The information technology industry in India has come of age. As we near the close of a century, it is worthwhile to pause and reflect on the successes and failures of the past and analyse the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The hardware industry has suffered the fate of most low-volume industries in emerging economies and is probably doing the right thing by focussing on niche areas like peripherals and outsourced manufacturing to avoid extermination.

The software industry in India is at a crossroads. Global trends in enterprise information systems present both an opportunity and a threat for the industry, with software development in organisations making way for the installation of enterprise resource planning packages (ERP) and electronic commerce through the internet becoming the cornerstone of all new information systems being built in the developed world. Moving a corporation towards e-business is inherently less compatible with classical softwaredevelopment life cycle approaches and will need much more domain knowledge and work to be performed in close coordination with the firm. This may well reduce the demand for offshore work, and can become a nightmare for many organisations who have invested in space and armies of low-skill programmers during the boom years of the 90s.

The imperative for the software industry is in three areas. First, the ability to develop vertical skills in industry domains and move from being a low cost provider of programming skills to solutions architects capable of providing extended ERP and e-commerce solutions. Second, the willingness to invest in re-skilling the work force on an ongoing basis to master the emerging technologies of the internet and related developments that are happening at breakneck speed in Silicon Valley. And third, the sagacity to forecast product opportunities in the emerging market space that will enable the Indian industry to shed its low skills image and compete with the world's best on theirterms.

Indian software capability is now recognised the world over with the USA, Europe and Japan regarding India as a destination of choice and even late starters like Australia and South Africa appreciating the Indian opportunity. However, Indian industry associations and strategy planners are aware of the fact that price still remains the dominant advantage for many software firms and with more applications moving to the web and e-commerce, the new imperative is to compete and succeed on domain knowledge and solution superiority. This needs not only a major reskilling effort to add consulting skills to the existing technology arsenals, but also a major mindset change in some industry CEOs who still perceive software exports as a get-rich-quick opportunity relying on wage arbitrage and body shopping.

The vibrant computer training industry in India also needs to keep pace with global trends and developments. The days are over when a general purpose ``one size fits all'' course would fill the classroomsof every computer education establishment. A multimodal delivery strategy, with effective use of new media like CD-ROM, Web-ROM and the internet, coupled with continuous technology and instructional design research is essential for the training industry to maintain its relevance in a fast-changing technological environment and be a worthy partner to the software industry.

There is no room for complacency. The road ahead is hard. What is important is an understanding of key technology drivers and trends that are shaping the world technology environment and becoming part of the shopping list of every chief information officer.

The author is Managing Director of Aptech Limited