With its TFT touch screen, the Mobilis is a perfect fit for onfield applications.

‘‘We at Encore are actually quite different from most in the Indian IT industry. Most of the IT community is based on outsourcing. The difference with us is that right from day one, 16 years ago, we have been focusing only on developing software on our own rather than someone else’s,’’ says Deshpande.

Bengaluru is not Silicon Valley (not yet, at least). But it certainly sounds like it.

Deshpande is part of a rapidly growing group of Bengaluru high-tech businessmen who are reshaping India’s reputation as a source of low-cost grunt-work into a nexus of discovery and talent. Just as the Y2K crisis announced to the world the quality and affordability of Indian skilled labor, these pioneers are introducing strains of technology that show that India Inc. can do far more than undertake someone else’s contracts.

‘‘Every company that I have founded has been based on the same premise: If Indians can do something dramatically different outside India, so can they here in India. My four previous companies proved that, and I think we are proving that here at Encore as well,’’ he says.

Deshpande and Encore have turned the tables on the old system of outsource-to-India, and operate on a model, which will — if the success at Encore is any measure of the future — become more common. They are actually outsourcing their Indian ODM (original design manufacturer) work to Singapore, Malaysia and China.

With the emergence of every nascent Bengaluru startup, Deshpande's mantra rings more true. The reverse diaspora of overseas Indians escalates day by day, and Bengaluru companies are peppered with returnees from New York, Berlin, London and San Francisco.

Many of the same minds that powered overseas companies like Texas Instruments and Microsoft have left the companies that they helped make famous to put those same skills to work for themselves in their homeland.

For manufacturers interested in partnering with top-quality design and engineering firms, these companies are worthy allies. For investors, these companies are ripe for the picking. A good look at what a company like Encore can offer will explain why.

Encore's Information Appliances

As a global ODM, Encore supplies many of the world's most respected OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) from the U.S., Germany, France and Japan with integral technology. Beyond supplying the best, Encore develops its own end-user products in software and hardware.

Most notable among these are Encore's Information Appliance family. Based on the award-winning Simputer Ð a basic but effective low cost mobile computing device that was designed to help bridge the Digital Divide Ð the so-called information appliances are as revolutionary as they are simple.

Encore Software's employees represent some of the most highly-skilled workers in the country.

Several permutations of these basic systems exist, from the wireless mobile Mobilis, to the SoftComp home system. All are based on the basic principles of affordability, flexibility and integration. Their low cost allows the possibility of a truly pervasive information society Ð one that extends to corners and areas left out of today's computing world.

In developing countries like Brazil and India, these systems can allow digital access to those who cannot afford or do not require full-power desktop computers Ð a significant boon for education, health care and e-governance.

In developed countries like the U.S. and Japan, these types of systems will create the possibility of a more robust information- age environment. Powering everything from pointof- sales computing to shopping carts, from inventory tracking to warfare, these types of systems have myriad potential.

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