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India poised for a major economic leap, says Cisco chief

Narayanan Madhavan

The chief of Cisco Systems Inc, John Chambers, said on Tuesday that India was poised for an economic leap if it could develop a solid Internet infrastructure to match its army of software engineers.

Cisco's Chief Executive Officer, told a gathering of technology experts in Delhi that world-class engineers in India cost only a tenth of their US counterparts, but infrastructure costs add to overheads.

"The two equalisers in life are Internet and education", Chambers said. "With infrastructure and also the right education, you win."

Cisco, the leading maker of routers that drive computer networks and power data traffic, is now betting on technologies built around the Internet Protocol, the common technical thread that binds the worldwide web of computers. "Internet infrastructure is a chance to skip a generation as a company and as a country", Chambers said.

China now accounts for as much as five per cent of Cisco's business, while India makes up only one-third of one per cent.

"India has the potential to catch up with its neighbour, which was in the same boat only a few years ago, he said. "Unlike China, India has a strong education system for software engineers", Chambers said.

He said that India can emerge as the main nation supplying network maintenance engineers to other nations.

Cisco predicts a worldwide shortage of two million networking professionals by 2005. It is also emphasising a future where manufacturing design, learning, e-commerce, management information and customer support will be conducted over seamless networks of voice, video and data supported by integrated software solutions.

Cisco, eyeing India as a key base, already has two software development centres in the country in addition to about 1,500 dedicated engineers working for Cisco in three Indian companies.

Cisco announced on Monday that it will set up 34 training academies in India to produce about 100,000 Internet network executives to combat the expected professional shortage.

The Cisco Networking Academy programmme has about 5,900 academies worldwide, with about 150,000 students enrolled in learning how to design, build and maintain computer networks.

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