Top gun says Indian, Chinese engineers threaten high-tech
By Guy Griml
In an exclusive interview, head of SAP's Products and Technology Shai Agassi told TheMarker, "If we don't do something, India and China will surpass us."
SAP, an Israeli company, is the second largest software firm in the world.
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"We cannot wait," said Agassi. "If we wait, bad things will happen. Millions of new engineers in India and China threaten Israeli high-tech. Israel has to wake up. The Chinese and Indian wave could engulf us. We won't even feel it. One day, we just won't exist."
Agassi, 38, once named by Time Magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people, warned Israel is making a terrible mistake in failing to prepare itself for the high-tech awakening in the East.
"Israel produces 8,000 engineers each year. By comparison, China produces 1.5 million engineers annually. The venture capital industry supplies 20,000 salaries, but Israel puts out only 8,000 engineers. We are coming to a halt," said Agassi. "Israel should enable import of Indian and Chinese engineers to the local high-tech industry. After staying here for a few years, they will go back, and in five or 10 years, they will enable Israeli companies to break into India and China".
If Israel doesn't wake up, said Agassi, in a few years, it will be hit hard by an Indian and Chinese tsunami. "The first generation of high-tech was busy surviving" says Agassi. "The second generation of Israeli high-tech grew up on the military industry of the first. The third generation brought a few entrepreneurs: Gil Shwed, Shlomo Kremer and Amnon Landan, who all went in different directions." Israel, he said, needs to find the relative advantage in the forth generation of high-tech.
If the country's high-tech industry continues to run with small vectors, he said, it won't be able to differentiate itself from India and China.
"Israel needs a new vector to give us a relative advantage. To develop clusters of companies in specific fields," said Agassi.
"Israel has a huge advantage in its size. It is small, so that systematic changes can be made quickly. As a result, Israel is able, for instance, to announce that in a decade, it will stop buying oil, and that we want to create a society without petrochemicals that will focus on producing alternative energy technology. We can't not take the risk and not do anything."
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