Indians are everywhere in the software world — from engineers to CEO’s — but they all share one thing in common: the products they’ve helped build are all for companies based outside of India and for the most part in the US. I had this very conversation with one of our developers in Chennai on my last trip to India. He’s also spent time abroad, in the UK, but had not noticed it until I pointed it out to him. My guess is that there’s just no domestic market for many of the products being developed abroad. Especially with regards to the Internet, with access at home out of reach for most people, it’s not hard to see why most entrepreneurs might end up in California instead of Bangalore.
Fortunately, that all appears to be changing. I was glad to learn that the recently announced Live Documents is made entirely by an Indian company based out of Bangalore (though it was founded by Sabeer Bahtia of Hotmail fame). I’d be curious how their product does in the Indian market, as opposed to the rest of the world, for which it seems to be primarily targeted.