While the future is in the dotcom companies, what exactly is the future of the dotcom companies themselves? While no definite answer is forthcoming, the three-day India: Internet World 2000 that opened in the Capital on Wednesday is a pointer to the stake India has in this fast-emerging sector. Even so, doubts whether the present dotcom boom in India has a sound basis are genuine and need to be raised. As a report suggests, of the thousands of dotcom companies that exist or are in the pipeline, less than a thousand need to be taken seriously. And among them, only a much smaller number will be able to attract the required investment and stay afloat to generate wealth in due course. So is dotcom all hype and no substance? Goldman Sachs, the international investment banker, predicts that the world market for international services in information technology will grow from $349 billion in 1999 to $585 billion four years hence. India's share in the volume will grow from last year's $3.9 billion to $30billion, which represents a commendable growth rate of 50 per cent. Sufficient, as a commentator says, to take care of the oil crisis facing the nation today. But what about the present? Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna gushes about the quality of Indian software and one visiting IT czar even says that India need not bother about the hardware sector where China and Taiwan are in a strong position. In other words, remain the software giant that India is.It is often pointed out and it was even heard at India: Internet World that it is the dotcoms that are in the service sector which will rake in larger profits than those that provide goods. For the umpteenth time it was bandied about that America Online's assets are larger than the General Motors', like the worth of Wipro is more than that of Reliance. However unreal this may appear, things are changing with many established product-providing companies entering the dotcom sector and giving the purely dotcom firms a run for their money. The net result is that quite a large number of dotcom companies will go bust as had happened in the US in the initial years of dotcom business. That apart, the expected growth in Net transactions has not happened for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of necessary bandwidth to inconvenient laws that govern such transactions to the inadequate growth in Net connectivity in the country.The slew of tax benefits the government announced for IT-enabled services on Wednesday is a welcome trend but the question as to when sufficient investments will be made to solve the bandwidth problem has not yet been answered. The fact that the Internet show now on in the Capital is the largest organised outside the US is certainly exhilarating but it should never be allowed to cloud our vision. More so when we live in the real world, rather than the virtual one. However welcome the expected massive inflow of profits from IT transactions on the Net may be, it cannot be a substitute for real growth in the manufacturing sector for which massive investments are required in such key sectors as telecommunications, roads and power. This invariably necessitates us to try our hand in hardware to grab a share of the international market. Until this happens, the little successes in IT will make little difference to the common people.
