Indian IT to beat US in quality

As Americans fret about cheap labour abroad, the real issue has become not one of lower price but quality and scale - India is on the move to outmaneuver its US competitors on a stunning array of fronts, says a new book.

"As more and more US firms turn to India, outsourcing has begun to shake the foundations of the American upper middle class. In a twist that highlights the new era, Americans are now even beginning to select India as the place for quality medical care, at a much lower price," says the book 'Rising Elephant' by Ashutosh Sheshabalaya.

Starting out as service providers for American customers about 15 years back, domestic Indian software firms paid great attention to the quality of their work.

By 1996, there were more software firms in India certified to ISO-9000 quality norms of the International Standard Organisation than there were in the US, says Sheshabalaya, a Europe-based technology consultant.

However, the best indicator of India's quality lead is the massive lead they obtained in acquiring capability maturity model certifications from the US Defence department backed Software engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, billed as the 'global standard' for defect-free software, he says.

Way back in 1999, Business Week had warned, "If US software companies don't get with it in terms of quality -- they could kiss big chunks of business good bye. India's competitive advantage will be quality - the virtual examination of software bugs that infest US made packaged software."