Indian engineers good only at theory: Microsoft

[lumbakhumba]

Indian engineers good only at theory: Microsoft

Suveen K Sinha & Gaurie Mishra in New Delhi | October 07, 2005 04:01 IST


India does not produce enough computer engineers and those it does are good at theory but not very well equipped to handle the practical aspects, according to Microsoft Corporation's Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie, who is on a visit to India.

"India produces a lot of engineers. But the production of computer science engineers is low, pro rata.

"Computer engineers are more into theory and less in managing businesses, building businesses or writing source codes, the key to software development," Mundie told Business Standard.

Microsoft has a large number of Indian software engineers on its rolls in India as well as abroad. Out of the 2,000 people working for Microsoft in India, a sizeable proportion comprises software engineers. India produced 401,791 engineers in 2003-04, of which 35 per cent were computer engineers. The number increased to 464,743 in 2004-05, of which 31 per cent were computer engineers.

According to Mundie, the problem with the engineers can be attributed to policy issues. Universities in India, he said, did not get proper funding for research and were not directed towards software development. "The lack of trained staff is addressed by firms through internal arrangements for proper training," he said.

Besides, he said, India did not have enough software companies nor were enough companies developing India-specific applications.

"There are so few Indian software companies developing local software. That is a negative reinforcement, because there is no local software and no new applications," he said.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/oct...q=bp&file=.htm



So as we can see, Indians are bogus professionals with bekaar degrees!

[Guest]

yeah thats why more than 200 fortune 500 companys have their R&D centers in INDIA

[Sameer]

This is a question of cmoputer science degrees, our Pakistani friend does not realize that Microsoft is saying this because they are trying to open up 4 campuses around India and are having difficulty getting approval.

tsk tsk tsk such jealousy.

[Sameer]

This is what is rally going on my Pakistani friend, hopefully you will understand the complexities of business before posting next time. :)

http://www.wininsider.com/news/?2785

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates coaxed Indian engineers on Wednesday to use his firm's proprietary software, dismissing threats to his Windows system from rival Linux in the battle over network computing. The world's richest man, on the third day of a trip to India, delivered a sales pitch in the nation's technology capital Bangalore, home to more than 1,000 software companies. Gates, who said on Tuesday that his firm would invest $400 million in India over three years on education, partnerships and boosting its own software center, used his Bangalore visit to promote Microsoft's .NET (dot-net) network platforms and tools.

http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/new...ase.sfe?id=410
Washington, D.C., July 20, 2005 -- The University of California (UC) and four other U.S. universities will join with Indian institutions led by AMRITA University to enhance science and engineering education in India over a new satellite e-learning network. Funding for U.S. participation in the program will come from QUALCOMM Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Educational, research and corporate representatives were on hand today in Washington D.C. for the signing of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding, timed to coincide with the official visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the United States. [Signatories to the pact later met with the prime minister at Blair House on the final day of his official U.S. visit.

"We are delighted to forge this new partnership between Indian institutions and the UC system," said Gretchen Kalonji, Director of International Strategy Development for UC's Office of the President. ""By expanding opportunities for international academic collaborations in critical fields, this partnership will not only help keep the University of California competitive -- but it will help drive global innovation and economic prosperity."


Video clips of UC remarks at signing ceremony
(above at table, from left to right):
Jacobs School dean Frieder Seible Length: 1:07
UC global development director Gretchen Kalonji 2:01
Calit2 division director Ramesh Rao 2:45
CITRIS director Shankar Sastry 2:42
Under the agreement, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, as well as Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Case Western Reserve University will encourage engineering faculty to spend a quarter or semester of their sabbatical at AMRITA University in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. AMRITA will extend use of its e-learning center, making it possible to be beamed over Edusat, a satellite launched by the Indian Space Research Organization to transmit educational programming to multiple educational institutions throughout India.

"It is in everyone's interest to raise the level of engineering education in the global economy," said Frieder Seible, Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering, who represented UCSD at the signing ceremony. "We expect some of the very best and brightest students participating in this program to come to the U.S. for post-graduate education, giving U.S. technology leaders such as Microsoft and QUALCOMM access to more world-class engineers. So programs like this offer benefits to India and the United States alike."


Video clips of remarks by Indian officials at ceremony (l-r):
Madhavan Nair, Indian Space Research Organization 6:27
V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, Science and Technology 6:03
Composed of four relatively new campuses, AMRITA -- established by the world renowned humanitarian organization Mata Amritanandamayi Math -- is developing world-classis developing undergraduate and graduate engineering courses to be delivered over Edusat, a satellite launched by the Indian Space Research Organization to transmit educational programming. Other Indian partners in the project include the Government of India, and the country's Department of Science and Technology.

