I came across this rocking website called EasyBM (www.easybm.com), a FREE online service, which can help you in boosting your online productivity to new levels. I generally do not get excited about something so quickly. My exposure to new ideas and business plans make me immune to general ideas. But I got excited by the simplicity of the idea and how it can make life simpler for everyone.

Enough of social bookmarks, lets get personal!

This is a personal bookmarking website which gives you a 1-click access to your favorite websites, thus acting as your portal to Internet in the true sense. (If you don’t believe me, check out the definition of portal). When you note a site URL on your private bookmarks page, only you can to access that shortcut. Your favorite sites appear on a password protected page and a result, only you (or someone you allow access to) can see which sites you have bookmarked. So these bookmarks become your personal bookmarks!

Social bookmarking is a great way to find and recommend interesting sites. But let us face the fact - You don’t want to share all the information with everyone out there on the web. Let us consider some scenarios:

• Access your Internet banking account
• Research about a top-secret project which you cannot share with anyone
• A valuable list of resources which you only want to share with *yourself* which helps you to be more effective in your job that your competitor

I am sure you will not like to share these website links with everyone out there! But, you do access them everyday - every time. So what do you do? The answer is simple - Personal Bookmarking.

Don’t we have personal bookmarking in our browsers?

Now, you might think - Every web browser has personal bookmarking feature built in - then why do I need a service like EasyBM. Let me tell you - you still do need them for these simple reasons:

• Your personal bookmarks are not available to you when you are not accessing Internet from your regular PC
• You may lose those bookmarks when your PC catches virus
• You cannot open "first bunch of sites" with 1-click. With EasyBM, you can!
• You cannot make an organization-wide internal bookmarking system to collect knowledge at a central place using your browser bookmarks

And above all, you still need to click on "Favorites" and scroll down to the right site and click on that when you use a browser bookmark. So it is good for things that you do not need every-now-and-then! But EasyBM (once set as your homepage) opens with those selected bookmarks every time you open a new browser and is simply a click away!

I wish easyBM all the best and I am sure this nice little idea can make positive change to the way people use Internet.

P.S.: BTW, this is not a paid review. I don’t do them. I only write about something when I really like it.

There is a big debate over India becoming an IT super-power. Every few days I will meet an over-excited guy who is impressed with the growth of Indian IT companies an think that they will take over the world soon!

Let us do an acid test to determine if this is true!

Let us consider a hypothetical scenario that India & the USA are no more allies in economic growth. Let us further consider that both countries have imposed trade restrictions and sanctions on the each other!

Now, the USA does not have access to a big English-speaking pool of talent to develop their superior software at a lower cost.  That’s a big blow. Will the USA survive this? I think they can. There are other developing economies like Brazil, China, Taiwan, etc. which can fill in the gap (initially they may be not as good). So overall they will have a tough time.

Now, consider that India does not have access to products and technologies developed and patented by US based companies. What will happen? Life without Microsoft products, Oracle databases, Google, etc.

Think. Think harder.

Possibly we cannot think of such a scenario! It is beyond our imagination.

This means that India, as an economy is dependent on the technologies and products developed by US companies and not the other way around as many software outsourcing companies think (and as their CEOs will debate with me at length).

So, India works as an "employee" and/or "self employed entity" for US - the "businessman" and/or "investor" (if I have to go by the definition of Robert T. Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame). This means that Indian IT economy at this point is not "financially free" and is totally dependent on the "investor" who controls the game. It will be very difficult to change the scenario, unless, Indians stop day dreaming of the "IT super power status" and get out of the "luxury bed of benefits and perks" and start working for themselves.

Now we know - who needs whom!

Department of Information Technology, Government of West Bengal (www.itwb.org) is doing a remarkable work in supporting and nurturing IT industry in the state of West Bengal. Their investor-friendly approach and innovative action-oriented leadership has changed West Bengal over last five years. I am fortunate to be doing business in this state in such exciting times!

They have put up their vision as:

• To Rank among top-3 IT States of India by 2010
• Contribute 15% - 20% of the country’s total IT revenues
• Create leadership position in executing high value-added IT work - developed through intellectual leadership and supported by Government initiatives

Their solid track record might just enable them to pull up and meet these targets. However, I seriously doubt that this position can be achieved and / or sustainable in long term. There are two core issues, which if not checked immediately will result in serious decline in the position that has been created with the initial efforts.

