the wall, to be replaced by firms run and staffed by properly qualified technologists. Big business is entering the game and some long-established concerns are reorganizing or simply going out of business. One company to enter the field to capitalize on the changes taking place is petrochemical conglomerate Reliance, which has gone into partnership with Wang Laboratories to manufacture computers. Even the big boys are feeling the pressure. Sweden's Facit Asia planned to manufacture electronic typewriters in India, but has now decided to pull out of the venture. Others are following suit, but observers see the current process as an example of the reorganization of the IT industry already seen in other parts of the world, not least in nearby Asian countries, where it has come of age after a raucous but unsatisfactory youth. (Norman Wingrove/19900302)