Addressing the inaugural session of the seminar on `Technologies for Future' in connection with Bangalore IT.COM-2000, Mr Kulkarni said the growth in the IT sector has so far failed to provide any substantial help to the domestic industry in the country.

``Bridging the gap between the small community of IT industry working at Net-speed and the large community including the government working at a snail's pace is going to be one of the major problems in the coming days,'' Mr Kulkarni said.

"None of the major Indian IT companies are doing any work for the government or public sector companies," he said, adding that most of these companies are getting more than 95 per cent of their revenue through operations in the overseas market. "We should tap the global market as much as possible but we must also develop the domestic market for the stable growth of the industry", he added.

Mr Kulkarni conceded that poor and delayed payment were the prime reasons for Indian IT firms shying away from projects connected with government and public sector. However, he called for a healthy interaction between old economy and new economy for the sustainable development of the country.

There is no conflict or contradiction between the new economy and old economy in the country. "We need companies like Infosys and Wipro who could cater to the needs of the ever expanding global market but we should also make companies which cater to the requirements of the domestic industry", he said.

Stressing the need for massive investments in R&D, Mr Kulkarni said, "We must make India a technology-making country not a technology-consuming society".

Inaugurating the seminar, Hebest Weber from the University of Berlin said the technologies for future would be based more on equipment and solutions tailormade for individual needs. "More and more individualised solutions that will serve the client better and better is going to be the name of the game," he added. Supply of information targeting specific individual requirement, value of information, etc, are going to play crucial roles in the shaping these changes, he said.

Mr Weber also said that next generation applications were going to be interdisciplinary featuring the old discipline and IT discipline. "The result will be many joint ventures between the old economy and new economy companies", he said adding that this is going to be the next real development.