1. The poor quality of education
2. Indifferent attitude towards homegrown small and medium sized IT companies

Poor quality of education

Knowledge industry needs top quality human resource that are well educated, thoroughly knowledgeable and well groomed. Unfortunately our education system is inadequate and we are not creating employable talent.

• IT education has become a low paid job and is mostly taken up by individuals who are unable to make it to the professional ranks in IT companies.
• The education system is still based on text-books and spoon-fed course materials. Reading outside the prescribed text-books is hardly encouraged and/or practiced. This has resulted in a huge pool of IT resource pool with no individuality and poor problem solving capabilities.
• Quality education has become privilege of an elite few who go to the top ranking institutions and comprise less than 1% of the total resource pool. It is unfortunate that most of these individuals decide to join companies outside India for better pay-packages draining away one-million-per-student from taxpayers money!
• IT education has been limited to "programming"! I have spoken to thousands of It graduates and they have no idea that there are career opportunities in fields like testing, publishing, project management, etc.
• Current education system revolves around imparting IQ and not EQ, which is most important for success
• The current education system is biased towards commercially successful companies and their technologies like Microsoft and Sun. Low cost and easy-to-implement open source frameworks are ignored and are positioned as "alien" technologies which "does not have any career opportunities" to the students.
• The general attitude, that has been built up among youngsters who are going for a job is to find a safe-secure job in a reputed stable company. They are not encouraged to take risk and help grow new leaders for the economy. It is very important to have a general "rough it out" attitude to make a place a hot destination for growing great companies. This is the reason some locations are very successful in creating great companies, while others lack far behind.

Indifferent attitude towards homegrown small and medium sized IT companies

I have personally felt that the state government has an indifferent attitude towards homegrown small and medium sized IT companies. It seems that their action plan clearly talks about getting external investment from successful IT companies worldwide. In short term this looks like a very good solution as it will get major investment in a short period of time and they will find their graph moving towards their projected figures. However in long term, it is very difficult to achieve sustainable and long term growth without tapping into the local entrepreneurial capabilities.

If you see the IT industry in Kolkata, you will hardly find a homegrown IT company who features among the top software exporters from West Bengal. In fact most of the home grown companies collectively do not employ even 25% IT workforce of Kolkata. We do not have any national hero or brand, which has made a mark on the national / global platform. When we go to global expositions like IndiaSoft and CeBIT, you do not see any company from West Bengal competing against the national players in the global marketplace.

Some basic reasons I can see are:

• There is no affordable workspace for small and medium sized IT companies except SDF Building and a couple other locations built and operated by government or a government agency like Webel. There is major discrepancy in allocation of office space and land to small and medium sized businesses.
• The law and order system is not up to the mark and in tune with possible cyber crimes. 90% of the police stations do not have any idea about cyber crime. If they land up investigating one, they will try to get rid of the same by harassing you to an extent that you will give up. Most of the police workforce is either not trained about white collar crime or they pretend not to know the subject. It is a known fact that crime rate is highest in small and medium sized enterprises, and most of them go unnoticed.
• We get to deal with government official everyday, who does not know their own work. They come from different departments and confuse you to such an extent that you see no other option, but to bribe them and satisfy them!
• Government is more interested in job creation than value creation. They are less interested in the quality and sustainability of jobs that are being created. Also, there is lesser emphasis on profitability of companies that exist. The economic eco-system works on value creation, which leads of job creation. This is not the other way around.  
• Small and medium sized IT companies are not communicated the benefits they are entitled to! This results in a scenario that all the benefits are enjoyed by a select few.
• The benefit claim process is very cumbersome and an IT business which needs a level of agility to perform optimally will not be able to claim the benefits they are entitled to, unless they put in considerable amount of effort behind the same or forge the paperwork!

Again, I personally believe that it is not the responsibility of educational institutions and government to push a business. However, for economic growth of a state which has been lying at the bottom of the economic chart for last thirty years, there needs to be initiative to creative a conductive environment.

Without most of these issues addressed, I do not see any long term sustainable growth of IT industry in West Bengal.

I wish I am wrong.

Abhishek