Bangalore or Buffalo?????

Mr. Obama played a great marketing jingle for Bangalore!! Wow!! Should I say thanks???? Should the commerce minister and tourism minister send a big letter of thanks to Mr. Obama?
Well, let's see!!

Till 15 years back, Bangalore was this sleepy little town occupied by Defence people, Retired government employees and of course the business men. What a beautiful city with amazing parks, amazing weather and of course amazing people! I loved the people of Bangalore - very laid back and very helpful.

In my opinion, Bangalore never had the infrastructure to accommodate such exponential growth of business and population. Probably, it will never have! Still Bangalore alone had an export of USD 42 billion last year!!

Well, it all started small. It all started with just Y2K and testing work. US businesses came looking for a population who can speak good English and who had good IT skills. Wasn't Bangalore good then?

But, the Indian government, the businesses and of course the people never stopped with the meagre work they got. They worked so hard to grow. Today, major products are released out of Bangalore. Intel designs microprocessors in Bangalore. Google has one of its biggest research centers in Bangalore.

It's not that Bangalore is the ideal business location. IMHO, Bangalore would rate as the worst business location, if not for the people! It has its own limitations
- lack of infrastructure
- government (yes it is, the government can never be so unhelpful to business)
- Politicians
If Bangalore with so much of its limitations can grow, any other city in the world can!

Buffalo??? What an ideal location! It's just 375 miles from where the money is - New York!! It's around this place we have the best of technical schools. Of course, Buffalo would be a great place for another Silicon city in USA.

But, why should Buffalo be a competition to Bangalore? IT market is never going to shrink! Are we going to stop using computers? Are companies going to throw away their computers and do their business using paper and pen?

When the economy gets back up, IT market is going to expand. IT industry has to grow and it will! There will be opportunities for every city, every country and every region!!

If we take out the business away from Bangalore now due to the recession, what will the world do when they need more IT services, when they need more software engineers? Are we going to lose the intellect we have gained over the last 15 years?

Or, have we lost hope that Economy would come back up?

I hope good sense prevails. I hope American businesses ( and should I say American government?) do not make hasty decisions, thinking of short term gains.

Bangalore and Buffalo need not be competitors! They can both coexist!