"The U.S. universities in this agreement are first-tier engineering schools that can help offset the imbalance in the quality of professors in India's fastest growing colleges and universities," said Venkat Rangan, Vice Chancellor of AMRITA University, a former professor of computer science and engineering at UCSD's Jacobs School, and a graduate of both UC Berkeley and the Indian Institute of Technology. "With the help of American professors, these satellite courses will turn more students into top-level engineers, not just for India, but potentially for Ph.D. programs and businesses in the U.S. as well."


Former Jacobs School computer science
professor Venkat Rangan is now vice chancellor
of AMRITA University and the organizer of the
Indo-U.S. initiative Length: 2:21
Three U.S. research centers are partners to the agreement: UC's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS); the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2); and Carnegie Mellon's CyLab.

The program will expose U.S. faculty to potential research partnerships in India, and could also help reverse the recent decline in applications to U.S. engineering schools from India and other countries.

"The number of non-U.S. nationals applying to UCSD's graduate engineering program has dropped almost 33 percent from the peak in 2002," said Ramesh Rao, Calit2's division director at UCSD. "For centers like ours that rely heavily on partnerships with global companies, globalizing our own activities is critical to sustaining the engine of innovation that we are called upon to drive. This initiative is also a living experiment in understanding the effectiveness of distance learning in an environment that is full of promixe, but also rife with pedagogical challenges."


QUALCOMM's Jeff Jacobs (far right) talks with
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
According to the most recent figures from the American Society for Engineering Education, nearly 58 percent of students enrolled in Ph.D. engineering programs in the United States are not U.S. citizens.

Funding for travel and salary supplements for participating faculty will come from the private sector. QUALCOMM's corporate sponsorship ($120,000) will enable the participation of Calit2 and UCSD professors in the program.

"While headquartered in San Diego, QUALCOMM is a global company with an increasing presence in India's wireless market," said Jeff Jacobs, president of global development of QUALCOMM. "We believe it is important to support the education and training of world-class engineers who have the potential to take our business to the next level in innovation. Our company is built on the premise that wireless technology can change the way people live and work, and this partnership with U.S. and Indian institutions is empowering a new generation of future technology leaders."


Corporate sponsors signing the pact (l-r):
Jeff Jacobs, QUALCOMM Length: 1:48
Dipender Saluja, Cadence Design Systems 2:07
S. Somasegar, Microsoft 1:03
For its part, Microsoft India is partnering with AMRITA University to set up the International Centre of Excellence in e-learning, for education, research and helping drive e-learning content. In its commitment towards driving IT education in the country, Microsoft India will be instituting a Microsoft Chair for three years at AMRITA university with a grant of 5,000,000 Indian rupees (approximately U.S. $115,000).

"We have a long-term vision for the cause of IT education, wherein we are committed to empower students, educators and lifelong learners to achieve their fullest potential by providing greater access to the latest technologies and training," said S. Somasegar, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, on hand for the signing ceremony. "There is a pressing need today to accelerate the adoption of IT in the learning process and as a company, we are focused towards connecting the education community through solutions and powerful education initiatives such as this."


Non-UC university parties to the Indo-U.S. agreement:
Pradeep Khosla (left), Carnegie Mellon Length: 1:19
Hunter Rawlings III, Cornell University 2:31
Mark Hans, Case Western 1:23
Satish Tripathi (right), SUNY Buffalo 1:25
Visiting U.S. faculty will also be encouraged to explore research collaboration with participating institutions in India. The U.S. universities have also agreed in principle to make teaching materials available on a non-exclusive basis for a new digital content library being created by AMRITA for future students.

The program will focus initially on engineering and computer science, information and communication technologies, but courses will also include materials science, biotechnology and bioinformatics, nanotechnology, medical sciences, and others

[Sameer]

I understand some jealous neghbour's impulse to post such articles, unfortunately one must move beyound the grade 2 level and understand what is going on in india with half of all outsourced jobs in Silicon Valley moving there in spite of Indians only being good in theory. :)

We are afterall not the only country with low wages with a large pool of engineers. :)

[gilgamesh]

lamba khamba, huh? Welly, welly, welly, well! We have a paakeeza getting "Bangalored" and as a result the frustrated rants. Btw, google up the phrase "Bangalored" and you can relate it to yourself.

[Akshay]

I do not understand how can Microsoft make such a statement when the it hasn't itself produced anything of its own. The earlier Idea of the Windows was copied from Mac OS. Later, Microsoft copied the complete source code of IBM Operating System & Integrated it with Mac's window based Interface to create their own Windows OS. The Win.ini file in Win 3.1 OS had the commented lines stating it to be an IBM Propriety... lol!!!!!

Even WinXP has about 30% of the code for which Microsoft has no idea what it does. Only that when they remove that code the OS falls flat on face & refuses to even boot up. This is the level of ingenuity of Microsoft!!!!!!!!!!

