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Gurudath Banavar

Vishwanath Kulkarni

Services Computing is gaining importance in the Indian IT sector as the country increases its share in the global services sector. IEEE, the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology, recently organised its International Conference on Services Computing in Bangalore. IBM’s India Research Lab played a key role in bringing an IEEE event to the country for the first time.

eWorld caught up with Gurudath Banavar, director, IRL, to know more about the IEEE event and services computing. Excerpts from the chat:

What is services computing?

Services computing is all about IT enablement for the services industry. It covers the science and technology that underlie business services and bridges the gap between business services and IT services.

The core technology suite includes service oriented architecture (SOA), web services and business process integration, and performance management. Cloud computing, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Knowledge Management tools are some of the enablers that will take the services to the next level.

The scope of services computing covers the whole lifecycle of services innovation research that includes business componentisation, services modelling and services management.

What will services computing do for the IT industry?

Because the world economy is services-based, it will keep growth of the services sector in the way. At a macro level, 50 per cent of India’s GDP comes from the services sector, which is expected to go up to 70 per cent. Technology will enable the services industry to go to the next level. Services computing will enable IT services and computing technology to perform business services more efficiently and effectively.

What is the significance of the IEEE event being held in Bangalore?

The IEEE event has come to India for the first time. It takes a long time for people to recognise that India has leadership — to come and talk about the cutting edge research. Researchers from some 40 countries participated in the event.

Services as a discipline came into existence about five years ago. The event came to China two years ago. Research relating to services is mostly done in the US or in Australia. The quality of research going on in India is world-class.

India is becoming a platform for the whole world to do advanced research and not just low-end work. Now we have hit the high-end of the part, we saw participation from local companies also besides the global researchers.

How are Indian IT services companies looking at services computing?

The Joint CEO of Wipro, Girish Paranjpe, who was the keynote speaker at the event, said that innovation would be the key for the industry to grow to the next level.

Indian companies have started innovating and helping customers innovate. The best way for them is to take part in these programmes in the form of generating thought papers. Of the 200 odd papers presented at the event, only 36 came from India, of which the majority were from IBM Research Labs India.

We have launched a chapter of Services Research and Innovation Institute (SRII) in India.

SRII is a non-profit organisation and I hope it will stimulate research in services computing. TCS, Wipro, HP, ISB and IBM have become members of the SRRI.

Where do Indian IT vendors stand in carrying out research in services computing?

Research has not been a focus area for Indian IT vendors. They have been focused on catering to what the customer needs rather than think about the future. Previously, the focus was not on innovation. Offering services to customer at a low price was focus. They went after the business model leveraging the labour arbitrage.

The low cost era is over. Now they are learning from the consulting kind of opportunities. Everybody is looking for innovation as well. The one with the best innovative capabilities will survive.

Certainly they recognise the need for innovation with the change in mindset. Hopefully they will be able to build on this and generate high quality of work.

vishwa@thehindu.co.in

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