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A Malaysian minnow out to outsmart two Indian giants

The undeniable reassuring view in Bolehland is that appearance of money overcomes professional competence, technical brilliance and technological superiority. So Malaysian minnows are far superior to Indian engineering and technological giants because its executives drive around in chauffer-driven BMWs, go about in three-piece suits, spout brilliant theses with applomb, and the latter can only travel in new versions of the old Morris Oxfords and go about building their concepts than talk about them. So, it is not surprising that a start-up Malaysian IT company called Daya Information Management System is all set to challenge the Tamil Nadu government's decision to let a consortium of Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro build and sell the Chennai IT Park. Two Indian companies and one Malaysian company, DIMS, were shortlisted. There is a reason why DIMS was put on to the shortlist, but that need not concern us here. Nor should it concern us here that in size DIMS would be a flea compared to either the Reliance elephant or the Larsen & Toubro whale. Remember Microsoft and IBM?

The Malaysian works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is out to bat for DIMS, even urging the consortium to withdraw in favour of DIMS and suggesting that Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro, even if they joined hands for the project, would be no match for the likes of DIMS which has "strategic alliances" -- whatever that means -- with leading software companies from the United States. DIMS ebullient chief executive, Mr Dharan, roots incessantly for a "strategic linkage" -- whatever that means -- between our yet unbuilt Multimedia Super Corridor with Chennai's yet unbuilt IT Park. Now, all that Reliance and L&T could promise is to link the Chennai Park to Silicon Valley; only DIMS can link CITP to MSC. Besides, Reliance and L&T should know, if they do not already, that the cutting edge of worldwide computer technology is situated outside Kuala Lumpur.

Mr Dharan is understandably convinced that his IT hype -- given wide play in Bolehland newspapers -- is far superior to what Reliance and Larsen & Toubro can provide. DIMS, which can provide the best system on earth without the wherewithal to provide it, has challenged the Reliance-L&T team to a public debate in Chennai or Kuala Lumpur about their respective capabilities. Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro, separately, have more top flight international-class computer hardware- and soft-ware specialists than the whole of Malaysia and, perhaps, even Singapore put together; when conjoined, there is no doubt about that. But the advantage DIMS has over Reliance-L&T is that DIMS, without a track record, does not have to prove anything. Reliance-L&T, jointly and severally, have to prove everything they claim by pointing to work already done, cannot possibly win this war of words.

This challenge from this Malaysian minnow would, no doubt. have the chief executives of both Mr Dirubhai Ambani's Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro, in which Reliance has a sizeable stake, quaking in their boots. But they ought to accept this challenge. They should insist that the debate be in Chennai rather than in Kuala Lumpur for Indians must also get to know what India's technological future would be in the hands of companies like DIMS, a salutory lesson it should not miss a chance to inform Indians. After all, even if they lose the debate, they would at learn how not to make commercial mistakes that DIMS makes every time its chief executive opens his mouth.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my