Firstly Happy 60 Years of Independance…
God Bless those who made sacrifices and even the Supreme Sacrifice for our nation’s Independance…

I recently read a announcement in newspaper some days back about our honorable commerce minister mooting the idea of ultra-large SEZs… 250 sq kms and more.

Some thoughts strike one’s mind, and one feels a impulsion to speak up. This is topic that gets strong responses- and I’d love to know your own thoughts and opinions on this subject…

(1) Talking of 250 sq km SEZs or even 250 acre SEZs- what strikes one is the assumption that big business and big investments are the way forward. Is big business really the future ?
Is this really the way the world is moving ? Not so it seems looking at the Silicon valley- where Johnathan Schwartz’s first mandate as Sun Microsystems CEO was to massively cut costs- and the solution he carried out was to ‘persuade’ 70% of sun’s workforce to work from home…
Sun Microsystems to me is interesting, because it’s a prototypical example of a startup that went on to become a big corporation and dominate it’s segments of the market.. the kind of company we ourselves would like to see rise out of India’s tech landscape…

(2) Historically, have big investments by big-money actually been the engine of growth in a technology driven economy (as ours is shaping up to become and as the US’s economy has been for some decades now) ?

Not so- given that 40 % of US’s GDP growth since 1950 has been because of the tech industry- and many of the ripest ideas in the tech industry came in through Silicon Valley startups- that in timespans of less than a decade- went on to dominate their respective segments of the Industry. (Source: Vinod Khosla, Founder of Sun Microsystems)
Think about it… in 1980, how big was Microsoft ?
In 1980, how big was Sun Microsystems ?
In 1980 had anyone heard of Cisco ? (no, because Cisco was founded much later)
In 1980 had anyone heard of Palm ? of Symbian ? of Nokia ? of Blackberry ? you name it- and the industry was different then…

(3) Is the use of state authority to enforce centralized planning really something that encourages local companies to try to conquer the world ?
Does the use of state authority to forcefully create or kill ecosystems actually give local companies confidence that they can one day compete at a world scale, and that too purely on the merity of their products and market position rather than political support ?

Would love to hear your views on the above… but yeah… where I’m coming from is the situation in India’s capital city of Delhi.

Here in Delhi, there’s been a wave of judicial activism since early/mid 2006– and a lot of shops, commercial offices and other establishments operating out of land designated as non-commercial or residential have been sealed.

There are parts of Delhi whose appearance and local-economy has been totally altered by the government’s sealing drive.

Enforcing a rule of law is good– but what when the cost is at the cost of the entrepreneurial spirit that has characterised our city’s history ?

What when ecosystems– that underly markets- both tech and old-economy- are totally destroyed- and what when a market is trampled upon to the point it loses it’s earlier vibrance ?

When web development and smalltime application companies that could have one day conquered the world close down before they see their hour of glory ?

A purist may say that it is buildings and architecture that define a city… but is that also also what folks that are passionate about business and startups would say ?


In the last year, I’ve seen atleast a dozen small tech companies– owned by or managed by or employing friends and acquaintainces either downsize and shrink OR just fold-up– or atleast pull their capital out of the market— and try something else.

Each time a corporation lands inside a neighbourhood or a office park that was hitherto removed from IT- and IT folks start walking in and out of environs that had hitherto not smelt IT workers– it starts a trend of neighbouring landlords looking for IT industry tenants and over time, IT money- and the 24×7 IT lifestyle sparks a ecosystem– of tea-shops, snack joints, coffee-shops and watering holes frequented by IT industry folks- with their tendency to have long discussions; pop-in at odd hours- and search for third-place hangout joints that are homes away from homes…

I saw that in Bangalore– wherein a open air South-Indian restaurant next to our office was the work-hours and even after-hours hangout for folks from Hughes, Oracle, iFlex, Phillips, HP and more… and how over a cuppa of coffee one could actually run into interesting tech discussions– and even get exposed to market trends, problem solving methodologies and ideas far removed from one’s current reality… which would expand one’s mind.

And one could see that happen in Delhi too… in Adhchini, where the presence of EHPT (Ericsson Hewlett Packard Telecom) gave a fillip to the neighbourhood– with Turqoise Cottage (a restaurant and pub) sprouting up and really growing next door– and neighbouring buildings and offices– even the village next door also seeing buildings getting rented out to IT and related activities– including in a village 150 metres away- where low-end web development outfits, placement consultants and cyber-cafes sprouted up– apart from Dhabas which served good non-veg food.

And one could stand by hand-cart vendors selling greasy street-food and listen to a discussion on how to implement a certain kind of parser- including thoughts on why a lexer built a deterministic finite automata could not parse certain types of constructs… which would make the heart of any tech minded professional swell with pride…

That same office was later used by a string of companies- as the ownership of EHPT changed hands… and subsequently, by a company called MakeMyTrip.com which went on to in it’s own way to command a sizeable chunk of the online travel market….

Today though… the story is different… and as the Delhi government ran through it’s sealing drive, first the offices were served notices and the companies moved out… and then Turqoise Cottage (restaurant and bar) was sealed….

The same story repeated itself in various parts of Delhi– in south extension; in malviya nagar; in the areas opposite-to and adjoining IIT-delhi… and the areas adjoining JNU and others…..

Personally while someone might out-shout me OR not agree with my points… I wonder… what would have it been like if these IT hubs had been allowed to develop and grow at their own pace ?

What if small startups had been allowed to mushroom in cheap rented accomodations around these bigger corporations- at a stone’s throw from IIT delhi and JNU ?

What if the tech ecosystem of Delhi had been allowed to shape itself; to a point where this informal tech ecosystem threw up companies and products that stood-out and put India on the world map ?

Frankly… we’ll never know the answer to that particular what-if… but ok; a lot of the tech-industry is about trust networks; about ecosystems; and about informal hangouts where the people who actually work on the ground building tech rub shoulders- and crunch up new ideas… and if India continues to move this way, then there’s a good chance that these tech-ecosystems never will shape-up well enough to give birth to another Adobe or another Microsoft or another Cisco from Delhi itself!!!

nb:
…atleast some of these thoughts were inspired by the inability of me and 2 colleagues who had gone on a business visit to a associate company in the Greater Noida SEZ… and after entering the SEZ(that SEZ is secure… with armed guards at the check-post manning it’s entrance) and we discovered there was no decent eating joint or coffee shop within 2-3 kilometres… just a 2-3 dhabas next to a stinking drainage ditch opposite the SEZ’s gate and frequented by drivers.
And that set me remembering the comment of a bhai-sahib whose shop had been broken and whose basement had been sealed, wherein shedding tears and screaming even 6 months later he had cried “jahan karobar nahin hota… sir woh jagah baazar nahin shamashan ghat hoti hai… ”

Comments welcomed… and apart from comments in this blog; I can be reached thru email on nsnsns(at)gmail(dot)com

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