Indian software cos must stop trying new products: Gartner

The Indian software and solutions providers have failed to develop new products and therefore the IT firms should stop trying to develop these, a senior official of research firm Gartner said today.

"Whatever products have come out of India so far has been very bleak. Except one or two banking products like the one from iFlex, we have seen very bleak product development by Indian companies. So products are not the way to go for the Indian companies," Partha Iyengar, Vice-President & regional director at Gartner India told PTI on the sidelines of a Gartner symposium & IT Expo here.

However, he noted there is a lot of process innovation by the domestic IT firms but not much product innovation. "I think Indian software companies should stop trying to develop products and focus on services and other solutions."

Instead of trying to develop software products, the Indian software and solutions providers should focus on becoming more business-centric and provide solutions to local businesses, Iyengar maintained.

The domestic companies were late to realise the potential of providing solutions to local firms, he said. "Domestic IT companies have actually lost domestic businesses to IBM and other foreign players. They lost out on business which Bharti Airtel had to offer. They need to concentrate on opportunities from local companies. At the moment, they are servicing US clients out of locations there. But they need to have a global delivery model so that they can service clients anywhere from anywhere in the world."

Iyengar said the domestic software and solutions providers must have the guts to drop large deals which have now got commodified, so as to move up the value chain.