Thursday, July 14 2005 18:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Indian software entrepreneurs would need to focus more on innovation of new IT products rather than on services or outsourcing if India had to be in the forefront of the IT revolution and transform itself into software powerhouse, according to Sabeer Bhatia, the pioneer of the Hotmail revolution.

"Product development could generate 10 times more revenues than service", Bhatia said during the launch of his new product InstaAssist.

"There were real opportunities in the product segment and Indian software entrepreneurs must learn to capitalise on it in a big way if the country has to be in the forefront of the IT revolution", he said.

Admitting that there was a huge risk element involved, he said if 10 products were launched nine may fail but the one success story could generate and compensate for the other losses suffered by the entrepreneurs.

"The innovation of IT products could also create tremendous job potential and wealth in India", he said.

"Though right now there was a general feeling that we had arrived, India could just claim two percent of the entire global software revenue", Bhatia, who himself was toying with six new product ideas said.

However, the core issue while developing products should be quality control and zero bug level. "We have to eliminate the "chalta hai' attitude", he said.

"The opportunities lie here in India, not out there", he said adding, "It is innovation of IT products and not outsourcing that should be the area of our focus".

Outlining the opportunities, Bhatia said that it was the Voice over IP technology that needed to be tapped and turned into mass-based products.

The convergence of data and switch network and the proliferation of broadband in a big way had really augmented the opportunities in India, he remarked.

"It is a great time for India now to invest these opportunities given the huge resource of IT talent in the country", he said.