Towards No 1

The fact that Pune has emerged as one of the top IT

destinations in the country, is common knowledge now. Historically famous as the

engineering capital of the country, the city has successfully leveraged its

traditional technology expertise to carve out a niche in IT too. With at least

half a dozen Indian cities jostling for pole position in the "after

Bangalore, who?" scramble for IT sweepstakes, Pune is definitely a

front-runner.

In fact, Pune shares a number of common attributes with

Bangalore. Looking at the various facets of development across Pune in areas

such as real estate, transportation, hospitality that have taken place in

conjunction with the IT boom, it cannot help, but remind one of the early days

of Bangalore's IT boom in the mid-90s.

But this very similarity with Bangalore points towards a more

crucial question. If the beginning and growing up are on the lines of Bangalore,

will Pune too face the myriad of problems as Bangalore has got today? And

however, you might not like that to happen, indications are that it might befall

Pune sooner or later. Pothole strewn roads, an unreliable power supply, lack of

international airport are few of the basic problems besetting Pune today.

However, one advantage Pune has over cities such as Chennai,

Hyderabad, NCR or Kolkata (that are trying to become primary IT hubs) is its

geographical proximity to Mumbai. With an expressway connecting the two cities,

allows the city to use Mumbai's international airport. Besides, being close to

the financial hub of the country helps in more ways than one, ie in fostering

entrepreneurship both in letter and spirit.

One sector that has really seen a massive boom in Pune is the

real estate. Swanky malls, plush residential complexes, large multiplexes, and

world class hotels have come up in large numbers. In fact, the most common

hoarding that dots the city would read like "1/2/3 BHK flats available for

IT professionals". This, too, is a phenomenon that was witnessed in large

numbers in Bangalore towards the mid or late 90s.

However, the most visible trend in real estate has been

witnessed in the preponderance of IT parks. If it was the Maharashtra government

that started the IT Park revolution with MIDCs in outskirts, many private

builders have taken up the cue today to come up with ready tech parks.

Initially, MIDCs had come up at Hinjewadi and Chinchwad that attracted a large

number of IT companies.

More interesting was the story of Talwade IT Park developed

by MIDC. When MIDC first tried to promote the Infotech Park in Talawade off the

Mumbai-Pune expressway, it did not receive much attention. But, once Kanbay, a

Chicago-based IT consulting firm focusing on the financial sector moved in, the

scene changed. Global IT majors Syntel and Xansa followed suit. The rental rate

in Talawade Infotech Park, is of about Rs. 13 sq ft, which is half the rate of

Rs. 25 a sq ft that the CIDCO Infotech Park, situated at Vashi-Belapur near

Mumbai, commands. For IT companies that do not see any particular advantage in

being close to cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore, the cheaper costs in hi-tech

cities like Pune springing up in the hinterland are a boon. Even as Pune real

estate prices zoom up, it is unlikely to reach Mumbai proportions any sooner.

If MIDC was the pioneer, then a host of private builders such

as Magarpatta, Marisoft, Panchsheel Realty, and Kumar Builders are coming up

with large IT parks throughout Pune that are now in various stages of

development. Magarpatta's Cybercity, one of the first private IT parks that

came up in the city, today boasts of kind of a lifestyle statement. Touted as a

city within a city, the 400 acre Magarpatta City, a modern township built around

a cybercity in Pune, functions on 'walk to school, walk to work' concept.

The township boasts of a golf course, a 25-acre park, food courts, health clubs,

lakes, schools, a mall, and swanky residences with solar heaters and water

recycling plants-almost everything that defines good life-around the

cybercity. Global majors such as Avaya, EXL, Amdocs, Sybase, and several others

have already bought into the concept. Called Cybercity Magarpatta, the township

has an IT Park comprising of 4 mn Sq.ft. being developed in four phases.

However, as many large Indian or global IT players might come

to Pune, no compilation on the city as an IT hub would be complete without

mentioning the small home-grown Pune companies. At first sight in appearance

they would look pretty insignificant-typically located in small flats in

totally residential areas making them very difficult to locate for any outsider.

But, these are the companies that are the soul of Pune's IT entity-it is

often amazing the kind of interesting products (and remember, it's mostly

products) that they often develop far way from the hype surrounding many of the

larger companies who are only involved in IT services.

Some of them succeed spectacularly like Compulink, who has

now grown big and moved to a large own campus in Hinjewadi IT Park; some of them

even fail, mostly owing to lack of adequate marketing, as that investor funding

often remain elusive for them. Dataquest salutes the horde of these companies

and has brought out brief write-ups on six of these companies having interesting

products, viz, Compulink, Harbinger, SEED Infotech, Netpro, ProductDossier, and

UBICS.

Next, we have featured four of Pune's largest companies,

albeit in IT services, but who have now grown big enough to graduate to tier two

services player. In fact, MBT that specializes in telecom software is perhaps

already in tier one-it is perhaps along with i-flex- the only instances in

the country where IT services players have succeeded even after focusing on only

one vertical. Tata Technologies is another successful name in engineering

services, which has leveraged that to develop IT expertise too. Kanbay, already

mentioned earlier, is a significant US company, though often not as publicized

as similar companies like Cognizant. Last, but not the least, KPIT Cummins have

for two years been one of the fastest growing listed IT services companies in

the country. Another common feature binding these four companies is the fact

that all of them have acquired companies in the last 12 months to expand their

service offerings-MBT bought Axes Technologies, Tata Technologies got INCAT,

Kanbay took Accurum, while recently KPIT Cummins purchased SolvCentral and

Pivolis.

In the next issue, Dataquest would also feature the

engineering services players in Pune. With engineering services being touted as

the next big wave in offshore outsourcing, Pune is today uniquely positioned to

emerge as a global leader here. Like Banagalore became the world offshoring

capital for IT, in few years Pune might become the world offshoring capital for

engineering too. Also, we would feature a large number of global IT players, big

or small, who are setting up their ODCs or R&D centers in the city.

Ultimately, what Pune has always lacked is an iconic figure,

government or otherwise, who would champion the cause of the city. It never had

a Narayana Murthy or a Chanbdrababu Naidu to highlight its case as a big IT hub.

Also unlike how Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has turned around Kolkata, the

Maharashtra government has never seen a votary who would champion the cause of

Pune. The search for this talisman for Pune goes on and until that does not

happen it might not be easy for the city to become the country's premier IT

hub.

Rajneesh De