Witness the Academia - Industry divide!
The latest on the OpenXML ISP Standardisation debate is India’s choice to vote “NO” for the Open XML to become an ISO Standard by the BIS committee. the voting pattern was - 13 Against, 1 Abstain and 5 For. So who were the 5 voting for the OpenXML – Microsoft, NASSCOM, TCS, Wipro and Infosys... all of them are BIG IT giants (leaving out MS from this as it is expected to be pro OpenXML) employing thousands of people.
A lot of credit for India’s resurgence in the global landscape can be attributed to these IT industries.. Since their businesses come from a variety of technologies (including Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP etc.) these are truly vendor neutral organisations!
Now, in Sept 2007 BIS had raised 82 Comments for Open XML. On completion of BRM, all 82 comments from India were resolved by the committee. One would expect the committee to then vote “YES” for the standard.. So the question is then why would BIS still choose to vote “NO”?
Maybe the answer lies in understanding the psyche of the remaining participants. from the documents listed on the BIS website (thanks for the transparency BIS), the “rest” seemed to be obvious anti OpenXML lobby (e.g. FSF, IBM) and then the professors from institutes like IIT Delhi, IIT Mumbai.. now i don’t have any less respect for these institutions but from the voting patterns it is clear that these institutes seem to be totally out of sync with the industry stalwarts..
this "out of sync” behaviour only goes on to reflect the reality in Indian education system where large no. of graduates from engg. institutes are largely unemployable. i feel that these institutes should stay in sync with the industry.. only then can our country, industry and the students remain at the forefront of the world!
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http://dotnetjini.jigneshdesai.com/blogs/
yes IIT is out of sync with industry and what more out of sync with India (most of ur passouts can be found "innovating" in foreign universities)..