Fears amid cheers

The Buffalo Times ^ | 3/16/2003 | Fred O. Williams

[constitutionweb]

Everyone in the room, from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello, was beaming at last week's announcement. The news was that Asia's largest computer consultant has become a deep-pocket partner of the University at Buffalo. Under an agreement signed Monday, Tata Consultancy Services of India will partner with local researchers and help transform their discoveries into money-making products. Products mean jobs, the strongly desired byproduct of Buffalo's $140 million Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics. But jobs where? Advocates say the Indian company's capital and business links will mean economic spin-off benefits in Western New York and abroad. But some in the tech community voiced concern that the state's $100 million-plus bioinformatics investment will wind up boosting the economy in Bombay instead of Buffalo. "A company like Tata . . . takes the work and does it in India," said David Straitiff, a board member of the Infotech Niagara trade group. "I thought the whole idea was to create commercialization locally." Using an "on-shore, off-shore" business model, Tata Consultancy Services splits its computer project work, such as software development, between the United States and India. North America accounts 60 percent of sales, but only 25 percent jobs, according to company figures. Such a company could "strip-mine" the area's trove of biomedical knowledge, said Stephen Kiernan, whose Algonquin Group employs 16 people in downtown Buffalo. "If you bring an 800-pound gorilla into your neighborhood and hope they'll play by the rules, I think you're being pretty naive," he said. Of Tata's 5,000 jobs in the U.S. and Canada, many are filled by Indian professionals with temporary work visas, sometimes sparking controversy. In Lake View, Fla., contract workers at a Siemens plant accused the company of using a visa program intended for foreign executives to replace them with programmers from India. The company denied it had misused the visa program, but U.S. Rep. John Mica told workers he would ask Immigration to investigate. At last week's announcement, Tata Consultancy Services chief executive Subramaniam Ramadorai pledged to be a corporate citizen of Buffalo, with a presence here that anchors a mutually beneficial relationship. "It is the nature of global infotech - the jobs will shift to where the talent pool is available," Ramadorai said, referring to UB and its scientists. The Indian company has opened a 10-person office in Buffalo's Liberty Building. The office's dual role in Buffalo will be to coordinate the research partnership with UB, and to scout for corporate technology projects, the bread-and-butter work that provides the bulk of its $880 million in annual revenue. University officials said preferences can be built into some research agreements to locate spin-off companies in Buffalo. More important, the presence of the scientists themselves will tie commercialization work to the area. "The scientist is at the heart of what goes on, in the first year or two," said Dr. Robert J. Genco, UB's vice provost in charge of commercialization. But in a global economy, it's impossible to chain the benefits of scientific knowledge to their birthplace, Genco said. As the region turns knowledge into products, it will see some of the economic benefits move to far-flung companies that have capital, development capability and a presense in established commercial markets. "They are very cognizant of our interest to keep technology in Buffalo, (but) . . . if they see it's better done somewhere else, they'll do it," Genco said. Joint-venture possibilities

Tata is only the first of several corporate research partnering deals that are in the works, officials said. After the signing of the agreement Monday, university and company representatives began talks to identify joint research projects. One of Tata's interests at UB wasn't biotechnology but character recognition, a science that can lead to security technology and new identification techniques. Tata is also looking at UB's digital imaging capabilities and its $13 million Dell supercomputer, which is being harnessed to determine protein structures, a step in the development of new drugs. The memorandum of understanding signed last week lays out a general framework of cooperation between UB and Tata. Once joint projects are identified, they will be governed by contracts that spell out the university's share of benefits, Genco said. The memorandum begins by outlining commercial opportunities for UB scientific skills. Genetic-based diagnostic tools are a $5 billion market, and biological products to counter biowarfare threats are to receive $11 billion in federal spending. To benefit from these opportunities, Tata - which has a biotech software development group in Hyderabad, India - can benefit from UB's growing research base, its clinical facilities for trials and testing, and its supercomputer resources. When it comes time to capitalize on the discoveries, Tata and UB can form joint-venture companies to develop products; commercialize the technology themselves, or license discoveries to others in order to collect royalties on sales, the agreement says. The benefits for Buffalo will be measured in more than jobs, Genco said. First, joint projects will boost income from federal research grants. "That already will benefit the community - there will be researchers here that wouldn't exist if it weren't for Tata," Genco said. Second, biotech start-up companies with joint local and corporate backing will mean jobs and growth here. And finally, when a technology is licensed for development outside the area, royalty income will support the university and help underwrite further research, he said. For example, Genco said it would make sense to form a start-up company in Buffalo to capitalize on regional expertise in light-activated drugs. Researchers at UB and Roswell Park Cancer Research Institute have developed a number of potential anti-cancer drugs and treatments that limit harm to healthy tissue. However, "If it's a single drug, it doesn't make sense to have a whole company . . . it makes sense to license it," Genco said. Tata's broad reach

Tata's agreement with Buffalo is one of 13 university alliances, five of them in the United States. At the University of California-Riverside, The company gave $1.3 million for an advanced digital media laboratory. It later launched a start-up company with local researchers to commercialize the jointly-developed Internet technology. In Pittsburgh, a partnership with Tata has had little impact, officials at Carnegie Mellon University said. The company had little involvement in joint research projects, and is not a major license partner for university research, according to Marty Vandervelde, a project manager in the technology transfer office. While some in Buffalo's technology community voice concern about Tata, others applauded the show of interest in the area. Without corporate partners, UB lacks the risk capital and business skills to commercialize its lab research. "I don't think it was realistic to expect that all the (commercialization) benefits would land in Buffalo," said Robert Richardson, chairman of Infotech Niagara and a vice president at M&T Bank. The technology group may hold an event to discuss Tata's arrival, "because obviously there are pros and cons," he said.

[Grut]

The news was that Asia's largest computer consultant has become a deep-pocket partner of the University at Buffalo.

Sigh. And only yesterday, we were the economic colonizers of the world. Gather ye rosebuds (or kick ass and take names) while ye may.

[LurkedLongEnough]

offshore ping

[crazykatz]

Indians.... from the stinking hole that is India are like economic parasites. Wherever they may go.

[lelio]

"A company like Tata . . . takes the work and does it in India," said David Straitiff, a board member of the Infotech Niagara trade group. "I thought the whole idea was to create commercialization locally."
It is creating commercialization locally -- for jobs at the welfare center. Face it Hillary sold you out for curry laced dollars. Not that Bush wouldn't do the same in the name of multicultaralism.