Welcome to Vision 2001, which is clearly defining the hot areas for software development in India. This year's sizzling tech-spaces are: embedded systems, wireless applications, mobile commerce applications, communications software, and optical networking. They not only offer big market opportunities-if the products take off-but also the excitement of working on futuristic technologies.

National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) president Dewang Mehta says that in 2001-02 these technologies will represent at least 30-35 per cent of revenues of the Indian software industry which is likely to tot up Rs 60,000 crore ($13 billion).

In 2001-02, e-commerce solutions would fetch Rs 10,000 crore ($2.1 billion), gaming and animation would fetch $ 200 million while communication software would clock in about $1.2 billion, predicts Mr Mehta.

According to Banc of America Equity Partners Asia managing director Kayu F Mehta, m-commerce, wireless solutions and the growth in broadband would further drive spending on Internet initiatives as today's broadcast model gets replaced by more interactive experiences driving the embedded systems areas.

While historically the VC activity had been focused on either services or Internet start-ups, following the IT boom, in 2001, significant VC money is expected to chase opportunities in the products and technology space as Indian companies move up the value chain.

Ashish Gupta, director of engineering at Amazon.com and a co-founder of Skyblaze Ventures, LLC says the market opportunity could be divided into two segments - end-consumer focused and enterprise-focused.

``The end consumer is overwhelmed by the flow of technology and is way behind what entrepreneurs are building. Enterprises however are keen to adopt new technologies because of the potential returns from the new way of thinking, especially applications that connect enterprises. The result is the emergence of valuable domain-based businesses,'' Mr Gupta said.

Given the fact that there is enough room in the Indian IT industry for new businesses, trends indicate that building solutions over technologies that are agnostic to the applications will be the key. Being aware of international technologies is also a critical factor for Indian IT firms.

In agreement with the other industry spokespersons, Naresh Malhotra, managing director Global Internet Ventures India, clearly sees a bulk of opportunities in the wireless, embedded systems, network infrastructure and other related segments.

The particular opportunity in these segments according to Mr Malhotra was that OEMs globally were spending billions of dollars to scale and stay on top of emerging technology. Also the trend in global markets is outsourcing. ``Companies/OEMs are concentrating on their end product. The potential for Indian companies to slot themselves in such niche spaces to build specific solutions in segments like embedded systems, wireless solutions, etc, is tremendous,'' he said.

The market as a whole has been scaling up in a linear fashion until recently, according to industry experts. Currently the US software industry has been tracking a non-linear curve because of high wage costs while acquisitions and mergers have also played a significant role in ensuring this growth pattern.

However, with India now quickly leaping onto the products and specialised solutions bandwagon, the IT industry in India is shifting gear to get into the non-linear growth mode.

While better workflow engines, global benchmarking standards and greater focus on productivity come into play, technology and products will hold the industry's and consumers' fancy for some time to come.