友情提示:如果本网页打开太慢或显示不完整,请尝试鼠标右键“刷新”本网页!阅读过程发现任何错误请告诉我们,谢谢!! 报告错误
飞读中文网 返回本书目录 我的书架 我的书签 TXT全本下载 进入书吧 加入书签

the.world.is.flat-第35章

按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!



transcription in India was about one…fifth the cost per line of doing it the United 
States; a difference that got a lot of people's attention。 
By the late 1990s; though; Lady Luck was starting to shine on India from two directions: 
The fiber…optic bubble was starting to inflate; linking India with the United States; 
and the Y2K computer crisis…the so…called millennium bug…started gathering on the 
horizon。 As you'll remember; the Y2K bug was a result of the fact that when computers 
were built;they came with internalclocks。 In order tosave memory space; these clocks 
rendered dates with just six digits…two for the day; two for the month; and; you 
guessed it; two for the year。 That meant they could go up to only 12/31/99。 So when 
the calendar hit January 1; 2000; many older computers were poised to register that 
not as 01/01/2000 but as 01/01/00; and they would think it was 1900 all over again。 
It meant that a huge number of existing computers (newer ones were being made with 
better clocks) needed to have their internal clocks and related systems adjusted; 
otherwise; it was feared; they would shut down; creating a global crisis; given how 
many different management systems…from water to air traffic control…were 
computerized。 
This computer remediation work was a huge; tedious job。 Who in the world had enough 
software engineers to do it all? Answer: India; with all the techies from all those 
IITs and private technical colleges and computer schools。 
And so with Y2K bearing down on us; America and India started dating; and that 
relationship became a huge flattener; because it demonstrated to so many different 
businesses that the combination of the PC; the Internet; and fiber…optic cable had 
created the possibility of a whole new form of collaboration and horizontal value 
creation: outsourcing。 
109 
Any service; call center; business support operation; or knowledge work that could 


be digitized could be sourced globally to the cheapest; smartest; or most efficient 
provider。 Using fiber…optic cable…connected workstations; Indian techies could get 
under the hood of your company's computers and do all the adjustments; even though 
they were located halfway around the world。 
〃'Y2K upgrading' was tedious work that was not going to give them an enormous 
competitive advantage;〃 said Vivek Paul; the Wipro executive whose company did some 
outsourced Y2K drudge work。 〃So all these Western companies were incredibly 
challenged to find someone else who would do it and do it for as little money as 
possible。 They said; 'We just want to get past the damn year 2000!' So they started 
to work with Indian 'technology' companies who they might not have worked with 
otherwise。〃 
To use my parlance; they were ready to go on a blind date with India。 They were ready 
to get 〃fixed up。〃 Added Jerry Rao; 'Y2K means different things to different people。 
For Indian industry; it represented the biggest opportunity。 India was considered 
as a place of backward people。 Y2K suddenly required that every single computer in 
the world needed to be reviewed。 And the sheer number of people needed to review 
line…by…line code existed in India。 The Indian IT industry got its footprint across 
the globe because of Y2K。 Y2K became our engine of growth; our engine of being known 
around the world。 We never looked back after Y2K。〃 
By early 2000; the Y2K work started to wind down; but then a whole new driver of 
business emerged…e…commerce。 The dot…com bubble had not yetburst; engineering talent 
was scarce; and demand from dotcoms was enormous。 Said Paul; 〃People wanted what they 
felt were mission…critical applications; key to their very existence; to be done and 
they could go nowhere else。 So they turned to the Indian companies; and as they turned 
to the Indian companies they found that they were getting delivery of complex systems; 
with great quality; sometimes better than what they were getting from others。 That 
created an enormous respect for Indian IT providersf。' And if 'Y2K work' was the 
acquaintanceship process; this was the falling…in…love process。〃 
Outsourcing from America to India; as a new form of collaboration; 

exploded。 By just stringing a fiber…optic line from a workstation in Bangalore to 
my company's mainframe; I could have Indian IT firms like Wipro; Infosys; and Tata 
Consulting Services managing my e…commerce and mainframe applications。 
〃Once we're in the mainframe business and once we're in e…commerce…now we're married;〃 
said Paul。 But again; India was lucky that it could exploit all that undersea 
fiber…optic cable。 〃Ihad an office very close to the Leela Palace hotel in Bangalore;〃 
Paul added。 〃I was working with a factory located in the information technology park 
in Whitefield; a suburb of Bangalore; and I could not get a local telephone line 
between our office and the factory。 Unless you paid a bribe; you could not get a line; 
and we wouldn't pay。 So my phone call to Whitefield would go from myoffice in Bangalore 
to Kentucky; where there was a GE mainframe computer we were working with; and then 
from Kentucky to Whitefield。 We used our own fiber…optic lease line that ran across 
the ocean…but 


the one across town required a bribe。〃 
India didn't benefit only from the dot…com boom; it benefited even more from the 
dot…com bust! That is the real irony。 The boom laid the cable that connected India 
to the world; and the bust made the cost of using it virtually free and also vastly 
increased the number of American companies that would want to use that fiber…optic 
cable to outsource knowledge work to India。 
Y2K led to this mad rush for Indian brainpower to get the programming work done。 The 
Indian companies were good and cheap; but price wasn't first on customers' 
minds…getting the work done was; and India was the only place with the volume of 
workers to do it。 Then the dot…com boom comes along right in the wake of Y2K; and 
India is one of the few places where you can find surplus English…speaking engineers; 
at any price; because all of those in America have been scooped up by e…commerce 
companies。 Then the dot…com bubble bursts; the stock market tanks; and the pool of 
investment capital dries up。 American IT companies that survived the boom and venture 
capital firms that still wanted to fund start…ups had much less cash to spend。 Now 
they needed those Indian 
Ill 
engineers not just because there were a lot of them; but precisely because they were 
low…cost。 So the relationship between India and the American business community 
intensified another notch。 
One of the great mistakes made by many analysts in the early 2000s was conflating 
the dot…com boom with globalization; suggesting that both were just fads and hot air。 
When the dot…com bust came along; these same wrongheaded analysts assumed that 
globalization was over as well。 Exactly the opposite was true。 The dot…com bubble 
was only one aspect of globalization; and when it imploded; rather than imploding 
globalization; it actually turbocharged it。 
Promod Haque; an Indian…American and one of the most prominent venture capitalists 
in Si
返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 0 0
未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!
温馨提示: 温看小说的同时发表评论,说出自己的看法和其它小伙伴们分享也不错哦!发表书评还可以获得积分和经验奖励,认真写原创书评 被采纳为精评可以获得大量金币、积分和经验奖励哦!