Hyderabad now rivals Chennai

In the last couple of months, whenever I think of traveling down south,
Hyderabad is the first name that comes to my mind. In fact, in the last one
month I have already made two visits to this charming city. And the third one is
scheduled for later this month. And I am pretty sure that this momentum will
continue for the next one year at least.

However, I have not developed any sudden interest in Hyderabad. Rather I was
closely monitoring the development of the city as a possible IT hub of South
displacing Chennai, which till quite recently enjoyed the numero uno position.

Without doubt, the clout that Chennai enjoyed in the South has slowly but
steadily disappeared. As the undisputed IT hub of South India, this city held
complete sway over the IT activities in the region. That scenario has changed
now with Hyderabad having developed as a worthy rival to Chennai.

Asim Raina Editor

The credit for making Hyderabad as a happening spot for IT has to go to
former AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. So successful was he in his
endeavor, that he was known as the CEO of Andhra Inc. In fact, one of the
leading financial daily presented him with the Best Indian CEO award.

Perhaps the biggest feather in Naidu's cap was that he was able to impress
Bill Gates enough to make sure that Microsoft established its Indian development
center in Hyderabad-its first outside of the US. Along with that, a host of
other biggies like IBM, Oracle etc also established a big presence in the state
by becoming an integral part of the IIIT which itself was another notable
achievement for Naidu.

Perhaps his biggest achievement was his ability to convince the top corporate
honchos of India to set up the Indian Business School in Hyderabad. In the
process, by behaving more as a CEO, Naidu scored over the claims of Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka and Maharashtra who were also in the race. In fact, not only did Naidu
give a whole lot of concessions and cut down the bureaucratic red tape, he
virtually rolled down the red carpet to welcome luminaries like Anil Ambani,
Rahul Bajaj, Deepak Parekh and Rajat Gupta.

All these efforts meant that the channel community also benefited and today
Chenoy Trade Center in the heart of Hyderabad is THE place to be in. The number
of channel partners operating out of here is the same as from Ritchie Street in
Chennai. In fact, the association here-TCCDA-is far bigger and active than the
one in Chennai-ITTA, which is nearly defunct.

So, I am pretty sure that in the coming months, Hyderabad's clout and
importance will continue to rise exponentially. And, this is the place that I
will be focusing on rather than Chennai.