Many of us believe that, on the IT
scene, it is the IT giants who are at the centre stage,
whereas there are very few who really know that there is a
vast potential for Indian small scale IT companies and the
thousands of job-aspirant programmers/ engineers.
True, TCS'es, Infosys'es and Wipro's are busy catering to
the large U.S. business segment for software development, but
there lies a large, untapped segment viz., the U.S. and
European small online business market. This is a very large
market today, esp. in the U.S., as businesses built around
strong revenue models are now emerging from the rubbles of the
Dot.Com bust.
Though Microsoft platforms and other higher end tools are
preferred by medium-large companies in the U.S., small
businesses prefer PHP and mySQL to develop their web
applications in view of their low cost of operations/
ownership, and being from the open source stable.
The web applications for small online business has its own
unique characteristics. The size of each work is small, with
low budgets (yet very viable for the Indian SSI IT market),
and Project Management issues are more complex than the
conventional software market. Still, Indian IT SSIs would do
well to focus on these segments, as there would be relatively
less competition from the established IT Companies. And to the
cost-conscious US small business, Indian solutions would
anyway cost less than local solutions.
While there are many ASP and Java programmers in the Indian
market, there are not many trained programmers and solution
providers available to pursue PHP based development. So,
concerted efforts are required to develop manpower in PHP and
mySQL.
Hence the PHP Circle has been formed, as a free forum for
developing professional expertise in PHP, mySQL areas, in
India, particularly in Chennai, to start with.
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