Like Life Before Electricity, and After Electricity...

I see two major trends in the coming years. One, the abundance

of bandwidth. Two, bio-informatics.

In the past 20 years, we felt the effects of Moore’s Law. Now,

the rate of change in availability of bandwidth will be several orders of

magnitude larger than the increase in rate of change of transistors in a piece

of silicon. Both these effects together with the Internet (nothing but a set of

protocols and services), Internet appliances (providing easy and inexpensive

access) and new software (browsers, Java, XML, etc, that enable a new class of

applications) will have a profound impact on the future. It is like life before

electricity and after electricity.

The basics of economics have not changed even in today’s

e-world. The three fundamental entities are value creation, value transportation

and value consumption. Anything which is of "value", but not physical,

may be converted into "digits". This digital value can be transported

via the Internet to anywhere in "zero time", making "distance

zero". At the other end, digits are reconverted back into value for which

some one will pay. Software and IT-enabled services are two examples of this

paradigm. There are many other instances of value that can be digitized. What

else is software? Music, animation, textile patterns, consultancy, remote

management of IT resources, remote testing and monitoring, tele-medicine, legal

research...it’s a long list.

I see the biggest opportunity for India is in creating

"digital value" for the world in which software will be a small

subset.

Bio-informatics, which allows the use of informatics to derive

value from biological data, will be another opportunity for India. It uses IT

infrastructure being built now, and gives an enormous edge.

Finally, I believe that a "universal wireless service"

is in the offing this year. This would allow the use of current cell phones (and

new data phones) and bring a new meaning to mobility. Such a service will allow

the same phone to be used on the local PABX inside the building, and connect to

wired network phones and wireless phones in an intelligent manner automatically,

saving consumers money and providing flexibility.

Dr Sridhar Mitta, an IT industry veteran and one of India’s

most respected technologists, is with e4e Labs India