Why India becomes a software giant, not China?

India and China share many similar things, like rich history, huge population, diversified people, different local dialects, and delicious food. Both of them also face many similar problems. In contrast to China, infrastructure is a primary weakness of the Indian software industry. For example, the power fails often in Delhi. Drinking water is contaminated in many locations.

In spite of those problems, India is quietly becoming an international software giant. Moreover, Indian software industry is substantially ahead of the China, in terms of not only revenues but also quality, skilled work force, project management capabilities and execution skills.

Why India becomes a software giant, not China? This question had appeared in my mind for a long time before I worked together with India colleagues together.

In 2004, our company decided China and India development team launched one brand-new product Sentinel Hardware Keys together. It is the first time we tried to work together to develop one product from China and India. From that time, India Colleague characteristic and work style gave me the deep impression. They always keep the gentle and clam mood even under the heavy pressure, and they always try to focus on work details, and keep the precise manner on everything. I believe those influenced our China Colleagues a lot within those years past.

Why India can have so many qualified engineers, why they can build up the high-quality software? From my above experiences, I think the primary reason is Buddhism influence. Almost India people believe in Buddhism, which tells people do not care about the current gain and lost, today’s cultivation and endurance are for the afterlife. This doctrine nicely fits the requirement contemporary advanced software engineering. It proposes the software engineering be like building mansion, which just needs workers, process and management, not like the prevailing theory in China that prefers the software hero, ignores the process and the team building.

In fact, there are diversified opinions about this question except this reason. Here I just want to explain my thought to arouse other people's ideas for discussion.