It just what Sameer said that Microsoft is opening up four campuses across India & this statement conjures up the rest. Last year, I was in IIT Kanpur's annual Tech festival 'TechKriti' when I saw a guy who had translated complete Win98 in Hindi except for the scripting part. He was successfully able to create the Interface in Hindi & used the existing Windows APIs to call. Now, this is the level of ingenuity of Indian Guys.

[platinum786]

my god how sad you must be to take that article and make that conclusion.

Do you even study computing?

The article basicly says India is producing amny software negineers and informaton systems analysts.....but not enough computer scientists, computer science being a degree studying more on lower level things, like signal processing and co,mputer technology and ADN and NAND gates etc, the electronic side of things...

What microsoft want is more people from India who will program thier robots and less who will program thier computer games....more hardware programmers....basicly.

[Raj K Warrior]

Do you even study computing?

The article basicly says India is producing amny software negineers and informaton systems analysts.....but not enough computer scientists,

Err what??? In India most of the software engineers have a computer science background...For eg. ME
Currently we have more engineers coming out of computer science and a much lower number from the Information technology branch.

computer science being a degree studying more on lower level things, like signal processing and co,mputer technology and ADN and NAND gates etc, the electronic side of things...

Heard these things somewhere...oh yeah..might have heard abt them just before one of my 2nd year exams. Never heard of them since then.

[Akshay]

my god how sad you must be to take that article and make that conclusion..

Thats not my conclusion. If you know any basic knowledge of Microsoft's computing business then you wouldn't have questioned me.

Do you even study computing?

Yes I do. I am second year Engineering student from HBTI, Kanpur pursueing my degree in Computer Science & Engineering.

The article basicly says India is producing amny software negineers and informaton systems analysts.....but not enough computer scientists, computer science being a degree studying more on lower level things, like signal processing and co,mputer technology and ADN and NAND gates etc, the electronic side of things...

What microsoft want is more people from India who will program thier robots and less who will program thier computer games....more hardware programmers....basicly.

You are wrong here. All India Council for Techical Education (AICTE) decides upon the curriculum for Engineering disciplines. CSE(Comp Sc & Eng) curriculum has got to have atleast one paper on Software Engineering, Designing & Analysis of Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence(Artificial Neural Networks & Genetic Algorithm), Serial & Parallel Processing, Discrete Mathematics, Computational Theory, Control System Engineering & other loads of Electronics modules. The Curriculum is at par with any CSE curriculum taught in the other Engineering Universities across the world. In Engineering, the thrust is major on understanding the logistics of computing while less of Programming.

[oneman28]

You are wrong here. All India Council for Techical Education (AICTE) decides upon the curriculum for Engineering disciplines. CSE(Comp Sc & Eng) curriculum has got to have atleast one paper on Software Engineering, Designing & Analysis of Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence(Artificial Neural Networks & Genetic Algorithm), Serial & Parallel Processing, Discrete Mathematics, Computational Theory, Control System Engineering & other loads of Electronics modules. The Curriculum is at par with any CSE curriculum taught in the other Engineering Universities across the world. In Engineering, the thrust is major on understanding the logistics of computing while less of Programming.

is that paper published or just a report? For what degree? I know many indian students and employees here.

[Akshay]

is that paper published or just a report? For what degree? I know many indian students and employees here.

By Paper, I mean a module which would either have exams divided between a midterm, an endterm and Coursework or it can be a General paper presentation or simply a coursework. A module last for an entire semester & requires atleast 55-70 hours of Classroom lectures & just about same amount of Lab/Tutorial hours.

Computer Science & Engineering(CSE) Degree - Its a four year programme.

[Akshay]

Its time now to burst this bubble. For all you delusionist out here.. check this link below. India is the Next Knowledge SuperPower & no matter how much amount of bickering you guys do against India, the fact won't change.

You cared to dig up one single article!!! I've got the whole volume :)

http://www.newscientist.com/special/india

[platinum786]

firstly i was talking to the guy who posted the topic, who said indians have bekaar degrees.....

secondly, with regards to the issue at hand....the people from microsoft want more people with the skills abo41...etc has mentioned and less p[eople like Raj who remeber these things from uni only... (same here)...lol

u see microsoft want people who will tell them what the rest of xp is about....that 30%, they want people to decode and explain that, but they want them cheap, therefore Indian.

It's true India produces a lot of graduates, most of them will program the same thing for you in 5 langauges....but they won't be engineers....

[oneman28]

Its time now to burst this bubble. For all you delusionist out here.. check this link below. India is the Next Knowledge SuperPower & no matter how much amount of bickering you guys do against India, the fact won't change.

You cared to dig up one single article!!! I've got the whole volume :)

http://www.newscientist.com/special/india

As I know India is doing good among the developing countries in recent years. It's too early to talk about knowledge superpower. superpower should be the top 2 or top 3 in the world, and has many breakthroughs in the basic research. Many countries are ahead of India so far.